Securing plane, not plain food

I fetched my daughter, Becca, from MSP Airport at 2 p.m. Saturday, February 17, hit the Mall of America for four hours of nonstop shopping—at which time my wallet was drained of all existing and future cash—and then drove her back to the airport.

No, Becca hadn’t worn out her welcome in the Twin Cities and her father wasn’t making her fly back to Cleveland so he could avoid the inevitable shopping trips the next couple of days would bring. Becca, along with 249 other people, was attending the grand opening of Ike’s Food & Cocktails behind Checkpoint 1 at the Lindbergh Terminal.

Hosting a party behind the security gates at an airport is no easy feat. We had to submit our names as they appeared on our driver’s licenses and our birth dates well in advance of the party. I inadvertently made publicist Pat Lindquist, who organized the event, do extra duty by not checking on how all three of our names were printed on our licenses. She had to e-mail me once and call me at home before she got all the info correctly. So rest assured, fellow air travelers, Homeland Security takes partying seriously.

I didn’t read the invitation carefully either, so we used our credit card to save $2 a day on parking and therefore ended up paying $8 instead of getting our parking ticket validated for free.

I also expected airport security to be a hassle, but once we checked in downstairs, paid our donation to benefit the Airport Foundation and received a clearance pass in lieu of a boarding pass, we were ushered through an empty checkpoint.

Editor Mike Mitchelson assumed he’d breeze through since he was a former supervisor and coworker with a man checking IDs at the security checkpoint. After being greeted warmly and catching up on how everyone was doing since they’d last worked together at the golf course, Mike started through the gate, only to be called back for his ID. In the post 9-11 world, even a former boss doesn’t get a pass.

The founders of Ike’s in downtown Minneapolis, Chip Isaacson and Gene Winstead, (who is also Mayor of Bloomington), are the licensors of the airport location. After HMS Host approached him, Isaacson said the process took about two years. Unlike other venues in the Host portfolio, Ike’s will be chef driven. Chef Carl Littlejohn will head up the airport operation to ensure the quality matches the downtown location. Isaacson says he’s committed to spending one day a week at the airport location for the next year.

A large carving station at the front of the restaurant will cater to both the traveler with too much time on their hands and the traveler with a plane to catch in a hurry. Imagine the envy in coach, when a passenger unwraps an aromatic roast beef sandwich at the exact moment the flight attendant hawks her overpriced Pringles potato chips and color-coded snack boxes.

Ike’s second location mimics the first fairly well, same dark wood, dim lighting and long bar. A room in the back is a tribute to the “Rat Pack,” with black-and-white photos of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and the other precursors to today’s Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohans. That’s where the Foodservice News crew hung out and consumed our fair share of the mini hamburgers (360 were served), roast beef (30 pounds was carved) and champagne (three cases of 3-ounce pours). We missed the 100 mashed-potato-and-gravy shooters and fried walleye, but made up with ample bites of fried shrimp and artichoke dip.

Ike’s next door neighbor, by the way, is the French Meadow Bakery & Cafe. Its “patio” bar, might give Ike’s a run for the drinkers. Both are a welcome addition for anyone who’s ever been stuck in an airport thanks to a delayed or missed flight—which these days means virtually everyone.


What a short, strange trip it’s been

Years ago when my children were small and I was working part time, my husband would take an occasional business trip, much to my resentment. Not one to suffer in silence, I would describe my day over the phone to him, embellishing all the horrible things his children were doing while he was sitting in the bar having a beer or eating room service or—his worst offense—talking to grown ups.
He didn’t view it as glamorous, of course. He’d recount tales about standing in long lines at the airport; sitting in cramped airplane seats; the stale, dry hotel air; the fact that it was engineers he was talking to over a beer—blah, blah, blah, there wasn’t a sympathetic bone in my body.

Now that I’m doing quite a bit of business travel myself, I owe my husband a huge apology.

There’s no way his business trips were ever as much fun as mine are now. Plus, taking care of our two dogs is much more stressful than the three kids were.

Take, for instance, my recent trip to Miami for the Franchise Expo South. When I arrived on the exhibit floor the day before the doors opened to the public, with the sales exec. from our sister publication, Franchise Times, we discovered the display for our booth hadn’t arrived. There was nothing we could do but exit the unair-conditioned expo hall and go out into the 80-degree Miami sunshine to eat lunch at an outdoor café and take in the colorful parade of South Beach locals and tourists.

That evening I accompanied a group celebrating Hot Dish President Dawn Lawin’s birthday (Hot Dish is a Minneapolis-based ad agency, that took the name because hot dishes are so Minnesotan, plus the women who work there are hot dishes).

At Barton G’s, Jen Onnen of Hot Dish handed us all an exotic martini with a brown monkey dangling from the rim. No one wanted their plastic monkey, so I collected three, and then someone discovered the monkeys were solid chocolate and I had to give them back. Barton G’s food was some of the best I’ve tasted and the presentation made it almost too good to eat—the lobster pop tarts, for instance, were served in a silver toaster.

Afterward, we all went to The Delano Hotel for a drink—the same outdoor venue a bikini-clad Lindsay Lohen was seen running through the week before.

It’s a good thing my husband and coworkers don’t read my column or they might not sympathize with me when I complain about how tired I am when I return from these arduous business trips.

But writing it down makes me realize that I am always on a pretty gratifying business trip.