People don’t typically go to the airport specifically to eat (well, unless they’re flying that day and are trying to justify their credit card annual fee!), but this might be worth making an exception for, at least for us aviation geeks…
In this post:
“Greatest Airline Meals of the 20th Century” dinner
I’ll let the description of the dinner speak for itself:
“The Greatest Airline Meals of the 20th Century is a ticketed, seven-course dinner event taking place inside Portland International Airport, presented by Alaska Airlines. The event runs for two nights only—Friday, February 20 and Saturday, February 21, 2026—at Loyal Legion, located pre-security inside PDX.
Each course is drawn from actual vintage airline menus and grounded in original recipes, photographs, and archival research. The menu traces the evolution of airline dining from the earliest passenger flights of 1919 through the final Concorde service in 2003, prepared with modern technique while staying faithful to the spirit of the originals. Yes, lobster and caviar are part of the menu.
For much of the 20th century, airline food was a serious competitive tool. From early unpressurized aircraft to the jet-set era of the 1960s, airlines used extravagant meals to signal comfort, luxury, and modernity. This event recreates that era through food, giving guests the rare chance to actually taste what airlines once proudly served.
The evening is hosted by Bill Oakley, Emmy-winning comedy writer and former showrunner of The Simpsons, who now focuses on American food history. Bill narrates the dinner with a slideshow and commentary, sharing the stories behind the dishes and the often strange, ambitious ideas airlines embraced during aviation’s most glamorous decades.
The event builds on Bill’s American Culinary Curiosity Dinner series, which sold out multiple nights in cities including Austin, Atlanta, Portland, Milwaukee, and Boston in 2025. This new format expands that concept by using the airport itself as part of the setting and story.
Just to clarify, this dinner is pre-security, so you don’t need a ticket or boarding pass to attend.
How much do tickets to this special dinner cost?
As you can see above, this event takes place over two nights, and tickets can be purchased at this link. There are two types of tickets:
- General admission tickets cost $172.57 per person, and include dinner, entertainment, and parting gifts
- VIP tickets are available for $209.93 per person, and include all of the above, plus seating closer to the action, and admission to the after party in the speakeasy, Aurora
Bottom line
If you’re an aviation geek, and have the time and money, there’s a very special event taking place at PDX on February 20-21, 2026. Specifically, there will be a seven-course dinner pre-security, intended to showcase the “Greatest Airline Meals of the 20th Century.”
I’m very tempted to buy tickets and attend. I already have a pretty busy month of travel planned in February, which is my only hesitation, but otherwise I’d totally be in for this. I’m still deciding, as it’s quite a trek from Miami. Meanwhile if I lived closer, I wouldn’t think twice about attending…
Anyone plan on attending this cool dinner at PDX?
Portland local and booked for Saturday.
If anyone would like to get together the day before or after there's some great food here.
Interesting concept and short flight for me so grabbed a VIP tix for Sat.
What an amazing concept. Alaska continues to out think and out innovate the competition. Unfortunately I have other plans that wouldn't let this work for me.
Gotta love Alaska Airlines. Round trip from the East Coast to this event ... 25K miles, and will get status points for the trip.
Better yet, use those 25K Alaska points to fly JFK-SFO/LAX in J or F, then connect up to PDX, so you can actually enjoy lie-flat on transcon…
There longest flight is like 4 hours. How do they have time to server that many courses? Doubt it will be much good at all.
Too bad I won't be around for this event. My loss :(
Cool idea but one month's notice and at the tail end of President's Week - not many will be flying from the East Coast just for this (although please do feed the content machine - literally and figuratively!). Also for less than $200 hard to imagine the opulence that one (rightly or wrongly) thinks of when romanticizing mid-century travel. All that free flowing caviar, champagne, lobster, etc. costs real inflation-adjusted money these days!
Mhm, that’s a nope for me.
Perhaps, they saved money by using Nick Cage’s Pig to hunt for the truffles out there.