"Nip in the Air" Fly-in Restaurant Reviews

Click on the links below to read Charlie's reviews of the "local" fly-in eateries that we have visited.
(These are just the opinions of the reviewers that have visited these establishments, and in no way are endorsements to visit, or not to visit said establishments, nor reflect the opinions of Campbell Airport or Cardinal Aircraft).

While Scouring the Tri-State area for the ultimate $100 hamburger I was amazed to find that there is an excellent on-field diner right in our back yard. Clow International is just a short hop south of Campbell International. You may not want to opt for the direct route when flying there as it places you through the 1900 foot Class Bravo corridor just west of Schaumburg's Rwy 29 threshold. You can wave at the 06C pilots as they turn left base into RWY 29. You could opt to fly to the Dupage VOR then south to Clow which keeps you well clear of Schaumburg in the comfortable 3000-3600 veil.

"Enough pilot talk, Asian Guy. What about the food" Oh yeh, the food. The Menu is posted on the Clow international web site. They have a 1lb Burger named the "B-1 Bomber". The menu is pretty extensive with both Breakfast and Lunch items. We were there for the breakfast and one of the folks in our party exclaimed, "These are the best hash browns I have ever ate". They were very tasty. Crunchy but not over done. They have breakfast specials that did not appear on the menu that most of our party opted for. The wait staff was friendly and fast. They provided us with plenty of Java. So much that this writer did have to visit the little boys room only to exit with everyone in the place gazing at me and smiling. I thought my fly was down or something. As I walked towards my table, with a nervous smile, the jokers at my table asked me to turn around and look at the restroom gender indicators and it was very apparent to me why the place was staring at me.

For more info: http://www.clowairport.com/

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RAC - John H Batten Airport (Racine, WI.)

The YardArm -

Friday Night Fish Fries are very popular fly-in destinations. I have been recently scanning the area for new fish fry places and came upon a web site that covers Wisconsin fish fries, go figure. The site mentioned, “some of the best fish fries in Wisconsin are located by the water”, go figure. Being so close to RAC, we don’t really consider it as a fly-in destination, but this Web site said that The Yardarm was one of Wisconsin’s best fish fries. The fact that they offer the fish fry every night of the week is also a bonus. I found a menu posted on line (see link below). When I saw that they had a Walleye fish fry I was sold. It wasn’t hard to convince the gang to fly up there one Wednesday night.

The RAC FBO has two really nice Courtesy Vans. All of the parts are even there. No need to preflight. When we asked how much longer gas would be available. Ted the line guy said, “We are open 365 24hrs a day”. Ted asked us where we were going and we said the YardArm. He said, good fish fry. The stars must have been lined up and the fish fry gods with us. This was a good omen.

The Yardarm was only 2.5 miles from the airport. I called for a reservation earlier in the day for our party of seven and when we arrived we were immediately seated. The restaurant is located close to Racine Harbor and has a very nautical look and feel. Most of us ordered the Walleye fish fry. Oh yeh, did I mention they have fried cheese curds? Cheese curds are a Wisconsin delicacy and you know the place is good if they offer both the white and yellow species. They did. Some folks ordered sandwiches as well. The Walleye fish fry was great. Some of the best I ever had. The perch was good as well. The sandwiches were also very good.

When we were sitting around we noticed the drink coasters. The Yardarm’s logo is of a caricature of a rusty ole fisherman. This rusty ole guy was staring back at us from the table which made me very uneasy. This guy looked vaguely familiar. Then it came to us. He looked like someone we have all seen around Campbell International (see scanned image). On the way home we dialed in 122.75 and the catch phrase of the night was, ”YARRRRR……YARRRRR”.

For more info: http://www.foodspot.com/yardarm/index.html

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You can call me right seat Charlie, then there was that first X-country when I was a private student, but when it comes to food I think people respect my opinion. Shannon’s has the best burger I have eaten at an airport restaurant, period. Again this place is right in our back yard. They are on our frequency and we hear them all the time. It is just barely a X-Country. The airport is just 52 nm from Campbell International. You fly straight up the lakeshore then keep going straight just West of Gary’s class delta airspace until you see the large 36/18 runway. Shannon’s is located on the Niner side of 27/9 in a two story brick building on the second floor. Not only is it a popular fly-in spot, but the locals flock there in droves, which is always a good sign. They have live entertainment almost every night. See link below for entertainment schedule.

