Featured photo: A daily special from Cloud 9 Café.
“It’s like Cheers in here, but without the alcohol,” Tina Palmisano says of her new restaurant at Shreveport Downtown Airport, Cloud 9 Café. She is correct that there’s the feeling of a tight-knit community of regular patrons, but I doubt that the food at the bar in Cheers was ever as much fun as what Palmisano and her team are serving at Cloud 9 Café. I had no idea what to expect before I visited. What I found was an affordable, comfortable diner with a friendly staff and an amusingly eclectic menu. There are Cuban sandwiches ($9), boudin balls ($6), beef and lamb gyros ($9) and chicken and waffles ($9).
“I tell people that the menu is eclectic, just like my personality,” Palmisano says.
Daily lunch specials, which are posted on the Cloud 9 Café Facebook page, can get really creative and are a steal at $9.99 to $10.99. On the day of my recent visit, the lunch special included three tamales, a soft taco, rice and beans, a homemade sopapilla for dessert and a drink – for $9.99. The restaurant is open for breakfast and lunch, 7 a.m.-2 p.m.
If you’re like me, you may read that a restaurant is located inside of an airport and think that it’d be a hassle to eat there. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is plenty of free parking and restaurant patrons aren’t required to go through any sort of security checkpoint or anything along those lines. I’d encourage anyone who wasn’t visited the Shreveport Downtown Airport to stop by Cloud 9 Café for the simple novelty of eating at a diner counter while airplanes take off and land a few hundred yards away. Huge windows allow diners to look out on the tarmac and watch the goings-on at the airport – I’d imagine that kids would love it.
Cloud 9 Café isn’t anything fancy, and it’s not trying to be. It’s a good, old-fashioned diner with wallet-friendly eats and a welcoming vibe. The kind of place where, you know, “everybody knows your name.”
If you love local food, check out the Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau’s new short film on Youtube, Chef’s Night Out in Shreveport-Bossier.
