I was surprised to find the 57th FG restaurant in Atlanta still exists:
https://www.the57threstaurant.com/Tallichet's group still owned it, I think, the one time I was there in the 90s. We'd done a living history display with Sentimental Journey and we stunned the employees walking in with our AAF uniforms!
Clifford Bossie wrote:
p51 wrote:
In Colorado Springs, there is one ironically called The Airplane Restaurant. They have a KC 97 stratotanker, the complete fuselage and the right-wing, right up against the building. I didn't get to eat there, but I did stay at the hotel that shares the parking lot with it.
The entire airplane is there. The left wing extends into the restaurant and I have eaten lunch beneath it. I took a friend to see it a few years ago and he wanted to eat inside the airplane. Having spent my entire life around airplanes my response was simply "No".
I'll take your word that the left wing is inside the building, as from the outside it didn't look like there was enough room for that. Are the engines/props attached on that wing?
I looked at their website at the time and I didn't see photos showing the wing inside but there were photos that looked like there were dining seats in the plane itself.
I was there with a tour group seeing railroads in Colorado, and we ate dinner at the hotel as part of the tour group. That was so-so at best and I'd wished we just bagged on that and eaten in this place anyway. Oh well...
The funny part was the people running the tour knew nothing about airplanes and I'd given them a heads up on the BUFF we'd just seen at the USAF academy. As we approached the airport area, one of them described this restaurant and asked me to ID the plane once we got there, only saying it was marked USAF, silver in color and it had props. I told them I bet it was a Stratotanker, without even seeing the place or knowing anything about it ahead of time.
Nailed it!