LaGuardia Charges $13 for Cheese Slices, LOL
Plus, notes on Ben's Chili Bowl, vodka slices at Dough & Co., pistachio doughnuts, and gnocchi with salsa macha at Woodstock Cafe
I’m just getting back from an out-of-state work trip — and a quick weekend jaunt to the Shenandoah Valley. It was…a lot! Six flights in seven days, plus two Greyhound bus rides.
Woodstock Cafe in Virginia was perhaps the biggest surprise. One of my favorite dishes there: masa gnocchi with salsa macha. More on that below.
Related: I should, in theory, be returning to more regularly scheduled programming now that things are settling down.
Let’s get to it.
Before I forget, remember that cold noodles are always a smart idea when it’s steamy out. An icy piragua is also a good plan as well.
And if you’re in the mood for some Japanese small plates, allow me to direct your attention to this NYT review of Odo East Village by Mahira Rivers! My co-contributing critic finds a “clear through line of culinary skill” between the new restaurant and the kaiseki-original. Right on!
A few words about LaGuardia’s $13 cheese slice
Good New York pizza is expensive. Folks who patronize new guard spots like Fini, L’Industrie, or Mama’s Too will easily drop $5 or more per slice.
Are these places worth it? Absolutely.
But so the story goes that everyday pizzerias have also been hiking their prices. Gothamist reported late last year that the average price of a slice has crept up toward $4. And earlier in 2026, I told y’all’s about how a single cheese slice at Rose in Penn Station will run over $6 after tax and credit card fees. Things could get even spendier as steel tariffs put upward pressure on canned tomato prices.
And yet those prices all seem quaint by LaGuardia standards.
At Sunday Supper Trattoria, a restaurant whose name conveys all the creativity of an AI bot, you’ll pay $12.49 for your cheese slice.
“How many slices is that for?,” I asked.
It’s for a single slice, and the staffer added that the price works out to nearly $14 after taxes and fees.
I know what you’re thinking. Everything’s more expensive at airports. Once you pass through security, you become a captive audience to the concessionaires authorized to overcharge you. Just as no one drinks $5 Bud Lights during the Yankees-Red Sox games, no one gets a deal on USB cables at Hudson News.
But a $13 slice comes off as particularly brutal, even by airport standards. A quick survey of nearby concessionaires — a ramen spot, a sandwich chain — showed that other airport spots only charge about one or two dollars above regular retail prices.
This little scenario recalls a Hellgate inquiry into a $15, plastic wrapped turkey sandwich at JFK’s CIBO express. Reporter Christopher Robbins noted that the Port Authority has its own rules for how much restaurants there could charge, which was 10 percent above “street pricing” levels.
There’s something darkly humorous or even mafia-esque about regulations outlining precisely how much airport restaurants are allowed to rip off their own customers. And indeed, the Port Authority has since raised its overcharging limits to 15 percent above street prices (lol).
Yet the pizza from LaGuardia’s Sunday Trattoria, by my calculations, is over three times the average price of a New York slice, or more than double the price of a gourmet slice.
That’s pretty steep. And that’s no small matter. Pizza is something we eat every day in New York. And while different businesses all have different financial realities, there’s something distinctly cynical about charging folks — who are waiting hours and hours for their flights — so much for such a basic staple.
The $13 slice feels like an effort to charge travelers a shakedown fee for one of the city’s quintessential foodstuffs. Though I suppose the good news is that the slice kiosk was devoid of patrons. The more reasonably priced Potbelly, however, was packed!
OTG, the group that operates concessions at LaGuardia, did not respond to an inquiry from The Lo Times sent during regular business hours on Tuesday.
Oh, perhaps you noticed a particular corporate vernacular on the Sunday Supper signage! “Pizza slices,” is the term in question. Let this be a friendly reminder that in New York, “slices” or “cheese slices” is the more common usage.
“Regular slice” is also acceptable.
On eating while airporting
I’ve taken eight flights in the past month — six over the past week, often from regional airports whose interiors look pilfered from the set of “Backrooms.”
My impromptu takeaway is that I’m ready to be home for a while!
One of my longtime mantras is that, if at all possible, I avoid eating any sort of airline food that’s not a Biscoff cookie, and truth be told I don’t even really care for those! My preference is to avoid dining at airports too, especially with New York City at one end of my voyages and Denver or Los Angeles at the other end.
Alas, those sensibilities go out the window amid four-hour delays
So here are a few observations, following a week of eating in places where most folks rather not be eating:
Fast food in airports tastes about the same as fast food outside of airports. If that sounds obvious, the logical corollary is that an airport restaurant run by a high profile chef will almost certainly be much worse than their flagship restaurant in a major city. So if it’s Potbelly’s versus a celebrity chef, you know which one to choose!
Bubby’s at LaGuardia serves lard-laced biscuits — with butter and jam — that could outdo the bread service at quite a few New York restaurants.
