russ_watters said:
Heh, as you know, I just flew out of Cinci and to the right of my gate was a Chinese food stand and a sit-down bar (yeah, I'm going to get Chinese and then get on a plane
). To the left was an ice cream shop and a sit-down bar. I had to go about 200 yards to get a day-old tuna sandwich from a coffee shop. Terrible.
Being from Ohio, I blame you.
Chinese food? I've never seen a Chinese food place there. You must have been in the elusive Terminal A (or it's a recent addition to Terminal B). I've never had a flight out of that Terminal. Terminal B handles the international flights and Delta's longer distance flights. I'm most often stuck out in Terminal C, the one where you go all the way down to where Terminal B is, then get a shuttle bus to where they cram in everyone on the smaller commuter planes. There's a sports bar for the smokers (no food, just drinks), a sit-down pub type place (I did have lunch there since I had plenty of time), a Starbucks, a place that sells cardboard wraps (well, they taste like cardboard to me), and a place that sells decent sandwiches that always has a ridiculously long line (you can tell it's the only decent food there, because all the pilots are eating in that one).
I think Terminal B has a KFC/Pizza Hut Express combo thing, an ice cream stand, and now I'm forgetting what else...must be another pub in there, and at least one other thing.
Anyway, I could do without the fast food and sit-down eateries. I'd prefer more variety of places selling food I can buy to take on the plane with me. More deli type places (or just expand the one deli so they can have more than two people working there to keep the line shorter).
I was recently in the Detroit airport. That's changed dramatically in just a few years. Now that had quite a variety of choices, though they were all closing before my flight left, and service in Detroit is slower than molasses (not good when running between connections).
Maybe that's what is bugging me about the food choices. If you get to any airport for a morning flight, IF there's a coffee shop open, you're lucky. And IF that coffee shop serves anything other than giant sugar-filled muffins as a breakfast option, you're REALLY lucky. I usually fly in the morning. The first flights in the morning and the last ones out at night seem to be outside the operating hours of even the coffee shops.
Okay, maybe a food court isn't necessary, just a 24 h coffee shop (or at least one that opens at 5 AM when the security gates open...do you think I manage to get coffee before I get to the airport when I have a 6 AM flight?) and one place with decent take-away food agreeable with hopping on a plane (i.e., a deli) and that can handle large numbers of customers in a short time.
Meh, I'm rambling. Anyway, most airports already have fast food. We don't need more of that.
