During Jim Crow south, airport restaurants had to allow people of color to eat in the restaurants because airports are on federal, not state, property. I remember going to the airport restaurant in Jackson, Mississippi as a child for special occasions. It was exciting seeing the planes while having a fine dining experience.
People who say "during jim crow south" have little to no experience doing their own research You arent WRONG in this case... its just a shared trait i noticed
Maybe in Jackson but in the 50s the Fort Worth Airport, DFW was long in the future, had segregated restrooms so I doubt that the restaurant was integrated.
I used to work at the airport at a coffee shop. Behind our coffee shop was a prep kitchen that made pre wrapped sandwiches for about 11 different “restaurants” the parent company owned. The ladies would just stick different stickers on each package, but it was all the same sandwiches
@@EwokNubNub Eh I'd say a ghost kitchen is different. These places at the airport still have a storefront where you buy the food at even if they are generic, whereas Ghost Kitchens represent restaurants that don't even exist at all. They just deliver to you and only exist as a name in a delivery app.
I do like my airport PDX. One more important rule they have is that the businesses can't upcharge. They have to have the same prices inside the airport as they do outside of it.
What I've also seen helps these Fake restaurants in being managed by the same company is they can share kitchen space. You can have 2-3 facades that all share a back hallway so all back of house if operated as if it's a single location. The menus may also be more similar than not, just different drinks and decor. It's smart but honestly so lifeless feeling. I truly hate seeing the HMS host plaque on the entrance to these places, knowing I'm going to get the same generic mediocre experience as the next place.
As opposed to the Franchises who do they exact same thing Yes you’re not going to find many Michelin star restaurants in the airport or a family owned restaurant. It’s an airport expect a purely consumerist experience
When working in Singapore, it became apparent that the very well developed Changi airport was a local destination especially for Sunday family outings. Nice work here.
with the exception of Einstein Bros. and Starbucks, every single food option at Austin Bergstrom is a local spot originally. always thought that was pretty neat!
I recently flew out of Austin and the place I grabbed breakfast was no better, or worse, than any other airport meal I’ve had. They may be local but the experience (and price) was “forgettable and corporate”
A single subject that's wrapped up in 7 minutes as opposed to stretched out and padded for another half hour. Don't mind long videos if there is enough content, but the right thing was done here.
There are airport-specific franchises as well. I forget the name of it but there's an Irish pub chain around the world that only exists in international airports.
HMS Host also operates “fake” restaurants along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, so I assume this business model also works on other toll highways for similar reasons.
Why would you ever think ANYTHING at an airport to be small and local? With the masses of daily people passing through there, small local businesses couldn’t hope to pay the upfront rent deposit (which is extremely high due to the expected profit).
@@ItBeThatWaySometimes 4 hour old sandwich with a pressed hamster feed bar or an overpriced bagel? I'll starve, thank you very much. We call it "fasting".
I have done commercial kitchen equipment repair for 40+ years .... working at Houston airports have given me great insights to restaurants located therein. Dont. Bring your own munchies, eat before you fly, plan your meals after you get to your destination. Dont eat at airport concessions. You'll be lots better off.....
Terminal E at Houston IAH I nicknamed "mouse central" after seeing the damage at "a major burger restaurant'" where mice had chewed wiring ...not thru it but down the entire length of the harness.... they went after the insulation (soy based plastic ? ) or another space where they only used the 2nd oven only during holiday travel times....after I opened it I discovered a nest with live mice babies. They actually asked me to remove them. Only after I told them I wasn't a licensed pest control, they dealt with removal &called me back to complete the repair.
It's like the bars and "night clubs" in hotel lobbies. Especially, ironically, in airport hotels. They always had double entendre names blending the transient nature of travel and extra marital affairs, but they were usually operated by either contract food service or Marriott Host or the other hotel chain's food service arm. Scandals, Risque, Whispers, etc. Those night clubs were not part of some chain. They did it with their cafes and restaurants and breakfast bars, too. Next thing you're going to tell me, the Mexican restaurant at epcot center was not founded by a hard working Mexican immigrant and the Chinese place in times square wasn't founded by a guy from beijing.
