Recently, a J.D. Power survey of the 20 largest airports in the U.S. ranked LAX 19th and apparently a major reason was the food. It has never, in all my memory, been good.
Once upon a time, it was mainly these generic, you-never-heard-of-them-anywhere-else cafeterias operated by a company called Host. Host apparently still has the concession out there but a decade or two ago, attempting to upgrade and hold onto the contract, they ditched the no-name cafeterias and brought in the likes of McDonald's and Burger King. That they were a step up should give you some idea how lousy it used to be there.
Admittedly, you're not going to get gourmet cuisine in any airport but I've been in others and it's usually not this bad…though I do recall a stopover once in Cleveland. My mother and I were flying east to attend her mother's funeral and we had a three-hour layover in that city's airport. I went up to a nice lady at our departure gate and asked, "What's the best restaurant in the airport?"
She said, "Across from Gate D-10, there's a Burger King."
I said, "No, we've got a couple hours here. What's the best restaurant in the airport?"
She said, "Across from Gate D-10, there's a Burger King."
I said, "That's the best restaurant in the airport?"
She said, "That's the best restaurant in the city." True exchange. I swear.
Clevelanders: Don't write me like you did en masse last time I told this story somewhere. That was her opinion, not mine. (Also, from checking that airport's website, I see they no longer have a Burger King. I think there's a Pizza Hut there now, which is kinda like the transition from Shemp to Joe Besser.)
Anyway, a war seems to be going on over the future of food at LAX. Other outfits are trying to outbid Host by promising to bring in better eateries that will generate more revenue. Host is, in turn, lining up new food vendors in an attempt to keep their domain.
I have no idea how it's going to shake down except for my hunch that those of us with the time and need for a quick bite before our flight will still have the choice of a place that looks like Wendy's (or is) versus a place that looks like Sbarro's (or is). At a time when few airlines serve in-flight meals on most flights, I wonder how come so few food merchants at airports offer what seems to me like an obvious, needed service: Box lunches.
On my recent flight to Indianapolis, I took along a corned beef sandwich from Canter's Delicatessen, makers of (I think) the best ones in Los Angeles. I packed it and a couple of those unopenable envelopes of mustard and when the flight was about a third of the way there, I hauled out half a sandwich, somehow got the mustard open and applied it liberally…
And then I started to notice people smelling and staring.
The plane wasn't crowded and I had a row to myself. If I'd had folks on either side of me, it would have been worse. As it was, I had to contend with a gentleman seated across the aisle staring at me, moistening his lips and vicariously savoring every bite.
Every time I put the partially-eaten half-sandwich down, I thought he was about to lean over and ask, "You gonna finish that?" Or maybe he'd say, "I hope you brought enough for everyone." The people in the seats ahead of and behind me kept craning their necks to see what it was they were smelling. I guess I was lucky I didn't bring a pickle.
Then a flight attendant came by dispensing snacks. That made it worse because the passengers around me looked at their little bags of microscopic pretzels, then they looked or smelled my Canter's repast…and really felt disadvantaged.
The flight attendant asked me, "Where'd you get that?" I told her I found it in the seat-back ahead of me, wedged right between the SkyMall catalog and the ominous white bag. When that failed to elicit even a chuckle, I told her, "Canter's Delicatessen."
She said, "That's kind of thin." I told her, "Well, since I'm not, it's really a reduced Canter's corned beef sandwich. I had Gastric Bypass a few years ago so I can't eat an entire Canter's sandwich. I get one and four extra slices of bread. Then I rearrange and I wind up with three corned beef sandwiches, each with a manageable quantity of meat in it. This is half of one of those."
I let her peek at the other, untouched half in a little plastic box in my laptop case and in exchange, she gave me three bags of the tiny pretzels. As she continued down the aisle, she said something about how smart I was. Apparently, I was the first person to ever think of bringing a sandwich onto a Southwest Airlines flight.
After I finished Part One of said sandwich, I listened to a podcast on my iPhone and read some paperwork I'd brought onto the plane. About 90 minutes passed and I happened to notice the guy across the aisle glancing at me. Every minute or so, he'd peek over my way and at one point, our eyes met and he realized he had to explain what he was doing. He said, "I'm waiting for you to eat the other half sandwich so I can enjoy the experience from here."
No, I didn't give it to him. But I let him watch.