Without coming down on the side of one or the other, one of the downsides of downtown layovers is weekends and holidays. Not everywhere is NYC or Chicago, and lots of places roll up the sidewalks Friday at 5pm. CLT is a good example. Spend a Saturday there and it’s so empty the tumbleweeds blow in the street.

That being said, mall or strip mall locations aren’t that great, either. Most suburban areas are clones of each other these days, so trying to seek any variety is fruitless

“Just Uber somewhere”. That almost became a reasonable argument, but ride sharing has really deteriorated as an option lately. Not sure if it’s a COVID thing, people figured out it was a bad deal or what, but it seems to have become a much less viable plan lately.