The important thing is that they face the street and they can be easily seen from the street. If the building is large enough that it "wraps around" the parking lot, especially to the extent where some tenants face away from the street, it is a shopping center and not a strip mall

 

If the building is fully enclosed and all or almost all the tenants face an enclosed interior walkway, then the building is a shopping mall.

    A shopping mall food court consists of shops stalls offering different cuisines. At a typical food court, meals are ordered at one of the shops then carried to a common dining area, which is normally a plaza contiguous with the counters of the multiple food vendors

      To many it is considered a recreational activity in which one visits a variety of stores in search of a suitable product to purchase. Window shopping is an activity that shoppers engage in by browsing though glass windows of a shop for entertainment.

      Sometimes they like what they see and might try on the item(s) or imagine purchasing these items without actually purchasing, possibly just to pass the time between other activities, or planning a purchase.

It looks like someone confused the strip mall with the shopping center in the section on strip malls. I have only seen the term "strip mall" applied to a long rectangular building where all the tenants face a single small parking lot in between the building and the street.