LOL.... A Marriott near me had a "Gambits" nightclub - lots of dudes who looked like car salesmen and cougarish women who prowled the dance floor. Fun times!
@@finalascent Hotel bars/lounges were a “rules free” zone back in the 70s/80s. My family used to take a couple epic car trips a year from our home in TX to see my grandparents in South FL, stopping for the night once (sometimes twice) along the way at roadside Holiday Inn locations. Every HI seemed to have a smoky lounge with a terrible band and businessmen on the prowl. Unlike free-standing bars, the motel lounges had no age requirements as you could just walk in from the lobby. My elementary-aged brother and I would always give a wary look to the other traveling children inhaling second-hand smoke while their parents pounded cocktails. Different times, for sure.
Some of them are "captive" chains. You will find (for Example) "Teddy's Night Club" in many IHC properties. (started out as the "Holiday Inn" club) In some smaller towns it was a pretty popular place back in the 80s and 90s.
Franchise like KFC or Mcdonald can't simply get profit from the airport since they can't simply just upselling big mac because everyone knows how much big mac prices are. While "generic restaurant" can charge you any price, no wonder why simple sandwich in "new york deli" could cost $10 on airport while it usually cost $3 on your local deli.
Regarding the “thanksgiving at the airport” comment: some of the best diners in the country are at small municipal airports in neighborhoods around the country. If you live near one or more small airports, check if they have an “airport cafe” and head over. They’re not behind any security or other barriers, they’re just regular diners, at an airport.
After getting my private pilots license, the next question is, what to do with it? We discovered the local diners at smaller airports and that became our thing. We made it a point to try them all and found some real gems!
Fascinating business and great reporting. I never thought twice about the “hms host” on all my expense report receipts. I am gonna need a follow up of your best and worst menu items from franchises, generic, and local airport eateries 🙏🏼 🍻🌮
What’s always been interesting to me is that even the chains show that logo much of the time. I’ve noticed the Starbucks receipts are like that, so I always assumed it was some staffing firm or an electronic system lol.
Yeah, a lot of airports will bid out the concessions program to one company, like HMS Host or OTG or Concessions Intl. The administrative work that goes with operating in the airport is a lot steeper than outside. Really helps grouping under one umbrella. The hiring and onboarding process of new employees alone is much more involved with needing fingerprints, appointments for airport credentialing (which can be 2-3 visits including a training session), TSA requires the company to be accountable for its employees airport IDs so they have to do and keep audits, track keys, etc., deliveries of products sometimes are only allowed during certain hours and only certain people can accept them. The logistical and HR functions alone make it much more cost effective to pool resources.
@@flyoma that makes total sense from a business perspective! That’s exactly what I always thought HMS was as a company just by guessing/assuming. I just didn’t know this whole other half! The more you know!
Oh hey! HMS Host! I used to work for them. They're not exclusive to just airports but they're also on turnpike rest stops as well!(That's where I was at lol) When I worked there we had a few generic businesses, a pizza joint , and a salad place, but now they don't have the generic ones anymore.
Loved watching this. I used to love EWR Terminal C because of all the terminals, they went from generic to chain restaurant heaven. One of my biggest gripes with current day EWR Terminal C is that 90% of the franchises have left, and we're back with the generic restaurants and iPad restaurants that I find less enjoyable and more expensive. Now I make a point to eat before I get to the airport. This is why I actually look forward to flying out of airports like ATL and DFW, haha.
My experience in the UK is chains are more common here. My local city airport (Manchester) is probably 70% chains (though some are smaller chains that are only in the North West). The rest are a couple of pubs and unique Restaurants.
