You can always count on an airport bar

While the world around us changes rapidly, the airport bar is frozen in time

An airport bar.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Good_Studio/iStock, shtonado/iStock)

The last time I was at Palm Beach International Airport, I stopped by the same place I always go when I'm heading out of PBI. It's a completely forgettable sort of chain restaurant in Concourse B called Nick's Tomatoe Pie — yes, spelled with an "e," and complete with signage featuring a bright red tomato. Restaurant might be putting too fine a point on it. It's a pizza place, but it's also a bar and really so much more. Nick's Tomatoe Pie, as it turns out, is not forgettable at all.

This is not because of the pizza, which is airport-acceptable and costs airport prices. It's not because of the wine, which they serve in 6 oz. or 9 oz. pours (you're about to be hurtling through time and space in a metal tube, go for the 9!). It's certainly not because of the scenery — as you sit at the bar you face a brick wall with TVs tuned in to sports and a couple rows of booze bottles and beer taps. There's also a mirror in which you can watch yourself drink, if that's your thing, and a clock — this is important, don't forget, you have a plane to catch! If you were filming a movie about an airport bar, this place would be the central casting version of it.

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Jen Doll

Jen Doll is the author of the memoir Save the Date: The Occasional Mortifications of a Serial Wedding Guest. She's also the managing editor for Mental Floss magazine and has written for The Atlantic, Esquire, Glamour, Marie Claire, The Hairpin, New York magazine, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review The Village Voice, and other publications.