Food

Cool Airport Amenity: Smoothie Vending Machines at YVR Airport

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Here’s a great, new airport amenity we hope to see at other airports very soon.

In what may be a first for North American airports, Vancouver International Airport (YVR) has partnered with the Trendi Smoothies company to host smoothie vending machines at the airport.

The 24-hour vending machines offer sippable snacks that are nutritious and eco-smart because the smoothies are made from rescued fruit and vegetables.

Each machine can blend up a smoothie in about a minute. Flavor options include Groovy Guava, Mango Tango, and Strawburst; each with no added sugars or preservatives.

But what are ‘rescued’ fruit and vegetables?

They’re imperfect foods that aren’t quite pretty enough to send to retail stores but are otherwise just fine to eat.

Traveling to or through YVR soon? Look for the smoothie vending machines at Gates B13, B27, and B28 in domestic departures and D62 and E74 in US and international departures.

Voodoo Doughnuts Lands at Denver Int’l Airport

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Doughnut fans rejoice!

Good things do come in pink boxes at an airport.

If you’re a fan of Portland-based Voodoo Doughnuts, you know what’s up when you spot people flying with a pink box carefully balanced on their laps.

And if you just love the idea of having a decadent doughnut as a treat when you travel, you’re in luck.

Voodoo Doughnuts has opened its first airport location. And it is at Denver International Airport (DEN) on the Concourse B mezzanine.

Voodoo Doughnuts is credited with creating the gourmet doughnut category way back in 2003 with doughnuts such as the Bacon Maple Bar, a Voodoo Doll doughnut, a doughnut made with Captain Crunch cereal, a Dirt Doughnut, and the Pepto Bismol Doughnut – which the FDA nixed.

Voodoo Doughnut now offers more than 50, often outrageous, doughnut creations in locations in Oregon, Texas, Colorado, at Hollywood’s Universal City Walk and Orlando Universal Walk.

Fans of the doughnuts often bring pink doughnut-filled boxes of these treats with them as gifts when they travel, And they have to figure out how to get them through airport security.

Now there’s the option of indulging in a Voodoo Doughnut or buying a box to go at Denver Int’l Airport. To celebrate, the opening of this first airport location, a planeload of United Airlines passengers was treated to a doughnut festival.

Airport Garden Helps Feed its Community

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Here’s a great story that wonderfully illustrates and reminds us that airports aren’t just places to fly in and out from.

Each airport also plays many roles in the local community.

Some airports collect loose change from travelers and send it along to local charities. Others organize programs that collect perfectly good unsold packaged food items from airport vendors and pass them along to local food banks.

And since 1997 Canada’s Winnipeg Richardson International Airport (YWG) has been hosting a Harvest Garden that grows thousands of pounds of vegetables each year for local food banks.

And the airport just shared that last week more than 5,000 pounds of potatoes, beets, carrots, and onions were pulled from the airport’s Harvest Garden and donated to Harvest Manitoba. The non-profit sends the vegetables out to 325 food banks and agencies in the province.

Pretty impressive, right?

More impressive, since the Harvest Garden started in 1997, the airport has donated 72,270 pounds of vegetables. That’s enough food to help provide a meal to 100,000 families in need.

According to the Winnipeg Airports Authority, which operates YWG, over the past 25 years, the airport garden has grown from a few rows in size to 4,000 square feet. And employees from nearly every department across the organization pitch in each summer to help seed, weed, and harvest the garden.

Have a great community story to share about your airport? Let us know.

We all scream for ice-cream

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July is National Ice-Cream Month

July is National Ice-Cream Month and Sunday was National Ice Cream Day.

And while no one really needs a special reason to enjoy ice cream when traveling, here’s how some airports and airlines marked National Ice Cream Day. Plus some bonus ice cream images from the National Archives.

Boys eating ice cream. Courtesy National Archives

“People have been eating and making ice cream innovations since cold storage became more commercially affordable,” the National Archives reminds us. “Early founders George Washington and Thomas Jefferson regularly enjoyed ice cream, and it was a featured dessert at James Madison’s inauguration ball in 1813.”

Ice cream-related inventions have proliferated over time, “as ice cream manufacturers and other dairy businesses constantly tinkered with new inventions to help mix, freeze, store, and transport ice cream while keeping its flavor and temperature perfect for the market.”

Virtual wait-lists for airport dining

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You’ve no doubt heard or read stories about how crowded airports are right now and the long lines at security checkpoints, and at airport coffee shops and restaurants.

Some airports have created virtual reservation systems for checkpoint times.

Now HMSHost, which operates food and beverage outlets at more than 120 airports, is using technology to ease the hassle of sitting down for an airport meal.

The company is partnering with restaurant platform OpenTable to power virtual waitlists at over a dozen HMSHost airport restaurant locations in 7 airports nationwide. 

At participating restaurants, guests can join the waitlist online via QR Codes or in person with the host. Diners will be notified via SMS text message when their table is ready.

Up next, the partnership will enable reservations in advance, with the goal or making airport dining part of the travel booking process. 

HMSHost restaurants featuring OpenTable reservations include:

Charlotte-Douglas International Airport

Summer House Santa Monica

1897 Market

Denver International Airport

Denver Chophouse

Great Divide Brewing

John Glenn Columbus International Airport

Hangar 815

Las Vegas: Harry Reid International Airport

California Pizza Kitchen

Chili’s

Jose Cuervo Tequileria

Las Vegas Chophouse & Brewery 

PGA Tour Grill

Sammy’s Beach Bar & Grill

Sammy’s Woodfired Pizza

Los Angeles: LAX International Airport

Point the Way Café

Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport

Chili’s

St. Louis Lambert International Airport

Mike Shannon’s Grill