Saturday, September 21, 2013

Flabob Airport (KRIR) Cafe soaring again

After being grounded for an extensive remodel, Flabob Airport Cafe is flying high under new ownership.

The 68-year-old restaurant, at 4130 Mennes Avenue in Jurupa Valley, had closed on June 15 for its first major overhaul in more than two decades. The iconic eatery, known for its historical aviation decor and comfort food, re-opened at 6 a.m. on Sept. 16 to a packed room.

“The place always had lots of character,” said Mark Lightsey, 52. A restorer of antique planes, he’s one the 90 tenants at the 100-acre airport and a cafe habitue. “But now I see there was always this little gem hiding underneath.”

Spiffed up from a $40,000 rehabilitation, this polished jewel gleams with new floors, new upholstery, a new counter and laminated table tops.

“The building needed some TLC,” said William E. Sawin, Sr., Flabob’s president and CEO. “We didn’t want to lose the flavor, but provide a whole new focus as a destination.”

A busy place, especially on weekends, the café attracts 120 patrons a day who spend about $10 each. As part of its overhauled image, the restaurant will offer catering services. There also are plans to increase its current 60-person capacity to 75 by converting the adjacent 144-square-foot storage facility into an extended dining area.

From top to bottom, inside and out, the 2,000-square-foot restaurant received an exterior paint job, new flooring, wiring and plumbing, a new logo and a new kitchen. Crews scrubbed everything from the fireplace masonry to the wall-mounted propellers to the ceiling fans, rafters and the 1947 mural that originally hung in a dance hall.

Flabob Airport Cafe supposedly originated as the World War II cookhouse of the NCO Club at Camp Haan, the anti-aircraft auxiliary of March Field.

After Camp Haan was closed after the war, farmers could buy its buildings for a buck each.

Pilot Flavio Madariaga persuaded officers that he was a farmer by showing a photograph he had taken of himself amidst some borrowed barnyard animals. Madariaga dragged the cookhouse to Flabob, a dirt airstrip which he and his business partner, Bob Bogen, bought in 1943 and anointed “Flabob” as a hybrid of their first names. Madariaga added the spacious porch and stone fireplace and created the social heart of the airport.

Beth LaRock, the airport’s manager and director of operations, said the staff reframed all of the historic photographs and preserved and rearranged most of the memorabilia.

No longer suspended over diners’ heads, the large radio -controlled planes repose on shelves. “Much easier to clean,” LaRock said.

Customers weren’t the only ones who complained about the cafe’s grease and dirt. Within the past two years, the county health department had downgraded the restaurant three times until it hit C level.

The cafe’s new proprietors, who own the restaurant but lease the building from the airport, are Jerry Miles, a pilot, and his girlfriend, Aurora Diaz, of Cherry Valley.

Miles, 66, has operated a catering business since 1995 and until several months ago, the cafe at the Rialto Municipal Airport.

“I want to provide good food, good service and a good, clean atmosphere at Flabob,” Miles said. Diaz, 61, revamped the menu with healthier fare, using fresh rather than frozen vegetables.

She’s also designated menudo as a weekend staple.

Although Lightsey is pleased with the changes, he frequents the cafe for the camaraderie. “We sit and solve the problems of the world,” he said. “The food is secondary.”

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