Best Cup Of Coffee

     Once upon a time, airline people who worked in passenger terminals could only look down their collective noses at the dining selections offered to people in air cargo.
     After all airports passenger facilities initially were destinations in themselves with amenities meant to emulate and eventually filch business from the great passenger railroads with their elegant stations.
     During the post war years right up to the early 1990s airport restaurants drew masses out to the field for dinner and special occasions whether or not they were flying anywhere.
     In New York at Idlewild (JFK) Golden Door and the LaGuardia Airport Terrace Club were matched by gourmet establishments at Los Angeles atop the revolving Administration Building and at Miami in a first-class restaurant located in the main passenger terminal with a hotel right underneath, and even a pool just outside on the roof for a quick dip before lunch.
     Often these establishments served for big holiday parties, weddings graduations and other important occasions
     All of this prompted one creative writer to suppose of airport restaurants:
     “The food must be good-look at all the airplanes parked outside.
     Today 21st Century mall type airports, especially at international gateways, feature food service that is usually located in the areas behind the airline check in counters.
     Food is fast and in most cases national branded, although at JFK and LGA an effort has been made to bring in local vendors like Sylvia’s of Harlem, at JFK IAT Terminal Four.
     At LaGuardia the “Market Place” is a real treat with lots of interesting places to shop, relax and eat, including an open kitchen brick oven pizza restaurant.
     Market Place has been worth a trip to the airport, especially to visit The Metropolitan Museum of Art Store there.
     The Met store at LGA sells rare, even priceless stuff—all copies, including an Etruscan beaded necklace of rare beauty right there in a case at the airport.
     MoMA’s collection of Faberge jewelry knock ñoffs have probably saved more than a few marriages.
     But alas now everything will change again.
     Security at most U.S. airports which used to be somewhere alongside the metal detector at the entrance to your ‘finger,’ walk out to the gate has moved all the way to the entrance door of the terminal.
     The inability of travelers to gain access to terminals and then share a cinnabon, or Big Mac, or a Starbucks before a flight with a friend or loved one will certainly impact an already depressed airport retail situation.
     Which brings us back to air cargo food service versus passenger.
     For years about the only food worth noting in and around cargo areas especially in New York has been served up under peculiar circumstances.
     At JFK, a place called The Owl just outside the airport was always a big favorite.
     The Owl, a local air cargo haunt would after business hours serve as gathering point for the gang that held up LH Cargo and were immortalized in a book and the movie “Goodfellas”.
     But the wise guys did like the veal parmigiana hero sandwich served at The OWL just like everybody else.
     I always think of “Bada-Bing,” the tough guy topless joint in The Sopranos on HBO TV as The Owl.
     But alas The Owl finally was closed down.
     Today where X-rated screens bumped and ground 24/7, the same space (renovated of course) now serves as a children’s day care center.
     Only in America.
     Most air cargo people are pretty much used to a staple diet of whatever is served off maybe ten thousand mobile food trucks that roll around airports the world over. You see them in Athens, Los Angeles, in New York, Singapore, Miami and Dubai.
     From quick cold sandwiches to complete four-course meals, with sodas and fruits and sandwiches in plastic lined up like clams on the half shell, shiny food trucks are outside signaling break-time with a blast on the horn, morning, noon and night.
     For air cargo, trucks are the vital link to a breath of fresh-air, a quick smoke or just a momentary kick back, look up at the sky that punctuates the daily pursuit.
     But air cargo people always knew what the rest of the world has finally come to:
     The most important item on the menu is coffee.
     Little wonder then that the best coffee at any airport is usually served in the cargo area.

Carmen Ham

     At JFK Airport, right now the best cup of coffee in the world is served from a small non-descript couple of rooms on the ground (no pun intended) floor of Cargo Building 80.
     Star Mountain Coffee is the name brand of a special blend of beans which shop owner Carmen Ham grows in Honduras on her own small plantation, then ships to New York and roasts nearby.
     It’s funny when you think about it. These big restaurateurs, industrial feed companies with their charts and projections, logos and jingles seem to get everything right except, and often the coffee is lousy.
     Then here is Carmen Ham and her husband who everybody just calls Ham.
     Often they cannot roast fast enough to satisfy demand. The coffee is just tremendous, the best we (or you) have ever tasted.
     Also, where elsewhere there is pedestrian fare served up by vacant-faced counter people, at Carmen’s place there is Claudia, with her deep brown eyes and magnetic smile.
     Maybe the Hams get the last laugh too.
     They have just opened up a second coffee shop in the building training TSA recruits at JFK.
     Add that bunch to the legion of airport cargo workers and cops who frequent Star Mountain’s Cargo Building 80 location that opens daily at 06:00 hrs. and continues until 15:00
     In Miami, where in January at least, every day is another day in paradise, the only place to go after a seven buck Ceviche luncheon, in any one of a half dozen excellent off-airport restaurants, is to the Rikin Truck located in the middle of the air cargo area.