Flight 126 Café: New restaurant
landing Wednesday at SP Airport

July 02, 2014
Santa Paula News

Not only will July 6 be the First Sunday of the Month Open House at the famed Santa Paula Airport, but also the first Sunday that the airport’s new restaurant will be open to the breakfast and lunch deprived public.

And Flight 126 Café, the first offspring of the original popular Café 126 located in Saticoy, is sure to be packed... the July 2 opening will be the first time a restaurant has served the hungry public at the airport for about 18 months.

Logsdon’s Restaurant at the Airport for the most part had remained Logsdon’s family operation until the Great Recession and family illnesses forced its closure in February 2013.

Shortly thereafter the Santa Paula Airport Association (SPAA), which owns the restaurant property, purchased the 8,000 square-foot building and set about to find a new restaurant tenant.

Café 126, already a favorite with Santa Paula aviators and residents, was a perfect fit and the owners, Ken and Evie Kramer decided they would call their second restaurant Flight 126 Café.

“We’re absolutely thrilled,” that the restaurant is opening Wednesday, said SPAA President Rowena Mason. “It’s been such a long road to get it back, but we have persevered!” 

Mason said the Kramers’ “Have done just a great job with the landscaping, with patriotic red, white and blue flowers. 

“It’s so nice outside, such a nice addition to the airport,” as well as the improvements to the interior coffee shop space - “Very cute!” - the café will be occupying.

And, said Mason, something new has been added: “They’ve made the café connect to the airport with the patio,” on the west side of the building, where visitors will be able to enjoy the ambiance of what has been called The Antique Airplane Capital of the World.

For the time being Flight 126 Café is just occupying the interior coffee shop area along with the patio service.

Restaurant Manager Lisa Anderson said she’s been “running between  the two restaurants getting things ready,” for Wednesday’s opening.

The coffee shop and patio will seat about 90 and Anderson said staff, a combination of local favorites that worked at Logsdon’s and Café 126, had “A mock restaurant day... we had staff act as customers that were waited on and than switched roles so we could run through everything. We worked out some of our quirks and we’re good to go! It’s going to be fun... I’m excited!”

As are those eager to wait on former Logsdon’s customers: “We have Jose Berber, an amazing kid from Santa Paula, as our host; there’s Kimberly Burman,” who grew up at the original Airport Café owned by her family and later worked at Logsdon’s, who will be working part-time.

Anderson said several former Logsdon’s chefs will also return and the new location will also offer more hours to Café 126 employees.

“We feel really, really fortunate... we have a lot of strong, dependable servers and cooks, a nice blend,” of Logsdon’s veterans as well as Café 16 staff “that already know what we do here. It’s going to be fun.”

Anderson said the menu will basically be the same although, “We’ll put some spin on the names of several of the dishes to show the airport influence.”

The only differences will be the new location will have a charbroiler in addition to the grill and a waffle maker.

“Other than that we won’t change the menu,” that allows breakfast and lunch choices throughout the business day.

“We’re really looking forward to coming to Santa Paula and they’re also waiting for us,” said Anderson.

“We’re excited it finally came to pass... and we can do this!”

Flight 126 Café will be open 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday thru Friday; Saturday 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Sunday 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.

“Sunday,” said Anderson, “we get an hour extra off... “





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