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AirportImprovement.com      September 2026
OPERATIONS 
MKG  
The Restaurant Returns
For a full decade, one of the most visible signs of the 
airport’s decline sat just inside the terminal doors: a 
shuttered restaurant. The Brownstone had operated for 
24 years before it closed, and it didn’t so much wind 
down as vanish. “They just shut down one night in 
November 2016 and never opened again,” Efting marvels.
Reopening the restaurant became one of the airport’s 
heaviest lifts, and one of its most personal victories. 
Because everything in the space carried 24 years of 
wear, most of the food service equipment had to be 
replaced, and the county paid for it—an unprecedented 
move in Taig’s experience. “That’s how confident they 
were in our momentum,” he emphasizes. 
The airport maintenance staff handled much of 
the restaurant buildout in-house—painting, pulling 
carpet, replacing equipment, laying new flooring over 
three fiscal years to save the cost of hiring outside 
contractors. 
The new concessions operator is Lee Ann French, 
who runs a restaurant at Owosso Community Airport 
(RNP), also in Michigan. French learned about MKG’s 
Lee-Lee’s Crosswinds Café opened this 
spring, ending a 10-year span without 
restaurant service at the airport. 

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