Terminal delights
The restaurant is packed with customers and breakfast is selling particularly well - despite the fact that it is mid-afternoon. Stranger still, most customers are selecting only one course and staying for just half-an-hour.
That, of course, is because the world of airport restaurants keeps different time to the high street. But the airport food scene is changing fast, with thousands of customers walking away from the traditional self-service foodcourts as high street restaurant names line up in the terminals.
UK airports have recently seen the arrival of, for instance, Est Est Est and Chez Gérard, while a new competitor, Belgian company Restair, has just beaten off stiff opposition to take over the multi-million-pound restaurant contracts at London City Airport.
It's a response to the changes in airport life. British people are travelling more frequently and airports are busier than ever before. Food is a priority for many travellers, including those who hate airline fare and want to eat before they board.
Bad reputation
Airport dining used to have an extremely bad reputation, according to Bart Vandendooren, general manager of airport catering for Restair which operates restaurants at airports in Le Touquet in France, Vienna, Brussels and now London City Airport.
"Seven years ago airport food and the outlets were horrible," he says. "Now things have changed."
Restair is keen to take some credit for that swing. Vandendooren claims that his company invented the seafood and Champagne bar, now a feature at so many airports worldwide. And Restair likes to attract locals to its airport outlets, just as any other restaurant in the area would.
It seems to have paid off in Le Touquet and Brussels airports where, Vandendooren says, "we get people coming down at the weekends". And it is part of the marketing plan for its Meridian Line brasserie at City Airport. It is already open, but from September Restair will begin promoting the restaurant to businesses in the vicinity, using flyers and billboards.
Restair consultant Michael Gottlieb expects an influx of business lunches as workers realise they needn't go further afield for a decent meal. He reckons dishes such as roast peppers and long shallot tart with smoked buffalo mozzarella (£7.25), and braised lamb shank with smashed Jersey potatoes and rosemary butter (£11.25), should be an incentive.
"It's realistic to expect people to come from Beckton and other businesses nearby," says Gottlieb.
He has helped steer Restair through its first approach to UK airports. It fought off 68 competitors, including Gardner Merchant and Compass, to win the five-year City Airport contract and is now considering opportunities at other airports.
Besides the Meridian Line, Restair operates two other restaurants at City Airport. There's Yeager's Café Bar Lounge, which attracts crowds for coffee and breakfast with offerings such as hot breakfast wraps (£3.65), hot porridge or cereals. Airside, there's Trattoria Seafood and Pasta Bar which, as its name suggests, serves Italian food such as ravioli Napolitana (£7.75) or tortellini con pesto (£7.75).
The design makes use of pale wood and clean lines, and there are views across the runway and dock. There's also a long bar that enables lone travellers to sit and chat with the waiting staff without feeling conspicuous.
Net turnover for the three restaurants is expected to be £2m in the first year, an undisclosed percentage of which will go to the airport. Gottlieb says that turnover from the restaurants has risen by 100% since Restair opened them in May.
"This is our first foothold in the UK. Many of the larger UK companies were disappointed, and they are watching carefully what we do," he says.
But although airport restaurants operate in similar conditions, each airport does things differently. Typically at City airport, which is aimed particularly at business travellers, custom is slowest on Saturdays. From Monday to Friday the three restaurants are open from 6am to 9pm, but at other airports opening hours are much longer.
City Centre Restaurants, which recently opened its first airport sites for Est Est Est at Gatwick and Heathrow, has at least one food outlet open 24 hours a day at Gatwick. City Centre has opened 23 restaurants and cafés at UK airports over the past eight-and-a-half years, says airport operations director Trish Corzine, so it has plenty of experience of coping with the pressures.
Gatwick is far more geared towards holidaymakers, although it is picking up more business travel since British Airways switched more of its flights there. Heathrow is business-oriented, but Stansted and Manchester are more seasonal, says Corzine.
Staff recruitment
Recruiting staff to the restaurants takes a lot of work. Transport to the airports is an issue for restaurant companies trying to woo staff. While Gatwick has regular trains into Victoria through the night, Stansted is more difficult, she adds.
Ian Wild, the opening manager of Chez Gérard at Heathrow, says there is an extra recruitment problem - staff must have an unbroken work record for the past two years to receive security clearance at the airport (see Caterer, 13 July, page 32).
Delivery drivers also have to clear security, and Gottlieb says deliveries can take up to two hours because of security clearance if there is a queue of lorries.
The high level of customers - 28,000 potential customers a day use Heathrow's Terminal 3 - has meant that higher numbers of staff are needed than in the high street. The 120-seat Chez Gérard has 8,000 customers a week at Heathrow, compared with about 1,500 in its outlets outside. During its opening hours of 6am to 10pm, it has a third more staff - 22 waiters, 15 chefs and six barmen. "We can be completely packed at 6.15am. Then the last flight leaves at night and the concourse is deserted," says Wild.
The designers extended the bar to allow more space than in a typical Chez Gérard outlet, while the menu now includes breakfast - the most popular airport meal - and lighter fare. It also does a three-course prix fixe at £17.50.
BAA, the owner of Heathrow, approached the French-style chain to open a restaurant at Terminal 3. BAA's customer research has shown that increasing numbers of travellers prefer a waiter service rather than self-service, and it is expanding the range of restaurant outlets, says the company's group catering manager Catherine Loveridge.
"People generally are eating out more and they want more from airport restaurants. After all, their holiday starts here," she says.
That holiday spirit is reflected in customers' attitudes to restaurant staff, who report higher than average tips.
Airports have also become pilot zones for new restaurant concepts. City Centre has introduced a bar-café called Metro at Stansted, and Restair has the Trattoria Pasta and Seafood Bar, both of which may be introduced on the high street.
But not everyone wants to eat in a restaurant, according to Keith Stewart, managing director of Granada Retail Catering (GRC). He estimates that foodcourts and popular fast-food brands still make up 90% of food sales in airports. GRC, a £130m business, has reacted to the upswing in real coffee sales with the introduction of its Franklin's of Boston brand and a new coffee shop called Viva.
Generally both customers and airports want what's already on the high street, he says. But these days airports are finding themselves busier than high streets with both customers and restaurants.
