Lunch on the Fly

Visit the restaurant at nearly any small airport and you’ll probably see someone from the “$100 Hamburger Club.”

These part-time pilots are a staple in Southern California, proof that when you’re a pilot the state just isn’t that big. They think nothing of flying 150 miles for a killer malt or a tasty buffalo burger.

Members of this exclusive group spend about $100 round trip for lunch--the cost of fuel, airplane maintenance and a hamburger with fries.

“When you’re not restricted by roads or traffic and you can go 110 mph as the crow flies without getting a ticket from the CHP, why wouldn’t you come to Camarillo for lunch?” said Jonathan Yormark, who arrived in Ventura County from Pasadena on a recent afternoon.

Yormark had buzzed into town in a shiny red helicopter with his attorney friend, Ray Seto from Torrance, at the stick.

Wearing a black turtleneck and thick aviator glasses rimmed in gold, Seto planned to return to his law office after lunch, where he’d be until late that night. “The free time I have I want to maximize,” he said. “This takes less time than golf.”

Although cruising the skies for a meal may sound like the height of decadence, for these amateur aviators it’s pure sport. Most pilots arrive in four-seater, single-prop airplanes they tinker with on Sunday afternoons. Don’t think jet-setters with lots of money; “club members” are more likely aging war vets in leather jackets.

Their flight paths are sometimes circuitous, because the point isn’t to arrive in a hurry but to swoop low into canyons or fly around fog. It’s about seeing interesting terrain--noting how many houses have sprung up in just a few months. And then grabbing a bite somewhere new.

“We were going to go to Catalina for lunch, but there was a marine layer so we came here,” Seto said from his patio seat at the Way-Point Cafe in Camarillo. At Catalina’s Airport in the Sky, you can get a real buffalo burger, because so many of the large animals roam the island’s hilly terrain.

Sometimes, pilots seek out an airport with an unassuming restaurant; other times it’s just a landing strip within walking distance of a restaurant on the beach. Every airport has an energy, a mystique that draws different types of pilots.

A week after Seto’s Camarillo visit, he buzzed up the coast to Santa Barbara for a meal at the Elephant Bar restaurant.

There was so much wind in the Conejo Valley, Seto said he considered abandoning the trip and heading home. But as he went farther north, following the path of the Ventura Freeway over the ocean, the wind eased.

Seto stayed mainly over the ocean, because he didn’t want to disturb residents with the noise. “I know I always have someplace to land when I can see the beach,” he said.

Peering out the panoramic windows, Seto noted golf courses, the spot where dolphins sometimes play and the traffic he wasn’t stuck in. “I really appreciate this when it’s rush hour,” he said. “We’re zipping right past all these cars.”

Seto, 49, has a business degree from USC and a law degree from Loyola Law School. He said most of his lunches revolve around business deals.

“This kind of thing is a relationship builder,” he said, noting that he’s likely to visit a nice restaurant like the Elephant Bar with business associates, and a more modest eatery like the Way-Point Cafe in Camarillo with his buddies.

“The older pilots like the dive restaurants, but when I fly with clients, they appreciate something like this,” he said, gesturing to the jungle- and safari-themed decor.

Seto carries a red cell phone, which matches his helicopter, his cherry red vest and the crimson Chinese emblem on his black hat.

Seto acknowledges it’s expensive to own a helicopter--it costs about $400 an hour to operate, four times the cost of a plane--but he said a rental arrangement he has with a Los Angeles tourism company makes it affordable. When Seto’s not using the copter, the company rents it for tourist flights.

“This is within reach of the average person, they just have to figure out how to do it,” said Seto, who paid $330,000 for his R44 Clipper last year.

Some pilots focus on the lunch itself and know the various menus backward and forward. In Van Nuys, it’s the mud pie. In Camarillo, it’s tri-tip on Wednesday. Torrance is so lacking in adequate dining, it’s best known for its vending machines.

But for many others, the food is just an excuse to take their plane up.

“The main thing isn’t the lunch,” said Scott Smith, Ventura County’s director of airports. “If you like to fly you want to see a different runway and different airports. We could tootle around the Oxnard Plain, but why not go somewhere new?”

For 82-year-old Bob Steele, his destination depends on how much time and money he wants to spend. He flies with a group of friends from Van Nuys Airport to a different restaurant every Sunday morning.

Arpad Bottlo, a Sherman Oaks resident and another member of the group, said he also flies for a meal every Wednesday, sometimes accompanied by as many as seven guys, each in their own plane, often in formation.

He said there used to be a 30-minute discussion every week about where the group would go that Sunday. Now they’ve refined the process and one person will choose the destinations for a whole month.

One of Bottlo’s favorites: Big Bear, because of the scrumptious duck at the airport’s Mandarin Gardens restaurant.

In his mind, this pastime is far from decadent. “We’re more or less retired,” he said. “None of us are swimming in money; this is our recreation.”