traditionally, flying out of town has often meant getting something to eat at the airport, which has generally come down to a choice between mcdonald's, au bon pain, or the asian place with the bourbon chicken. maybe the kolache factory, if you could find it. slim pickin's.

when the new terminal opens in october, the airport will still have a mcdonald's, three starbucks, two au bon pains, a qdoba, a tgifriday's, and so on. but it'll also have a number of locally owned restaurants: harry & izzy's, shapiros, king david dogs, 96th street steakburgers, a scaled-down version of cafe patachou, and more. (unfortunately, no yat's.)

i must admit that other than patachou and shapiro's, i've never eaten at many of these businesses. (these days, we tend to eat at a lot of chain restaurants because we're dieting and it's easier to get nutritional info.) but it's pretty exciting that they'll be opening up locations in the airport. i know that if i had to eat at the airport, i'd happily choose a locally owned business over eating at another mcdonald's or qdoba. and the addition of patachou promises to really improve the breakfast situation, where the choices at IND have been particularly meager. ¶