Sky Coffee: Miami’s New Airplane Coffee Shop

Airplanes and coffee are two of my favorite things. Along those lines, there’s a new coffee shop that recently opened in Miami that incorporates both of those things, and I checked it out this morning…

The basics of Miami’s Sky Coffee Buenos Aires

Sky Coffee Buenos Aires is the name of a new coffee shop in Miami, which opened on November 30, 2023. It’s located in Brickell, at 1420 SW 1st Ct, which is a field with some food trucks, and there’s easy parking there. Sky Coffee Buenos Aires is currently open daily from 7AM until 5PM, so you can go for your morning coffee or an afternoon treat.

What makes Sky Coffee Buenos Aires unique is that it’s housed in the front of the fuselage of a retired McDonnell Douglas MD-88. It’s a jet that flew for Delta from 1990 all the way up until 2019 (Tim, if you hurry, you might be able to book a Delta flight to get here before closing!), at which point it was retired.

So, why did someone decide to open a coffee shop like this? As the story goes, the owner is a lady from Uruguay who wanted to become a flight attendant when she was younger, but she was told that she was too short.

Years later, she decided to open a coffee shop with an aviation theme. While the plan was initially to just get some airplane seats, she ended up buying part of the fuselage of an MD-88 from an ex-Delta pilot in Leesburg, and she reportedly sold her house to be able to pay for this.

Despite the coffee shop not paying anything for marketing, this concept has gotten a huge amount of media attention, and the business has reportedly had lines dozens of people deep, and has sold out of products.

The Sky Coffee Buenos Aires experience

This morning, our family headed out to Sky Coffee Buenos Aires, despite whatever the heck you call this weather system we have right now (I feel bad for the people visiting Miami, looking for nice weather).

I’ve gotta give the owners credit for their commitment to the theme. Just outside Sky Coffee Buenos Aires is a metal detector, on the path leading to the aircraft. There are two sets of stairs — one lets you walk through a small part of the cabin, while the other one just lets you order from an exterior window, without going through the cabin.

Honestly, how cool is this?!

When you enter the cabin of Sky Coffee Buenos Aires through the forward door, you’ll find yourself in the galley.

The cockpit is to the left, and you can even peek inside.

There are then two rows of seats. On the left side, there are four first class seats, facing in the same direction.

On the right side, there are four economy seats, facing one another, with a table in the middle.

These are the same exact seats that there were when Delta flew the aircraft, except they’ve been reupholstered with different branding. The overhead bins, meanwhile, haven’t been changed at all, and still have the same signs they had on Delta.

Now, here’s the major catch — you can’t actually eat or drink inside the cabin. That’s because this is technically considered a food truck, and I guess there are rules against that. So you can instead only eat and drink in the outdoor area, which has tables and chairs.

The cabin otherwise just has the counter where you can order. There are some drinks you can grab, as well as cakes, empanadas, etc., while everything else is prepared by the staff.

Sky Coffee Buenos Aires food & drinks

Sky Coffee Buenos Aires has an extensive menu of drinks, as well as a smaller menu of food options. You can find the menu below.

Lol, you’ve gotta love the mention of food only being available on flights that are 1,300+ miles, and the “complimentary snacks” that have a price.

Since I was reviewing this, I figured I had to order the drink that’s most talked about here, which is Tierra Del Fuego, described as follows:

In honor of Carolina, a town that was born as a result of the gold rush in Tierra del Fuego(Argentina)in 1883,the finest and most elegant cappuccino made with our edible 24K gold emerges .Comes with an exquisite gold-wrapped chocolate truffle to dip into for the full experience.

At $19.50, it sure is one pricey coffee, and I was curious to see how it compared to the gold cappuccino at the Burj Al Arab Dubai. 😉

We also had a regular cappuccino, which was a more reasonable $5. Honestly, they both tasted the same, and I’d say the golden one was about $14.50 too expensive (then again, I suppose you’re paying $5 for the coffee and $14.50 for the picture). 😉

We also split an avocado toast, which was fine, though was more of a guacamole toast.

You come here for the airline theme and the good coffee, but this isn’t some award-winning place in terms of the quality of the food. I do appreciate how nice the presentation of drinks is, despite this all being served outdoors.

Bottom line

Sky Coffee buenos Aires is Miami’s new most talked about coffee shop. It’s located in Brickell, and is housed in the fuselage of a former Delta MD-88. It’s a cute little spot with good coffee and decent food, but mainly I’d just recommend coming here for the really unique theme, which you won’t find in many other places.

How cool to have a place like this in Miami! I also love the story behind it, so I wish the owner all the success in the world (and it sounds like things are going well so far).

What do you make of Miami’s new airplane-themed coffee shop?