"Seattle Airport Officials Hope Northwest Flavor Helps Eateries Take Off"

Thursday, August 7, 2003

Seattle Airport Officials Hope Northwest Flavor Helps Eateries Take Off
The Seattle (WA) News Tribune


It's a dependable fact of life that memorable airport restaurant meals are
about as rare as date palms in Duluth. 

The corridors of the nation's airports are lined with the same repertoire of
chain restaurants that populate shopping mall food courts and highway strip
centers: Burger Kings, Taco Bells and their familiar ilk.

But Sea-Tac Airport, hoping to inject some genuine Northwest flavor into its
eateries, is embarking on a plan to bring diverse cuisines to its
concourses.

'We wanted to move away from the generic airport experience and bring
distinctive Northwest food to Sea-Tac," said Kottayam V. Natarajan Jr., the
airport's general manager of business development.

To that end, Port of Seattle commissioners last month approved a contract
with Seattle Restaurant Associates, a joint venture of national airport
concessionaire HMS Host and longtime Seattle Asian food purveyor Uwajimaya
Inc. Under that contract, a half-dozen recognizable Northwest-based
restaurants and bars will be setting up shop at Sea-Tac.

Airport patrons are already seeing on a small scale the fruits of the
airport's labor. A Pyramid Ale House opened in a temporary quarters last
month near one of the airport's security checkpoints.

The full impact of the changes won't begin to be evident until next June
when the airport opens its new A Concourse. More new restaurants will come
to Sea-Tac when the airport's new, expanded Central Terminal begins
operations in January 2005. Food vendors will open in remodeled quarters on
the C and D concourses by April 2005.

Among the new vendors will be Uwajimaya itself, which will offer Asian
foods. Chateau Ste. Michelle, the Woodinville winery, plans an airport
operation, as do Red Hook breweries and several restaurants created by famed
Seattle chef Kathy Casey.

Other local vendors will be selected under a procedure to encourage
disadvantaged businesses to get a foothold at the airport.

Among Casey's likely airport ventures is one that will feature what she
calls "take-on food," said Uwajimaya spokesman Alan Kurimura. Casey operates
a takeout food store, Dish D'Lish, at Pike Place Market.

Take-on food is designed to provide travelers with a tasty alternative to
starvation on today's long-distance, low-fare, no-food flights.

Not all of the new restaurants will be from the Northwest. The joint venture
has also recruited such well-known national food purveyors as Wolfgang Puck,
Krispy Kreme and The Grove to occupy some of the new spaces. Of course,
Starbucks, which meets the criteria both as a homegrown brand and a national
chain, will continue at the airport.

Some of the new establishments will have decors more familiar in resort
hotels than in airports. One establishment in the A Concourse, for instance,
plans a massive fireplace. Many of the food vendors in the new Central
Terminal will have a full view of the airfield itself through a four-story
wall of windows that wraps around a food courtlike common area.

Natarajan said the new vendors are required to sell their food at typical
"street prices," not inflated prices typical of venues such as stadiums and
airports where the customers are typically captives with little ability to
seek food outside. "Mystery shoppers" will monitor the prices and service
standards.

The new lease could be lucrative for the Port of Seattle. The port,
Sea-Tac's owner, projects annual income of $8 million to $10 million over
the 10 years of the lease.


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