by Greg Beets
Airport food has long been the butt of many a bad joke, the kind you’d expect
to hear at a comedy club called Chuckle’s — and no wonder. Even the most
remedial traveler can tell you that airport concessions tend to hawk food of a
mediocre pedigree at prices that could make a Rockefeller go Greyhound. In the
past, airport concessionaires have been able to pull this off due to the
widespread use of socialist-flavored single-vendor contracts that create a
virtual monopoly over a captive consumer base of passengers. It’s enough to
make Mao join Junior Achievement. Which is too bad, because airports have the potential to be fun places to eat
and hang out, particularly during the fevered hustle of the holiday season. One
good thing to do is sit in an airport restaurant or at the bar and talk loudly
about how much Texas sucks and how glad you’ll be to get back to New York. This
is especially effective if you’re sitting by yourself. The airport can also be
a great place to bring dates. Since they are usually bustling with all sorts of
interesting people to make fun of, you won’t have to worry about what to say
after recounting all the poop jokes from the latest Jim Carrey vehicle. If you
don’t believe me, ask my dad. He used to take my mom out for cheap coffee at
the airport and she married him for it.
Though such romantic notions pale in the face of $1.50 soda pops, food at good
ol’ Mueller actually fares better than you might think. The majority of all
food, beverage, and merchandise sales at Austin’s airport are handled by
Host-Marriott, a subsidiary of the hotel chain that operates concessions in 66
airports around the globe. However, 30 percent of airport vending space falls
under the auspices of the city’s Disadvantaged Business Partners (DAP) program,
which encourages participation by woman- and minority-owned businesses such as
Delta Food Service, operator of the Capitol Bar & Grill and Texas
Restaurant.
According to Nancy Foster, general manager of Host-Marriott’s Mueller
operations, no less than 60 percent of all airport passengers buy something
from them. This percentage is ominously referred to as the “capture rate,” and
it is contributed to whenever a purchase of a slice of pizza, a vodka gimlet,
or even a copy of the latest Penthouse is made at the airport.
Aside from artificially created market dominance, one probable explanation for
Host-Marriott’s ability to coax a purchase out of more than half of all
passengers is the savory additions of Taco Bell and Starbucks Coffee to the
airport food menu. Host-Marriott operates each outlet according to the
commandments put forth by the mighty chains themselves, and the resulting
products are just as tasty as those you’d find at franchise locations out in
the real world. Even more appetizing is the fact that both places use street
pricing for just about everything but the soft drinks.
We can all be thankful that Taco Bell’s .69-.89-$1.09 mantra stands unbroken
at Mueller. You can even grab a margarita from the stand right next door to
complete your skyward fiesta. At the same time, Starbucks helps groggy morning
travellers face the suits in Dallas with razor-sharp ambition by pouring plenty
of piping hot, gourmet stimulation at Southwest Fun Fare-style prices. A small
coffee o’ the day sets you back $1.20, while the large retails for $1.35. The
airport Starbucks even manages to capture a sliver of the bourgeois, hipster
doofishness that has made Starbucks a household epithet among the more
indie-minded caffeine addicts.
Over in the cattle call of the Southwest gate area, you can irritate fellow
travellers by screaming, “Niners!” in the sports bar, or you can shut
yourself up with a $3.25 slice of pizza from Pizza Strada. This stadium-style
pizza tastes a bit like white elephant to me, especially when you could buy
three or four comparable frozen pizzas for the same price. For the folks whose
pockets are heavier with lint than change, you can always slum it and pick up a
$2.80 hot dog.
If you get fogged in, bumped off, or laid over for any significant period of
time, your growling panza may accept nothing less than a full-fledged,
sit-down meal. In such scenarios, your destination would be the Capitol Bar
& Grill and/or Texas Restaurant, located to the left of the main concourse
by the Conquest Airlines ticket counter. Capitol Bar & Grill serves varied
menu items cafeteria-style, and a small selection of deli sandwiches on rolls
with Guyere cheese and chow-chow sauce (which is a pretty darn fancy-pantsed
condiment to be serving at the airport, if you ask me).
The menu-serviced Texas Restaurant offers a slim-but-solid selection of
Southwestern favorites amid the true staple of any Austin eatery — a
collection of Amado Pe�a prints. The restaurant also delivers a grounded
bird’s-eye view of gate-side happenings. Though prices tend to soar toward
ear-popping territory, food quality is actually quite passable.
On a recent visit, my companion-in-gluttony Buzz Moran ordered chicken-fried
steak ($6.95), while I took the Evel Knievel route with the chili cheeseburger
($5.45). Both of us were surprised that the chicken-fried steak had indeed
originated as a cube steak rather than the chicken-fried burger many lesser
establishments try to pawn off as the authentic item. The mild, white gravy
begged for more viscosity, but at least it offered some manner of taste. At the
other end of the table, my chili cheeseburger really hit the spot for size and
a zippy fix of fast-food flavor. Both meals were served with an iceburg
lettuce-based salad and a hearty heap of ranch-cut fries with the skins on.
Though my $1.15 Coke was flatter than Lubbock, this would’ve been easy to
overlook had the service not fallen somewhere between indifferent and downright
hostile. When Buzz innocently ordered the chicken fried steak, our server
scowled at him like he was the Unabomber�. Perhaps our server
was having a bum day, or maybe it was the fact that we didn’t dress the part of
power-munching jet-setters. Either way, Texas Friendly wasn’t spoken here.
Despite such minor unpleasantries, I managed to stumble away with my negative
notions about airport food slightly bent, if not shattered completely. And with
the scheduled opening of the new Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in
1998, things can only get better.
According to City Aviation Director Charles Gates, the new airport will have
between 2,500 and 3,000 square feet dedicated to food service, compared to the
800-1,000 square feet currently available at Mueller. Most of Bergstrom’s
culinary attractions will be centralized at a mall-style food court called The
Marketplace. And owning up to the “Live Music Capital of the World” moniker,
this food court will have a live-music stage where local artists will have the
opportunity to sing such high-flying hits as “Jet Airliner,” “Sky Pilot,” and
of course, “Free Bird.”
Another good thing about food service at the new airport is that the city will
be awarding multiple food contracts to individual companies as opposed to one
contract to a master operator. This system was recommended by the city’s
airport consultants, and it should bring about improved food quality, lower
prices, and more choices. The aviation department held a meeting November 13 to
garner ideas for food service contracts at the new airport from prospective
vendors, and another meeting is planned for February, 1996.
Gates estimates that as many as 14 separate contracts could be awarded for
food, beverage, and merchandise at Bergstrom. He expects to have more
well-known national franchises involved in the food court, as well as vendors
whose offerings reflect the character of Austin. Hopefully, these plans will
taste as good as they sound.
In the meantime, travelers fighting their way through Mueller on Thanksgiving
Eve can at least take solace in the knowledge that while airport food certainly
isn’t the most pleasant thing to put in your mouth, it is probably
better than it’s ever been before. In a day where consumer choice is just about
the only meager luxury that hasn’t been systematically whittled away by a
regressive social climate, the opportunity to cram ourselves full of tasty,
affordable foodstuffs before flying halfway across the nation to visit
relatives we don’t like is something even I can be thankful for. n
Greg Beets is editor of Hey Hey Buffet!, Austin’s premier guide to
sneeze-guard cuisine.
This article appears in November 24 • 1995 and November 24 • 1995 (Cover).