TREVINO WHINES ABOUT NO CHOW YET AT NEW TERMINAL

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

It's been just about two months since the Jan. 20 official opening of Brownsville South Padre Island International Airport's Brownsville's new $43.8 million terminal.

For the most part, the new facilities have drawn rave reviews from air travelers. But one passenger noticed something amiss. There is no food or beverage concessionaire and there is not a restaurant in operation. 

That jet setter was none other than Arturo (Turi) Treviño – of Los Trevi's Drive-Thru fame – who pointed that out on his social media page and took the city to task for that oversight and criticized the airport management for that omission. 

"Great food service at the brand new multi million terminal," he chided with a picture of a vending machine.

The airport management then replied that the small matter of a pandemic, restrictions on fliers because of the spread of the virus, and the reluctance investors to dump money into a restaurant with a lack of air passengers.

"The pandemic put the restaurant on pause, and as we have experienced the recovery, the project has restarted," said airport directors in answer to Turi's complaint.

While seeming to understand that all industries and major businesses took a plunge as the pandemic progressed saying everyone was dealing with "unprecedented and uncharted waters" he nonetheless managed took a swipe at the airport planners by saying any group worth their mettle would have done things differently and would have made sure they had all their ducks in a row before any undertaking.

Airport management said they were overcoming the effect of the pandemic on air travel (and the construction of the new terminal) and that a food and beverage concession "is in the works" and that they expected to be able to start offering a variety of products in the very near future.

Not pacified by the explanation, Treviño managed to dig in one more time and said that: "If that way of doing business were a private venture it would gone bankrupt..."

As in previous dealings with the city, it seems like there is no satisfying Turi when he's on a roll. 

It was Treviño, after all, who complained that the construction of the brick work at Market Square was deficient after grease from food vendors of one of his mindless "new traditions" like Gringo de Mayo left ugly stains visible for months after the event. They weren't "sealed" he complained and it wasn't his fault.

And he complained that the electric service there was also wanting. This is even after the city allowed the events to be held at city facilities for free and provided city staff to manage traffic around the closed for-pay event. 

In previous news reports, airport officials said they were looking past the pandemic toward the future in terms of the new terminal's capacity for generating new flight activity. 

As of today, it was reported, airport users can buy a plane ticket, check a bag, rent a car and buy a snack from a vending machine, but they can't order or a salad in the airport restaurant or a beer in the airport bar until the concession is established.

"We're still working with various entities on the restaurant/snack bar concession," an official was quoted saying. "We did go through a request for proposals for a vending company, so we do have vending machines both on the upper level and the lower level."

Of course, if air passengers can't wait, and the pandemic is not enough reason for no restaurant, we're sure that Treviño won't mind if they take a taxi (or Uber) to one of Los Trevi's dive-thrus and buy a snack (avocado tacos maybe?) and satisfy their hunger when they get here.

Or better yet, maybe he can set up a puesto de tacos a la Gringo de Mayo in the terminal, for a fee, of course.