Make sure you monitor the airport well before entering their airspace. The two runways do not intersect and sometimes the local pilots will use both runways as active. There is an AWOS there but it is up for grabs as far as the active goes. The first time I flew there the winds were favoring 36 but as I crossed 27/9 someone was flying left downwind for Niner right in my path as I was entering left downwind on 36. If I had stayed at pattern altitude, I would of scratched Left Seat Shelley’s plane. I would have had hell to pay and you would not be reading this review.

When you order any sandwich, get the Shannon Chips. These are home made potato chips that are great. They serve them up hot and crunchy with a special dipping sauce that is sour cream based and hard to describe, but yummy. We tried the fish fry one night but it is not up to Wisconsin standards, (see Yardarm review….YARRRR). This place is an Irish Pub with all sorts of drink temptations and tap beers. I don’t drink so I am always guaranteed the leg back home.

Janesville is a popular destination for an airport meal, but many pilots who need to build x-country time know that the distance to JVL from Campbell International is 49.2 nm just shy of x-county distance. Of course that doesn’t stop some of you from logging it as x-country time. You folks know who you are. If you are tired of waking up in a cold sweat worrying that “the Man” will catch your indiscretion, why not consider Monroe? It is just 20 miles west of JVL and is a true x-country at 69.3 nm from C81.

Monroe is your stereotypical Wisconsin town. It has rolling hills, a picturesque town square, it has bars on every corner, it is home of Huber Brewery and it has an annual event called the Cheese Days Festival (which is a whole other story). We heard that if you call Bonnie’s in the afternoon to set up a reservation, that someone from the restaurant would come pick you up at the airport. You don’t want to walk, as the airport is about 3 miles from the town square. Bonnie’s Fine Dining and Bullet’s are owned by a married couple. Their names are Bonnie and Bullet. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

The first time we went up there, we called Bullet and he said he would get in his car and pick us up. When we went over to the road to meet him we noticed that the gates to the airport were locked and there was an electronic gate with a key code pad outside of the gate. The gate opens automatically from inside the gate when you drive a car to the gate. I noticed what looked like a pressure pad in the asphalt in front of the gate. I convinced the gang to all jump in unison in hopes of tripping the gate. My friend Ray begrudgingly agreed to jump but told me that the gate was probably activated by the metal of the car activating an electromagnetic field embedded in the asphalt. Oh, did I tell you Ray is also a CFI-I. Sounds like something a CFI-I would say, right? Of course he was right, but… “I made you jump, Ray!!” When Bullet arrived he had to punch in the access code, which we guessed was the CTAF frequency. (12305).

Any hoo, I digress. The food…. “What about the food oh wise Nipponese food reviewer?” Bonnie’s Fine Dining is for all practical purposes a Supper Club. They have steaks, fish entrees and nightly specials but I highly suggest the Weiner schnitzel. It is very tender and comes with a potato flour spaetzle like side dish which, for the life of me, I can’t remember the name. It is a weird name. You will know it when the waitress asks you for your choice of sides. What ever it is called, it is good get it. Great service and a friendly staff make the meal very enjoyable. Bullet’s place is downstairs and is more casual. They have pizza and burgers along with other bar fair. We have to go downstairs and walk through Bullet’s to let Bullet know we are ready to get back to the airport. Every time we walk through we see the pizza and burgers and they look good. Bullet is a regular Monroe city ambassador. He will give you a quick tour of the town on the way back. He even stopped at a gas station for us so we could purchase Powerball lotto tickets on one trip.

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Fish Fry Alert!!! The first time we tried this place we arrived at Palmyra at about 6:00 pm. We should have known something was up when we approached the bar in this “lost in time - good place to hide from the Mob” town and saw a massive amount of cars and people. The front of the bar/restaurant has a sitting porch and it was full of people smiling at us, as someone in our party said, “there better not be a long wait”. I went on in. The bar was packed with additional people waiting for a seat. The hostess greeted us and asked how many in our party. I said six. She then proceeded to ask what each person would be eating. I said five fish fries. She then asked, “Do you want potato pancakes with those fish fries?” I had read that this place was famous for the potato pancakes so I said yes. My wife Shelley is allergic to fish, so I ordered one fried chicken dinner for her. The choices are the fish fry, fried chicken, fried shrimp or a grilled cheese sandwich. Apparently, this place is so busy that you pre-order so when you are seated your food is ready. Then I asked how long the wait was and she said 1hr and 30 minutes. Needless to say we left. I wanted to stay but what can you do.

