Tide_from_PAE

I forgot to mention that part of my complaint is that SEA supposedly has street pricing plus either 3% or 5% but gets around that by primarily having food options with no locations in Seattle, e.g. Lucky Louie instead of Ivar's, and mandating that the comparisons be to Seattle instead of a lower cost suburb such as Everett or Renton.

PDX has a cool selection of local restaurants with other locations in Portland, street pricing, and no sales tax. I'd connect there a lot more if financially advantageous as it's arguably my favorite airport in the US. Currently, it's much easier and significantly cheaper just to go nonstop from SEA, though I'd consider connecting in PDX from PAE if pricing was similar to the SEA nonstops. PAE-SLC on DL or PAE-LAS on WN would be amazing for the connection opportunities.

chrisl137

You can pick up Bambuza at SEA with your priority pass. If I have time and haven't had a meal, I like to get rice vermicelli at Bambuza and then head up to the N lounge. I haven't had Mo's in a while, but get Yumm in downtown PDX and like the breakfast wraps if I have an early flight. And Potbelly has the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I also got a pizza at Mod recently and it was both quick and pretty decent.

elCheapoDeluxe

OTOH, if you're doing an evening connection to the west coast - prepare not to find anything at DFW due to staffing shortages. The last time I had a stopover from 9:30ish to 10:30ish I was unable to find anywhere open except one Popeye's. I walked most of the C concourse and that was it. 7-Eleven not open. I waited in the Popeye's line for about 15 minutes until they ran out of food. When they yelled out they were out of chicken I hoofed it to the nearest vending machine and had the dinner of shame - I think it was a cinnamon bun and a bag of Gardetto snack mix with a diet coke. By the time I was done at the vending machine, there was a line of twenty people behind me.

So... can't say I'm ready to shout about DFW's restaurant situation from the rooftop.

notquiteaff

I had a similar experience. My connection at DFW was overnight at the Hyatt, but I was planning to grab a bite to eat in the terminal after arrival around 10… and literally nothing but vending machines in the bag claim area seemed to be available. Fortunately the Hyatt had a little coffee/snacks area in the lobby that was still open. Dinner was a hummus wrap and a bottle of Guinness.

jjclancy

Air Canada bussed me from A20 this morning.

sullim4

I was thinking about this as I was walking through the C gates yesterday. There are a few things that conspire to make this area a mess during certain times of the day:

- Gate C3's waiting area is extremely undersized. They fly mainline 737s out of here and there can't be more than 50 or 60 seats in the holding area - this should really be a gate for Horizon E175s. When a flight out of there boards, the gate lice spill out into the concourse and block the flow of people. Compounding the problem, immediately next to that is a big pillar which forces thru traffic to bunch up.

- The bathrooms in the area pictured above are horribly undersized for the number of gates they serve. They're almost always crowded, dirty, and often have people congregating outside waiting to get in, or waiting for others to finish. Those freakin pillars again steal space and compound the problem around the flow of passengers in and out of this area.

- Horizon's gate setup at C2 and C10, where there's that walkway behind the gate podiums, steals yet more square footage from the thru traffic on the concourse, not to mention the seating area for these flights.

- Speaking of Horizon, these flights disproportionately serve connecting traffic and so there's this constant hustle/bustle there where passengers are running to make their connection. It's always frazzled and rarely relaxed in the C gates.

If I had a magic wand and unlimited money to fix all of this, I would build a second story on top of the existing C2/C10 area and consolidate Horizon operations there. That would give the C3 gate a real waiting area and allow the port to expand the thru traffic paths to and from the central terminal and the "deeper" C gates, and build retail and adequately sized restrooms in the existing areas. Maybe you could even connect it to the Alaska Lounge which is up on the second floor at the end of the C gates. I feel like something in this area has to be the next project the Port undertakes - the existing design is buckling under the current passenger load.