Pilot Pete's - Schaumburg, IL

Pilot Pete's is a cool airport restaurant.  It is in the terminal building at Schaumburg Regional Airport (06C) in Schaumburg, Illinois.  There is a bank of windows that overlook the airport and the only runway from the second story.  The restaurant is chock full of aviation memorabilia, signed photos of famous aviators and lots of model airplanes everywhere.

I dined under a real experimental airplane called a breezy because the two occupants sit out in the open wind in this airplane.  I've seen breezy's before but I never had the vantage point and the time to sit there and examine the quality of the welds and the design of the airframe.  I wonder how well this one worked in it's life in the air because the Continental O-200 engine looks like a pull-type that would be in the nose of Cessna or Piper but in this configuration it was in a pusher configuration whereby the engine faced backwards, pushing the air back.  The carburetor intake was also facing backwards.  hmm... Maybe it's better hanging from a restaurant ceiling.

The food was pretty good, too.  I got the Turbulence Salad and a Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy beer.  The shandy is a summer time beer.  It is a mix of beer and lemonade, I think.  Very light, sweet and citrusy.  The salad was a mix of lettuce, onion, cheese, chicken and peperoni all chopped and tossed.  It didn't need any dressing.  I think that there might have been some oil and vinegar added to give it some moisture.   It was all very good.

Service was fine.  They were very busy but the hostess and waitress were both very nice and efficient.  No complaints.  

This place had not been featured on the Food Network but, it had potential.  Just reading over the menu, it looked like they had some creative stuff. One thing that looked interesting was the Grilled Salmon Club.  They described it as "salmon, bacon, tomato, avocado and tomato-chive aioli on Italian Bread."  Guy might like it here.

The atmosphere was pretty lively for a Tuesday evening.  There was a bar area that looked pretty cool.  The only cooler airport bar that I can think of was at the US Navy Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida where they had shipped the old officer's club bar from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean back to Florida and completely reconstructed it.

I rated Pete's a 9.5.  This is a must for the aviation nerd in your family if you are in the Chicago area. 

Pilot Pete's Restaurant
905 West Irving Park Road
Schaumburg, IL 60193
(847) 891-5100
http://pilot-petes.com/