PHOTO BY SEAN COLLIER

I am sitting inside a Guy Fieri’s restaurant. Which is inside a casino. Which is inside a mall.

Which is in Greensburg.

That last fact seems to be irrelevant, actually; when you’re at Guy Fieri’s American Kitchen + Bar, the third word is dominant. You’re not anywhere specific in America; you’re at a generalized idea of America, one where culinary styles do not so much fuse as they do mash together into an admittedly tangy amalgamation of salt, fat, acid and heat.

If there’s a specific locale, I believe it’s Flavortown.

This is not, however, a column designed to mock Fieri’s over-the-top brand of food and fun. (It’s been done.) Rather, I’m here to report on the wave of unexpected comfort I found in this nesting doll of commerce and gaming.

There are a hundred reasons to question the consumption-focused cultural rise of the mall, a thousand reasons to debate the net positives and negatives of legalized gambling and a million reasons to discuss the changes to the human diet fairly well-symbolized by my Motley Que Pulled-Pork Sandwich (honest assessment: messy, but not bad). I’m putting those big concepts aside, though, because what I discovered was an oasis of welcome and indulgence against the cold and traffic outside.

Outside, there’s slush and honking. In here, there are well-seasoned french fries.

Beyond Guy’s entryway, there is a familiar din of slot machines, sports broadcasts and bar calamity. It sounds the way all casinos sound, a studied cacophony designed to erase time in the mind of the prospective gambler — a white noise of potential winnings. Again, we can debate whether or not such halls are good for society, but they’re undoubtedly a part of it. And they’re inviting; casinos are perhaps the last great come-as-you-are businesses, as welcoming to the Vegas-dreaming bachelor in a three-piece suit as they are to the retiree in sweatpants.

Twenty-four hours a day, you can come here; as long as you’re even nominally gambling, you can stay. That can mean finding the rare penny-slot machine that actually lets you play for a penny (they do exist). You’re welcome. They’ll even throw in the coffee.

Back to the most remarkable aspect of this place, though — it is very much inside a mall. The Westmoreland Mall, to be precise, a still-thriving shopping center in the traditional fashion: Bath & Body Works, Old Navy, Auntie Anne’s. In addition to those staples, though, you’ll find something that would’ve once been verboten in most malls. Westmoreland Mall houses locally owned businesses, from nail salons to gift shops.

You have to squint, but you can almost see the grand ’70s dream of the shopping mall here, alive and well: an indoor facsimile of the town square, with businesses large and small welcoming customers in a space with food and entertainment (there’s an AMC movie theater here, too).

Is this Frankenstein’s monster of late-20th and early-21st century habits a landmark location, a remarkable place among Western Pennsylvania destinations? Maybe that’s taking it a bit too far. Yet I’m a fan. Where many sub- and ex-urban destinations have withered as society has grown to be more remote and home-focused, here’s one that still feels vibrant. Kids were waiting to meet Santa; teens were roaming in youth-focused stores; grown-ups were buying holiday gifts; and old folks were manning the slot machines.

It’s a cross-generational destination, located just outside Greensburg. Presumably within the borders of Flavortown.

If you or someone you know may have a problem with gambling, call 1-800-GAMBLER.