Day 34 - Crosswinds Cafe

Today's attendees included Shire, Brandon, Matthew, Sol, Bret, Reg and Andrew. Now some meals are mundane. Quiznos, for example. Other meals are leaps of faith. Say Morrisville Cafe. Others are just ridiculous. I don't know, maybe CiCi's. But, once in a while there is a meal that just stands out in so many ways. The Crosswinds Cafe was that kind of meal.

All credit goes to Schultz who downplayed it but said that it was a nice place to "watch some planes".

The adventure began with concern over parking. Of course, this is the airport, so we weren't sure where to park. The last thing we want to do is pay for parking just to go to lunch. It's not like this is NYC. After deliberations and frankly, none of us really reading the sign correctly, we found out that parking was free for the first 4 hours. Now, our lunches have, on occasion, exceeded 60 minutes, but we've never even come close to 4 hours. The trip from the lot to the restaurant crosses the world's smallest smoking area. It seemed to be about 2 feet by 1 1/2 feet. Not a problem as none of us smoke. Kids, smoking kills.

So we enter the General Aviation Terminal and it's basically a large room with windows facing out onto the smaller plane area of the tarmac. There's an open space (the picture to the right shows tables there, not the open space) with a stairway heading up the left hand side of the room. We chatted amiably with the security lady sitting at the desk and inquired where the cafe was. She informed us that it was upstairs. We asked her to have our plane ready for after lunch. Ha, ha. Never heard that one before. Well, she didn't actually say that, but you know she was thinking, what a-holes (or at least the tall, loud one with the faint New Jersey accent).

Once upstairs, we encountered a small counter. The lady behind the counter, whose name escapes me (although Alice sounds plausible) was incredibly kind. She not only answered our questions with informative recommendations, but also bantered with us (always a hit when Matt's in the audience). Alice, if that was her name, was the ultimate hostess and was certainly a large part of our enjoyable experience. She gave us the inside scoop as to who's been seen at the terminal (Barack, Hillary, Arnold Palmer, Kenny Rogers!!!) She also unnecessarily delivered our food since it's not a table service kind of place.

The scenery was great. You've got a beautiful view of the private plane area with Cessnas, rental planes and private jets waiting for the upper crust of society. We witnessed one family arrive on their plane (we assumed it was theirs), take out their luggage and golf clubs, and hop into a waiting rental car. Their was a father, mother and a younger man and woman. The discussion centered around whether or not the attractive blonde woman was the daughter, daughter-in-law or girlfriend. Was their any romance there or were the younger two brother and sister. Unfortunately, we never got an answer.

I, for one, will be bringing my kids here for a lunch (they'll go nuts) and hope to attend a private party here at some point in the future.

This place is highly recommended.