Chris Mealy poses behind the bar at Kacy J's Restaurant, 5201 N. Walnut St., in Muncie.
MUNCIE -- For a guy who loves airplanes and the restaurant business, Chris Mealy couldn't ask for a better situation.
A Pennsylvania native who grew up in seven states, he is the "all around operations" person at the Delaware County Airport's restaurant, Kacy J's, which is owned by his father, Jay.
"I run it," said Chris, who at 38 is a strapping, energetic, friendly fellow. "The concept is mine. The menu is mine."
As he spoke, he was seated at the bar, repeatedly fielding telephone calls from potential diners seeking reservations, while elsewhere the place was being readied for opening. Nearby, one wall was practically covered with a colorfully reproduced airplane poster, while a display case housed some model airplanes, among them a sharp looking Grumman F-6-F Hellcat.
Meanwhile, the classic two-seat Luscombe that Chris flies was tucked away in a nearby hangar, awaiting a nicer day to be guided aloft.
Originally, he seemed bound for a full-time career as a corporate pilot, having spent two years at Vincennes University as an aviation major, then attending Flight Safety training in Vero Beach, Fla., to earn his advanced flight ratings.
The problem was, corporate aviation's style of flying, slavishly heading from Point A to Point B and back, really wasn't his interest.
"It didn't fit my personality," said Chris, who much prefers that little old Luscombe, which is a good deal older than he is, or borrowing his father Jay's open-cockpit, two-wing Acro Sport for some aerobatics.
"I prefer being upside down rather than right side up," he said, with a laugh, of his flying preferences.
While corporate aviation lost its luster for him, however, the restaurant business, in which he had worked since long before college, beckoned.
"I truly enjoyed it," said Chris, who eventually worked his way up into three different restaurant management positions over 15 years. "I realized I could work in the restaurant business and support my habit of general aviation."
Naturally, when his father began exploring the possibility of taking over what was then a defunct airport restaurant in Muncie several years ago, he tried to sell his restaurant-manager son on the exciting opportunity it offered.
Just as naturally, Chris had a few doubts.
"I said, 'No way,' " he recalled.
But the chance to get involved in their own place, one at an airport no less, brought the young man around, and Kacy J's opened in November 2009.
In the past, previous restaurants here came and went with levels of success ranging from considerable to negligible, but Chris said Kacy J's is doing just fine.
"We're not going anywhere," he said. "My absolute goal is I don't want to have to do anything else."
To that end, Chris and Jay work to increase their customer base, hoping to disabuse potential diners of earlier notions that the place is a stuck-up "fine dining" establishment with prices to match.
"Every bit of feedback we get is phenomenal," Chris said. "Once people come out here they realize the prices are great, the food is good and it's not a ridiculous place to travel."
Indeed, it's little more than a mile away from McGalliard with its dining hordes, he continued, noting the large number of pilots who also fly in for dinner.
To Chris, of course, the fact the restaurant is at the airport is perhaps the most special thing of all about Kacy J's.
For a moment, in fact, he got a rapturous look in his eyes, picturing the runway lights brightening the gloom of night just beyond his dining room's picture windows.
"They just twinkle," he said a little dreamily, like a man who loves the sky.
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