Good news (courtesy of the Light Aircraft Association):
The restaurant at Calais LFAC is re-opening on 19 April with a new owner, Frederic Pouilly, under the new (and witty) name of Au Vol au Vent
If his sister restaurant in Ardres is anything to go by, this ought to be quite good 
YoYos come to mind. I wish him all luck, as it is really important to have a restaurant there, but I do wonder why he should succeed when all his predecessors have failed.
I shall go there as often as I can to support him and hope others do the same. It is a great place for IFR training, easily accessible from SE England and with needing booking, so always available.
Interesting… Has there been a long line of failed owners?
Anyone going to this, the local event is in Marck, the day after the restaurant opens at Calais
Roadshow dates …… 20 April: Marck-en-Calaisis (Place de l’Europe)
So is this a different place than the one who opens about 5 month ago?
Indeed. But we will patronise it.
So is this a different place than the one who opens about 5 month ago?
Well, strictly speaking, same place, different proprietor.
I have lost count, but my guess would be fourth proprietor in five years.
The problem for us is that, though there is a nice restaurant within a short walk of the airport, it is closed at weekends, so then there is nothing, not even a coffee, unless you go into Calais, which is quite a way.
The restaurant, while it is operational, makes Calais a great destination for training, Schengen, tech stop etc.
Timothy wrote:
it is closed at weekends
That does seem rather silly. Unless this guy plans to change that (his other restaurant is open at weekends anyway )
I remember eating there a few years back, while the owners were already packing their stuff and preparing to close the restaurant at the end of the month. They said that the rent was too high for any restaurant to be run profitably there, but the airport would not negotiate that and preferred to have them leave instead of lowering the rent. Though if my memory doesn’t fail me, the amount they quoted didn’t seem exorbitant.
I think the problem isn’t the (or any) restaurant; it is the town. Calais is not Le Touquet. I believe the most prized attraction is a wine supermarket called something like East Enders which tells you about the customers they are aiming at
And despite the best efforts of the UK PPL training (“flying 2 a forin country is really hard and needs a special checkout”) sausage machine, only a small % of people fly to an airport to eat and never come out of the airport.
