The regional food hall — a kaleidoscope of local, artisanal purveyors that has been well established for decades in cities on the East and West Coasts — has finally made it to Chicago. But what took so long?

“You don’t have food halls like this because Chicago does not have the same density as elsewhere — people don’t live close to where they work,” said Craig Golden, one of the developers behind the Revival Food Hall, which opened in late August in the former Commercial National Bank in the heart of the Loop.