Even the franchises are just fake. I worked at the airport, chilis is not chili's. Its even worse frozen food. The starbucks is just HMS host not real starbucks but they utilize the "standards".
Interesting. I've done a lot of flying in the last 25 years or so, into and out of a fair number of airports. I've noticed these "fake" restaurants in a number of them. But my "home" airport the last 5 years or so has been PDX. I recognized that it was different, and recognized some of the vendors as ones I knew from the area, but hadn't realized it was an intentional divergence from what other airports were doing. Go PDX! (also, if you happen to go through there, and like Vietnamese food, I recommend Bambuza. Not the best Vietnamese I've had, but among the best airport food I've had)
PDX was going through renovations last time I went through there. Even with all the construction, it's about as pleasant as it gets for airport user experience. Really excited to go through after the work is finished.
This is a great video. I’ve followed OTG as a frequent EWR flyer and I appreciate the depth of the background. And it’s great that you kept this quality informative video under seven minutes. I don’t know why everyone is making 30 minute long RU-vid videos these days…
@@M_SC It means the company that is contracted to run the restaurants. A food subcontractor may have their own proprietary brand names, or franchise national brands, or some of both.
Hmm I wonder how monopolistic this gets from airport to airport. Like if I spun the wheel of American airports and landed on one randomly, would it be almost entirely OTG operated, or HMS, or another? After TSA is a whole microeconomy.
@006ahenry those distributors make the food pre-made in serving sized packages. Simply take the dish out, reheat, serve. That's why applebees tastes meh everywhere.
@@006ahenry because they don’t actually operate like the conventional versions of the same chains. You see this on college campuses all the times: the prices are higher than nationally standardized menus, they have fewer options available, and their payment systems usually differ (you’ll also see this in your bank statements from them). You see the same thing in airports, even with certain national brands
@@pcblahAll those foodservice trucking companies also deliver real food if that’s what you need to order. Not everyone that orders from the big companies are ordering ready to eat foods.
@@ericclaptonsrobotpilot7276yes! For $30 they will deliver regular food that costs slightly more than the local wholesale club in the middle of lunch by someone (and it’s usually a new guy every week) who looks like they’ve never hauled boxes on a dolly before.
Chicago's Midway (MDW) is a similar example to Portland. A company called NorthAmerican Concessions owns a lot of the food space in the airport and has made a point to put a handful of local Chicago businesses in those stalls. The airport has some larger franchises but overall has a more local feel, and I enjoy flying out of it a lot more than I do O'Hare - and not just because I'm always in and out in a fraction of the time.
Most restaurants in airports are local lol. even in his example only 4 where owned by OTG. He is confusing Generic with local. Generic it's because generic sells. Speciality has limited space in a place that has that much international traffic.
This was very interesting. PIT has a similar philosophy to PDX, I am the proud former owner of a local establishment that has a successful location at the airport. And we had the same rule, we were not allowed to charge more at the airport location than we did at the main restaurant in town.
This is a GREAT overview to an unexpectedly obvious yet interesting question 😃 And yeah, kinda curious about purposefully spending Thanksgiving at the airport now 😅 Thanks for getting the facts (and some tasty-looking food along the way 😋)!
I think it's that these types of restaurants are clearly not from any established brand / identity but are giving a weird, corporate feeling about the place. Nobody would open their first restaurant at an airport, so it's weird when that's seemingly the case.
This was interesting! I used to work at an airport and was always disappointed they didn’t have local or popular chain restaurants. Now I know why-because of OTG and HMS. I didn't realize it was that expensive for a chain to open up in places like an airport. I can see why one of my bosses had to tell the airport to open up a Dunkin' Donuts near our break room!
The Austin Texas airport features local brands, but they're franchises owned and operated by Delaware North (or whomever does the restaurants there these days.) Also, it's not that it's expensive for the chain to open up in the airport, it's that it's expensive for the concession company to acquire the franchise to open a branded restaurant in the airport. Hence why you have un-branded restaurants sometimes.