The second time we went, we knew the protocol. Shelley and I left Campbell at 4:30pm and arrived at the Nite-Cap at 5:10 pm. As we parked the plane, one of the local pilots came up to look at our plane. We told Jerry that we were there for the fish fry at the Nite-Cap and he offered us a ride there. One of the things we love best about flying is meeting other pilots at remote airports. The flying community is such a nice group of folks and we have found that they are always willing to help you, share stories and make recommendations about local restaurants and attractions. The Nite-Cap is a short ½ mile walk from the airport but it was nice to get a ride. Did I mention that Palmyra has a really nice East/West 2800 x 200 foot grass strip? It is also has lights. We had no trouble getting in and out of there with an Archer, Cherokee Six and V-Tail Bonanza. “But the food…..what about the food, wise Asian fish fry guru?”

The fish fry is from 4:00 pm until 10:00 pm. They also do the fish fry on Wednesday nights. We put our name in and ordered up all of the dinners. The wait this time was 40 minutes. When we were seated there was a large plate of fried cod and potato pancakes on the table. Shelley’s fried chicken was also ready to go. The fish was pipin’ hot. There was plenty of tartar sauce on the table along with cold slaw and bread. The waitress greeted us with a smile and asked what we wanted to drink. The fish was excellent and deserving of a 1 ½ hr wait, but we were glad we didn’t have to wait that long. We immediately asked for more fish and by the time we finished the first batch the second plate arrived. The second batch was freshly made and steaming hot. Apparently to qualify for an official Wisconsin fish fry there must be potato pancakes. One unnamed person in our party that we will call Nurcie, ordered French Fries. Cindy….I mean Nurcie said she should of ordered the potato pancakes, but it wasn’t a problem because they kept bringing more and there was plenty for everyone. These potato pancakes were great and were fried crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. They were served with applesauce or you could put maple syrup on top. Shelley said the fried chicken was also very good. The fried chicken is not all you can eat but the order was ½ a chicken. I counted the number of seats in the small dining room and there were 32 seats total. No wonder the place has such a long wait but the advantage of this is that the fish is made in small batches and is always hot. In short, this was the best Wisconsin Fly-in fish fry I had ever tasted. Highly recommended.

The Zen philosopher Basha once said, “a flute without holes is not a flute and a donut with no hole is a Danish”. I take this to mean that anything in life that is good will require some effort. The pay off for the long wait at the Nite-Cap is well worth it. I know this is a stretch but I had to get a Caddy Shack reference in one of these reviews.

When you fly to Griffith from C81there is no ways of avoiding speaking with Gary, not that anyone should avoid speaking with Gary, those folks are a lot of fun. The airport is due south of Gary class D airspace so you need to go directly over the top of Gary before descending to land at Griffith. Griffith’s main runway is 26/8. This is a nice asphalt runway with great lights, but no taxiways.

Don’t let first impressions fool you. MiTerra is located at the end of a long hallway at the Griffith FBO, which in itself is unusual, but the yellow walls, modest furnishings and colorful piñatas will insight you to think, as one person in our party said, “Cheesy”.

As we pulled up to the FBO we were afraid that the place had closed down due to the lack of planes on the ramp and little to no activity in the FBO.

As we made our way down the hallway, there was the unmistakable smell of Mexican food. We opened the door leading to the restaurant and there were plenty of people seated. These folks must be locals that drove to the airport for dinner. This is a good sign for any fly-in restaurant. A nice waitress seated us promptly. She took our drink order and a few minutes later showed up with our drinks and a big bowl of warm fresh tortia chips and salsa. I asked if they had any hotter salsa. The waitress walked over to a small refrigerator with a glass door and took out two whole baskets full of condiments to use with our salsa and chips. There was sour cream, jalapenos peppers, a hotter green salsa, and a spicier red salsa. Before we knew it all of the chips were gone.

The owner, Jessie, made his way over to our table. He asked us if we were having a good time. We said that we were and we really enjoyed the fresh salsa and chips. He then put his hand under his chin and said, “I know what I am going to make for you”. He rubbed his chin a little and scurried off to the kitchen. A few minutes later he came back with an appetizer plate he called chilitos and taquitos, on the house. It was delicious. There were four deep-fried flour taquitos filled with spicy meat. The taquitos look like a fried dumpling. There were also little pieces of various peppers that were lightly breaded and deep-fried that you dip in a sour cream/mayo based spicy dip. These were the chilitos (small chili peppers). Needless to say they were very tasty. Jessie came back out to ask us what we thought. We thanked him and told him it was delicious. All I could think of was, “How did he figure out I was thee Nip in the Air fly-in reviewer?”

