The Breakfast Club

An Affiliate of the Arizona Pilots Assn

 

 


The Knife & Fork

 

 


Breakfast Club Drops In On Tucson/Ryan & Todds’ Café

 

 

 

17 Nov 2012

by Warren McIlvoy

 

There are a number of good “airport” restaurants in southern Arizona but one of the better choices would be Todd’s Café at Tucson, Ryan Airport.  To get there from Deer Valley Airport is quite easy by traversing the “West Corridor” of the Phoenix Class B airspace.  As a matter of fact, on this particular Saturday, the controller cleared me on my way before I had gotten half way between Sky Harbor and South Mountain. 

 

For the most part, you are following I-10 to the south east until reaching a point just north of Eloy.  This is where we will fly just west of the Interstate to avoid the sky-diving activity that dominates this airport.  Continuing south from there, we will pass to the west of the Picacho Peak area and the “bone yard” that is more formally known as Pinal County Airpark.  Just a tad further south is Marana Airport that has another good “airport” restaurant.  This is where we start monitoring Ryan to get a picture of the activity around the airport.  Since we were approaching from the north, Ryan Tower had us make a base leg entry to runway 6L.  This was one of the very rare times that I have landed on 6L as I have almost always used 6R.  After getting clearance to cross 6R, the long taxi to the ramp parking will take you passed all the hangar rows that are between the restaurant parking and the active runways.

 

As you might expect, Saturday mornings at Todd’s is pretty busy but we did manage to get a couple of the large, curved booths that adequately served our needs.  My niece and here husband live down here so I arranged for them to meet us there to share our breakfast with the Breakfast Club group.  The menu selections are ample and the prices are reasonable which, I guess, is why this is such a popular place.  After breakfast, we headed out to the ramp to get a few more photos and to continue our visit with my niece and her husband before loading-up and heading back north. 

 

We did not have a large attendance at this fly-in but sometimes smaller is good too as the pace tends to be slower and the conversations longer.  After a few hugs and good-bys, we boarded our aircraft and headed home.

 

The Ryan Gang

 

  • Warren & Jeri McIlvoy in 93MB, BC-1 & 1.5
  • John and Nick Rynearson in 3501S, BC-117
  • Tom & Jeannie Hall (Tucson folks)
  • Richard Spiegel, Sam Foote, and Kim Boardman in 15040, BC-3 & BC-53
  • Steve & Karen Brown in 57LW

 

What’s Next?

 

The December Breakfast Club fly-in will be to another favorite with that being Seligman, Arizona and Lilo’s West Side Café.  The January fly-in will be to one of the hidden gems of the southwest hidden in Winslow, Arizona, the La Posada Hotel and the Turquoise Dinning Room.  This event will also kick-off our 19th year of monthly fly-ins and the La Posada is a grand way to do it.

 

To view the photos of this event, just click on the link below.

 

Ryan Photos