New Contract May Spice Up LAX Food : Travel: Airport panel is expected to approve transfer of some dining services to such operators as Wolfgang Puck and McDonald’s. Disney would help with design.
Thirty-four years of culinary hegemony is expected to end soon at Los Angeles International Airport, as officials plan to transfer restaurant operations from a single concessionaire to an eclectic mix of operators headlined by Wolfgang Puck, McDonald’s and the Disney Co.
Among the proposed innovations is the transformation of the airport’s landmark Theme Building into a “Space Age cafe,” of Disney design which would offer food created by some of the city’s finest restaurants.
If an evaluation panel’s recommendations are approved Tuesday by the Airport Commission, about 40% of the food service at the airport will be taken from long-time operator Host International Inc. and placed in the hands of seven restaurants or partnerships.
City officials are so sure that the commission will approve the proposal that they have already scheduled a news conference, before the vote, to introduce the partners in the food plan.
The gastronomic revolution for the airport’s 46 million annual passengers is supposed to be completed in early 1996, with some outlets opening sooner. Previous timelines for the project, however, have proved overly optimistic.
Mayor Richard Riordan’s appointees on the Airport Commission have pledged to make the nation’s fourth-busiest passenger airport more accommodating to passengers.
They also said they want to maximize profits and would not institute a price limit on food, as the airport staff had proposed. John Wayne Airport in Orange County and other airports have such price controls.
The Riordan team projects that, once all new leases for the airport’s restaurants and bars are final, the minimum annual rent should at least double, to $10 million annually.
An eight-month search focused on adding pizazz to airport fare that has been dominated by boxed sandwiches, vending machine pizzas and steamed hot dogs.
A panel of airport employees and commissioners sought proposals with a distinctly Southern California flair and those that reflected Los Angeles’ cultural diversity.
*
The most unusual proposal, though, is the L.A. Encounter Restaurant, which would extend the Theme Building’s spaceship design to its interior, complete with waiters in space garb, interactive displays, holograms and other high-tech entertainment.
Disney Imagineering would design the restaurant; the food operation would be in the hands of CA One Services, which has food operations at 37 other airports. The food service firm, in turn, would contract with some of the city’s best-known restaurants to provide their signature creations for the “L.A. Encounter” menu.
The Theme Building’s perennial problem in attracting visitors to its isolated location would be attacked by shuttling patrons to and from the restaurant in a space probe-style van, perhaps with a driver wearing a space alien costume.
“L.A. Encounter” would provide a “campy and fun” greeting for visitors and a destination even for locals who would not otherwise be at the airport, predicted lawyer Lisa Specht, who is helping to put the deal together.
“It’s phenomenal. It’s the kind of thing you look at and say ‘Wow!’ ” said Airport Commission President Ted Stein, who has guided the remaking of the food concessions.
Elsewhere in the airport, the Daily Grill chain would bring its menu of American fare to a soon-to-be-expanded mezzanine in the Tom Bradley International Terminal. The restaurant would seat 283.
The other half of the international mezzanine would be devoted to foreign foods--Mexican, Japanese and Chinese. Elsewhere in the terminal, the Chatsworth-based Rhino Chasers micro-brewery would expand into the bar business, offering obscure beer brands in surfing safari surroundings.
*
Puck would expand his Wolfgang Puck’s Express concept, now at a handful of locations, at Terminal 2. The restaurant would serve gourmet pizzas and salads in the mode of Spago, one of the celebrity chef’s signature restaurants.
The plan also calls for five McDonald’s outlets and for new coffee and Haagen Dazs ice cream shops. The striking success of a Starbuck’s coffee outlet in Terminal 5 has triggered plans for even more designer coffee businesses--possibly including coffee pushcarts in all terminals.
A general operator remains to be chosen for most of the remaining restaurant and bar space at the airport. Host International is a candidate to operate those 23 facilities.
What would be done with the projected new earnings at the airport remains in doubt. Riordan continues to hold on to his hope that airport revenue can be diverted to the city’s general fund, perhaps to help hire more police officers. But so far, federal law has prohibited transfer of airport revenue to activities outside of the airport.