Since Jessie was already at our table I asked him if there was anyway I could get my chimichunga with a mix of ground beef and chorizo. Jessie said that he could do that but it was kind of a strange request. He went on to say that he as heard stranger requests as he rolled his eyes and gave us the “wink-wink say no more” deviate look. Did I tell you that Jessie is a real character? Jessie was nice enough to take a picture with us with his finest sombrero on (see picture).

Anyway, the food arrived and was great. Most of us ordered the suizo chimichunga wet. Suizo means with cheese sauce and wet is topped with salsa. I also had two soft shell tacos with the ground beef chorizo mix. The food is traditional Mexican food. The sauces are all home made and the recipes are the real deal. It is amazing to find a Mexican restaurant of this caliper at an airport. I highly recommend this place. Jessie suggested that I try the steak con papas next time. This is a traditional steak and potato plate done Mexican style. If Jessie is suggesting it, it must be good. So that is what I am getting next time we fly there.

So yes you may think of this place as “Cheesy” when you first walk in, but the food is great. Don’t let first impressions fool you. You will have a nice time and tell Jessie we sent you.

This is a two-for-one review. Porter County Airport is just a hop, skip and a jump from Campbell international. It is an easy flight down the lake shore south of Gary about 20 miles or so. The airport has a couple of, how should I say, vintage courtesy cars. We have been doing the Strongbow Inn thing for a few years and a couple of years ago they had this courtesy car we affectionately called “The Bluesmobile”. It was a classic 1979 Beltway Sniper type Impala. Unfortunately they recently retired the Bluesmobile for a more modern 1989’ish Crown Victoria. It runs great and beats the walk.

The Strongbow Inn is just a couple miles from the airport. If for some reason the courtesy car is not available, the Strongbow will send someone over to the airport to pick you up. Usually, it is someone from the kitchen. You will know this from the smell of turkeys emanating from the driver when he picks you up. The Strongbow is famous for their turkey. Back in the day, the Strongbow had a turkey farm located across the street where the WalMart is now. They slaughtered their turkey to insure that they were fresh. The FDA put a stop to that in the 1980’s closing all private slaughtering and processing plants. The Strongbow still uses fresh turkeys and turkey legs.

They have plenty of turkey dishes but are famous for the turkey legs and the turkey pot pies. I am usually not a fan of the turkey leg. At Thanksgiving I do not grab for the leg as a rule because those buggers are usually over cooked and dry. I don’t know what the Strongbow does, but they have the best turkey legs I have ever eaten. They give you two good sized turkey legs with gravy and all the fixing’s. They are moist and delicious. The meat falls off the bone. You probably will not believe me and go to the Strongbow and order the turkey dinner, which is great, and someone else in your party will believe this reviewer and order up the turkey legs. You will then ask for a bite because the other person will be singing the praises of the legs and thanking the Nip in the Air reviewer for suggesting this dish. You will ask to taste the turkey legs. You will order the turkey legs next time. I have seen this happen time and time again.

In my quest to find the ultimate 100 dollar hamburger I was surfing the net Googling hamburger reviews and found a number of people saying that they ate the best hamburgers at a place called Schoop’s Hamburgers. Schoop’s is a local Indiana based franchise started by Allen Schoop in 1948 in Hammond, Ind. They have 16 locations in Indiana and 5 in Illinios. The closest location near an airport is the Valparaiso location. You will need the courtesy car for this one. The address is 2816 Calumet Ave which is about 3 miles northwest of the Airport. The restaurant is located in a strip mall and the interior has a 50’s look with checkerboard tile floor, neon lights and 50’s memorabilia.

They start with fresh high grade ground beef. The burger starts as a big meat ball that is flattened as it is cooked on the griddle. The burger chef keeps flattening the patty until the edges are crispy but the middle is still moist and flavorful. I had a double cheese burger and it was great. Order the curly fries instead of the standard fries but only order one order for two people as they are very large. They also make great milkshakes. You risk a brain aneurysm from how hard you have to suck on the straw when the shake first arrives. I waited until it melted a little before indulging. Shelley ate most of her shake with a spoon.

The best fly in burger I have ever ate at a location that was not on the field. See my review on Shannon’s Landing – Lansing, IL for the best on field Burger.

