I’ve never been one to get excited about eating at an airport before a flight but in recent years, the dining options have been greatly improving. 

With the opening of Shake Shack and other impressive food options at Delta’s Terminal 4 at JFK last May, my thoughts about airport dining began to change.

While flying to Florida over Thanksgiving, we had a connection in Atlanta. We didn’t have much time between flights. Kim, Lucas and I were happy to see Chic-fil-A, practically next door to our gate. We’re not big on fast food but we happen to think that Chic-fil-A puts out possibly the best chicken sandwich, not a bad option for an airport! On the way back home, we ate at Chic-fil-A again and noticed that The Varsity, an icon in Atlanta was pretty much attached to Chic-fil-A. I can’t vouch for the food from The Varsity but I did see people consistently ordering from them.

Now I’m not saying that Shake Shack and Chic-fil-A are super-healthy places to eat but they are places that I know I can get something that I will enjoy before flying.

I can think of a couple other airports with interesting dining options, however I haven’t tried them out for myself.

• Chicago O’Hare– Rick Bayless’ Tortas Frontera
• New York LaGuardia– A Taste of Pat LaFrieda (burgers from the famous butcher) and Taste of Taglaire, a pizzeria where the recipe was created by the family behind DiFara’s (consistently ranked one of the top pizzerias in the U.S.)

I’m willing to bet that food at airports all around the country is improving with more options from well-known chefs and restaurants.

While I don’t plan to research airport dining options, food blog Eater did this tough task for us at many airports.

Eater has come out with Airport Dining Guides for all of the cities that they cover. That’s over 30 airports to find out the scoop on where to eat!

Kim and I put the Eater guides to the test on a couple of recent trips.

• While traveling to Dallas we connected through Chicago’s Midway Airport. We were all pretty hungry and I decided to look over the Eater guide for some recommendations. I came across Manny’s Express, the airport off-shoot of the deli Manny’s, one of Chicago’s longest-running and most-revered deli’s. We ordered a pastrami sandwich which was very good and also had a couple of potato pancakes. The potato pancakes were even better and Lucas enjoyed them too. Good job Eater! If not for the Eater guide, I would’ve walked right by the deli, never giving it a second look.
• For our current trip to Norway we flew through Newark Airport. Kim and I haven’t been to Newark in about 5 years and had no clue what food options were available. While we weren’t eating at the airport (we spent our time in the United Club) I still gave the Eater guide a look. I immediately came across a very solid dining option, Smashburger. If we were in need of a meal, we would’ve definitely headed that way.

I’m not going to list all of the cites that Eater is covering but you can count on guides for just about every major airport in the country.

Click Here to see the list (with links) of all of the airports Eater has  Airport Dining Guides for. (Link ahs been updated to bring you to Eater’s May 2014 guides.)

Thanks Eater!