{"id":14224,"date":"2021-08-17T22:11:44","date_gmt":"2021-08-18T02:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=14224"},"modified":"2021-08-17T22:11:54","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T02:11:54","slug":"lakeland-linder-seeks-to-serve-up-a-new-restaurant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2021\/08\/17\/lakeland-linder-seeks-to-serve-up-a-new-restaurant\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakeland Linder seeks to serve up a new restaurant"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It’s been more than two years since Lakeland Linder International Airport had a restaurant. The city’s looking to change that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gene Conrad, LLIA’s airport director, told city commissioners there are two entities that are interested in opening a full-service restaurant in the airport terminal. Conrad would not reveal who the groups are at this time.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We are hopeful to get a restaurant back in the terminal soon,” he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The airport’s lofty\u00a05,000-square-foot, second-floor space hasn’t hosted a restaurant\u00a0since\u00a0HallBack’s Bar & Grill closed back in February\u00a02019\u00a0after a five-year run. Serving up ribs, chicken, and fried shrimp, the Plant City-based family catering business decided to move away from a brick-and-mortar shop to expand its other services.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marcos Fernandez,\u00a0chef and founder of Lakeland\u2019s upscale Nineteen61 restaurant, announced plans in May 2019 to\u00a0open a restaurant in the airport. It was based around the concept of his prior short-order, walk-up eatery D’Lucas. It would have featured a menu of Latin-inspired foods from Cuban and Peruvian cuisines.\u00a0It never came to fruition.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Through the pandemic and all of this, they opted out to not want to do anything,” Conrad said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The airport will have a selection committee review the two applications and rank the entities, according to Conrad, before either making a decision or conducting interviews to determine who is best suited for Lakeland Linder. The process is expected to take a few weeks to reach a contract.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conrad told the city commissioners\u00a0he doesn’t expect the new foodservice operator will pay rent for the first year, it will likely be waived to help the operator get established and be successful moving forward. The target is to get a restaurant open by the start of next year, hopefully before\u00a0the annual Sun ‘n Fun Aerospace Expo.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has been an ongoing challenge for restaurant owners to entice diners out to Lakeland Linder International Airport, as Conrad admitted it’s a bit off the beaten path. The airport still does not have any commercial airline carrier, which would bring a more steady stream of customers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are still opportunities for Lakeland to bring a commercial airline service to the city, according to Conrad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“We are putting our best foot forward, working aggressively and talking with several carriers,” he said. “We\u2019re putting the pedal to the metal because we truly believe there\u2019s an opportunity here and finding the right partner who is ready to operate in this market.”\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conrad said he’s attended two “speed dating” style events to speak with representatives of different airlines within the last month and a half. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are several factors Conrad\u00a0said make Lakeland attractive, including it, is the area’s fast-growing population, the location between Tampa and Orlando, and the installation of a new, upgrade airport runway landing system.\u00a0The city also has\u00a0put aside a $1 million in the fiscal year 2022 budget to serve as an airport backstop, or incentive to lure a commercial carrier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been more than two years since Lakeland Linder International Airport had a restaurant. The city’s looking to change that.  Gene Conrad, LLIA’s airport director, told city commissioners there are… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[1023],"class_list":["post-14224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-lakeland-linder-seeks-to-serve-up-a-new-restaurant"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}