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The $100 … er … $150 Hamburger

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Gemini Sparkle

Key Takeaways:

  • The article highlights the diverse quality of airport restaurants, showcasing Matthew's at Paso Robles as an upscale exception that offers a unique culinary experience, including a luxurious "Hundred Dollar Hamburger."
  • Airport cafes serve as unexpected economic indicators, with Matthew noting that declining pilot patronage and a high rate of closures (143 closed vs. 17 opened in 11 months of 2007) signaled a significant economic downturn, primarily due to rising fuel prices.
  • Acknowledging the historical high cost of aviation, the author suggests that pilots adopt collaborative strategies like ride-sharing or plane-pooling to mitigate fuel expenses, making flying more affordable and sustaining these businesses.
  • Ultimately, airport cafes are portrayed as vital community hubs for pilots, offering a unique social space for shared experiences and camaraderie that is integral to aviation culture and essential to preserve.
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For all the fuss made about California’s huge population, almost two-thirds of its 36.5 million people are squeezed into just 8 percent of the land. That leaves an awful lot of open spaces in between, as anyone who’s ever flown — or driven — between San Francisco and Los Angeles can attest.

But my friend Jeff, who does demo flights for Cirrus, had a turbo SR22 G3 in Los Angeles he wanted me to try, and I was looking for an excuse to take the Cheetah somewhere. So we started looking for somewhere halfway in between to meet for lunch. “Halfway,” mind you, being in terms of time, not distance, since the Cirrus SR22 could run speed circles around my little sky slug.

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