You know I have never thought about this because I'm always distracted by the fact that I'm going somewhere but as soon as I read the title of this video I instantly understood what you meant. Because I have always briefly thought to myself who are what are these weird restaurants I've never heard of.
A couple of recent airport experiences was finding the a Chinese restaurant not accepting cash at all and then even a Wendy’s in ATL not accepting cash. The airport authorities who rent these locations should require and enforce that shops accept US cash.
At 6:15, another great example of an airport brimming with local eateries is MSP. Sure, they have some chains there, but they also pride themselves on supporting local businesses and bringing downtown eateries to the airport.
Delaware North is another major "hospitality" company. It's owned by Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs. They're not only in airports but sports venues too.
I’ve ranted about OTG experiences and CIBO stuff for years to my wife, they’re more common in non-airline terminals that don’t have to compete. Ie look at how horrible JFK terminal 1 is (all one-flight international airlines) vs JFK terminal 4 (all delta): terminal 4 has real-name chains and that’s enough for me to choose delta over others when choosing a flight!
JFK Terminal 1 is so bad in that you're fooled into thinking that there will also be a McDonald's and Sbarro post security but then you step into a virtual wasteland haha.
I spent the first six minutes of this video screaming “WHAT ABOUT PORTLAND?!?!?!” I literally jumped out of my seat when you brought it up at the end 😂
fun fact, these restaurants also get all of their food from a single vendor bc of security reasons. at msp it’s BAL (Bradford Airport Logistics) and you’ll see their trucks everywhere.
Another factor….owning a restaurant or store is a license to print money. Go back to the 90s in Atlanta. Best Fest was what it was called. Leadership of Atlanta got caught awarding stall licenses to people who had given them money. All possible since airport access for commercial is a tightly regulated area. You are eating exactly what the cronies of that states elected leadership in the past or today allows. Kinda like Vegas ever wonder how all those vendors can stay in business with the cost of rent etc but on the busiest day in Vegas it’s empty? They figured it out. They a percentage of sales as rent. This allows all the stores to stay open. The store since its on resort property covers water, heat, a/c you name it.
The Austin Airport is another example of an airport which has a number of local businesses like Amy's and Salt Lick Barbecue inside the terminals as well as the typical franchises.
We have similar in the UK at rail stations; certain brands you'll only ever see at a train station. These are all part of SSP (Select Service Partners) which i think used to be part of British Rail as their registered business address is the samw as one of Network Rail's London offices. SSP also franchise brands like Burger King and Starbucks; in fact, railway stations and motorway service areas - another hotspot for these "fake" brands as you put it - are pretty much the only place you'll find BK stores in the UK as most of ther "High Street" branches shut about 15 years ago.
The Salt Lake City airport also has the PDX model of food and beverage businesses. A lot of the restaurants in the airport are well known local restaurants.
The subject matter alone is so interesting and unique (I’d never given any thought to the non-franchise restaurants in airports), and then you presented the info in a well-structured and engaging narrative. And, as another commenter noted, it’s at a perfect bite-sized length. Great work!
"Drink" at T8, JFK is not only "fake" but I found the service to be rather... indifferent. I generally like airport dining, and even being at JFK. T4 is the best terminal, hands-down...
PDX is a fantastic airport in pretty much every category but food and beverage is probably the most unique. It has the McDonalds etc for convenience but also a ton of local favorites and the prices are all "street price." So there is no airport price gouging, even on alcohol. I used to fly out/into Portland weekly for work and didn't mind time spent at PDX at all. It is very "Portland" in the best way. As for the guy mentioned who put all the ipads in at JFK, he can rot. I think it was Newark that did that a few years back and it was so disorienting to see 3000 iPad screens wherever you looked, all quickly scrolling through ads in unison. Even at a 4-top table there would be an iPad at every seat, glaring in your face even after you had ordered. Last time I was at Newark they seemed to be gone. Hopefully never to return.