Door County is a beautiful place to fly to especially in the fall when the trees start to change colors. You might want to make this an overnighter, but Shelley and I have flown out to Julie’s just for lunch and to do some shopping in Fish Creek. You fly into Ephraim-Fish Creek airport (3D2) and call Julie’s at 920-868-2999. They will send someone over to pick you up at the airport. They will even allow you to go into town and do some shopping then come back for your ride back to the airport. Julie’s husband Hynek is a pilot and is going to ATC School. They are very pilot friendly there.

The food at the Café is really good. If you arrive after 4:00 pm you can order off of the Dinner menu. Shelley had the Honey Glazed Pork chops that are served up with Door County Cherry sauce. Excellent!! I had the Friday fish fry and it was also very good. If you arrive before 4:00 pm and need to order lunch, I highly recommend the Steak Caesar Sandwich. This is a marinated charbroiled Tenderloin Steak sandwich served with your choice of Fries, Sweet Potato fries or Onion Peddles. The sweet potato fries are great.

Ephraim-Fish Creek airport has one asphalt runway 32-14 (2700x80) and a turf runway 1-19 (1980x80). Spotting the airport is a little tricky. There is a drive-in Movie Theater located just South of the strip. The screen is easy to see. If you are using Runway 32 when you take off, you will go directly over Peninsula State Park camping area’s observation tower. If you don’t climb to fast you can waive Hello to the nice folks on the top of the tower as you climb out. It really isn’t buzzing the tower since your climb rate may be a little slow because of the erratic atmospheric pressure due to magnetic make up of the terrain that affects the unique water currents around the surrounding area. That is my story and I am sticking to it.

We all know about flying to MSN for breakfast at the Jet Room. They do make a mean Eggs Benedict. The problem with the Jet Room is that it closes at 2:00 pm. What do you do if you want to fly for dinner? Did you know that Wisconsin Aviation has three very nice courtesy cars that you can take to any of the area restaurants? But why fly to Madison just to dine out at Olive Garden or Outback Steak house? You can drive to those restaurants anytime. If you are interested if flying to a great Wisconsin Bar and Grill, try Brothers 3.

I love doing research on good fly-in destinations. Hey, someone’s got to do it. In my endless searching, I found this web site called “Classic Wisconsin”. They have a Fish Fry section and recommended Brothers 3 Bar & Grill. The restaurant is located just 2 miles south of the MSN airport. (See link below).

Any restaurant that started life as a gas station immediately peaks my interest. This is a classic Mom and Pop run Bar and Grill with all the character you would expect. When you arrive you can see the canopy where the gas pumps used to be located. The building almost looks like an old time Speak Easy. You expect to see a little peep hole at the door with a hulk of a man asking for the secret password. Once you enter, you are transported back to the early 70’s complete with dark wood paneling, yellowish hung ceilings and typical Bar and Grill neon signs on the walls. Replace the neon signs with student solo T-shirts and you have Campbell’s FBO. There is a large bar in the middle of the main room. Behind the bar is an exposed kitchen area with two cooks scurrying around tight quarters.

When we arrived I told my flying buddies that this place looks like it should have good cheese curds. When we were seated we immediately ordered our drinks and an order of cheese curds. The drinks and cheese curds arrived shortly after we ordered. The curds were great! They were beer battered and cooked just right. The cheese was squeaky and just melted. The one order was plenty for the 5 of us to wet our appetites.

Friday is the Fish Specials night. They offer fried cod and catfish. You can also get grilled Mahi Mahi, walleye or grouper. Get the hash browns with cheese and onions. We had the Cod Fish fry and it arrived hot out of the fryer with 5 battered cod fillets. They brought over plenty of tarter sauce. My wife is allergic to fish so she was happy to see plenty of other menu items that are land based. The Prime Rib sandwich is also on special on Friday nights. She ordered this with fries. It was a pretty good size slice of prime rib between a toasted hoagie bun. No condiments lettuce or anything. It looked like it would be dry being just bread and meat but it tasted great. The prime rib was so moist and juicy that nothing else was needed. The fries were the home made, skin on, type just cut from a whole potato. Shelley said they were great.

Brothers 3 would be good any night of the week. You could fly out for any of the weekly specials. One review I read on Brothers said that they visited on a Saturday night for the Prime Rib special. The folks were a little uneasy about the décor but said it was the best prime rib dinner they ever ate. The burgers and steaks looked great as well. Don’t forget the cheese curds!!