About the "'thanksgiving at the airport": Back then going to an airport had a completely different vibe and expectation. Flying was unaffordable to the majority, and those that could afford it had a vastly different experience. So it was new, exciting and luxurious, not the soul drenching thing of today.
As a NYer this is sooo accurate! I remember JFK and LGA not having so many "fake" places lol. I worked w OTG for like a month but yes, they require fingerprinting etc, and the ipad thing is so true!! Very informative video thank you!! 😊
I worked at the SLC international airport for years in management. It depends on city , state and what’s the main airline hub. People love local restaurants and if you’re stuck on a layover you want to “ experience the cities culture “ in a meal . 😎👍
Great video! I know that my local airport, SFO is full of real local restaurants that have second/third locations! It seems to be a policy by the airport for this
Places like McDonald's are usually (always?) franchises. Does anything stop OTG from running all the McDonald's and Starbucks and Subways or whatever in all airports?
PHL airport does have multiple Chickie’s And Pete’s sports bar and crab fries, which is directly operated by the chain… and OTG was among lobbyists to allow PA airport restaurants to begin serving alcohol at 5 AM daily while the rest of PA is allowed to begin serving alcohol at 7 AM Mon-Sat, 12 PM Sun
HMS host also operates most of the stores at SeaTac airport including the Starbucks. I work at sea tac as a ramp agent. Met my gf at her job at Starbucks. She wasn’t actually employed by Starbucks. It was HMS host
I work under OTG for 2 years in Newark Airport, only in United though but barely any fast food which is Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks and Wendys. Its always card so its frustrating for people who wanted to do old fashion way but oh well, it is how it is.
They arent "fake restaurants". They are one-off brands, or brands that only exist at the airport, that are all managed by the same business. It's no different to how Strike Bowling, B Lucky & Sons, and Holey Moley are entertainment venue brands of the same company and are always colocated. They arent fake entertainment venues. They are just one entertainment venue operating under multiple brands.
Another fun fact about pdx restaurants is that none of them upcharge their prices. You pay the same amount that you would at the same restaurant in town!
I fly out of Heathrow London a lot. I've noticed how soul less the bars are these days. 10 years ago there were places I actually enjoyed popping into. Part of my trip.
I attended a conference of simulation 10 years ago and one of the speakers showed a project to model the flow of passengers through Liverpool Airport. The airport operator set them a target range of time for passengers to spend airside - i.e. don't get them there too slowly or to quickly. The airport relied on them knowing they had to be there 1-2 hours to get them to spend on food.
Back in the day, it was an adventure to go to the airport and watch the planes. It appealed to kids and airports realized expanding it as a family outing. This was of course before higher security measures were put into place. But typically the main terminal entrance still allows general public prior to security checkpoints so people can still get a little of that experience.
Funny thing, were i live, a few 5 / 8 years ago, some " world wide " brands could only be found in the airports. One example being starbucks, the only one could only be found at the airport
The main reason why the Portland International Airport has a lot of local businesses must be because of the fact that the city likes to promote local businesses in general.
It probably helps if there aren't branded franchises beyond the gate. It's not like you can shop around, go to the next airport because they have a McBurgerFriedChicken
I worked for Au Bon Pain in Philadelphia International Airport in the mid-90's. Best job I ever had and made some great friends at Delta, Northwest and USair.🥰💕
Local and franchise brands should make sweetheart deals with airports vendor contractors and managment to ensure their brands are in airports. Consumers are more likely to try a brand that is a few steps away than one that is a car ride or transit trip away.
I have definitely seen some pretty interesting places at various airports I've been to. I mean I haven't gone to the airport very often in my life but yeah I usually order from one of these places. I remember at the Seattle airport there was this really nice store that you just buy chocolates in and wow the chocolate's there were amazing. I think it just had a generic name like Seattle chocolate company or something.