You’ll find the quickest airport breakfast line at Auntie Anne’s. Perhaps that’s because most normal, level-headed folks don’t want what Jaya Saxena calls “horny butter” pretzels at 7:30 a.m. during a layover. They want caffeine, and they’re all welcome to wait on the DMV-style lines at Dunkin’ or Einstein Bros. But I stand by Auntie Anne’s — and Wetzel’s Pretzels — even if they don’t even technically qualify as pretzels; their chief product is more like warm, spongy bread doused in shiny, delicious ghee. I dig it.
The quickest and best airport coffee I’ve had was at Half Moon Empanadas, a Miami-based chain, at Reagan National airport. The kiosk specializes in baked, Argentinian-style empanadas. I tried one filled with spicy beef and a little hard-boiled egg; they’re light and well seasoned! Also, no line!
I maintain that airports are among the best places to watch the World Cup, Super Bowl, or any other major sporting event. Why? Because so many folks are drinking and spectating alone. They’re looking for a little community while that TSA barrier (or a few thousand miles) keeps them from spending more time with loved ones.
Touch screens and QR codes are showing up at more and more airport bars and kiosks. And they’re still the worst. We all understand the cost-saving economics behind them, but the reality is this: a touchscreen is often much slower than a real cashier or server, and that’s not an unimportant factor when you’re rushing to catch a flight! Also, when I order an appetizer from a touchscreen, why do I have to hit eight different buttons and tell the algorithm that I don’t want cheese fries or dessert? When I ask a human bartender for a beer, they don’t ask questions; they pour my hazy IPA and they stand there until I pay them.
On Shake Shack: Just about any good bodega BEC beats Shake Shack’s bacon, egg, and cheese on a potato bun. That said, if you’re in a rush, Shake Shack is a strong second place in the morning hours (if only they had better hot sauce). And a burger from Shake Shack before a late night flight beats just about any meal on any domestic airline, even in business class!
On Ben’s Chili Bowl: This Washington D.C. institution, around since 1958, has long been one of the biggest holes on my resume; I finally got around to fixing that this past weekend! But I didn’t visit the U Street original. I dropped by the Reagan National Airport location, which has been around since 2014.
A restaurant outpost at a ballpark, a food hall, or any other high-traffic location is always a bit of a gamble, at least from a branding perspective. To wit: How excited can folks get about Wolfgang Puck’s chic destination restaurants if their first encounter with his name is at one of his airport kiosks?
But I can say, without hesitation, that Ben’s Chili Bowl at Reagan National served me one of the finest hot dogs I’ve tried in quite some time. The fat half smoke was snappy and burnished. The yellow cheese sauce was wonderfully gloppy. The chili was meaty and spicy. And yet the bun stayed intact amid all the drippy condiments. The space had the energy of a lunch counter; you could see the sausages sizzling. And a server even threw in a little extra chile and cheese for me, at no extra charge, as if I were a regular dropping by for my usual order.
Two more things…
Woodstock Cafe
I realize most readers aren’t going to book a flight to DCA, rent a car, and drive 90 minutes to Shenandoah County, just for a few meals. But if you did, you’d surely end up waiting in line for brunch at Woodstock Cafe, the type of casual yet ambitious spot — with all sorts of artisanal tuna jars and craft beers — that New Yorkers swarm in the Catskills after a writeup in Hudson Valley Magazine. Or what have you.
Anyway! This past weekend my college buds and I ate well at Woodstock Cafe, run by Nikki Grant and Jose Arevalos, a former Lettuce Entertain You chef. The kitchen sends out a helluva Cuban sandwich, and a splendid roast chicken — all crisp skinned and drenched in a powerful preserved mushroom jus. Really, it’s the type of fare that’s more characteristic of a high-performing brasserie than a suburban spot hawking steaks and grilled branzino.
But I can’t stop thinking about a particular special, a pile of masa gnocchi paired with crab, corn, and crimson splotches of salsa macha. The pale dumplings acted as a soft counterpoint to the warming chile sauce. It was the type of smart, creative dish that you’d expect at a chic Manhattan hotspot, but here I was in Virginia farm country. 117 South Main Street, Woodstock, Virginia
The vodka slice and pistachio doughnuts at Dough & Co!
Folks who live in the tri-state area know that some of the region’s best pizza lies outside the boundaries of New York City. New Haven has Frank Pepe’s and Sally’s. New Jersey has Razza, Bread & Salt, and Corner Slice.
And Long Island has its own crop of quality pie joints.
I grew up with Umberto’s of New Hyde Park and Gino’s of Long Beach, but one of the biggest newcomers is Dough & Co; it opened in 2022 under the helm of a 23-year-old Umberto’s alum. Make no mistake: Danny Rocca makes good pizza, based on a recent visit to the new Oyster Bay outpost.
The burrata slice is one of the signature offerings. Too hot outside for that, so I sampled a few other items. My pepperoni Sicilian square exhibited a uniformly bubbly crumb with a dense (but not too dense) chew. And the roni cups were crisp.
Not bad.
The vodka slice, however, was a thing of beauty; splotches of fresh mozzarella and pink tomato sauce intermingled and swirled like an abstract Mark Bradford canvas. And the thin, well-seasoned crust provided a pleasant chew and a solid crunch.
But the best part of my visit? A yeast doughnut stuffed with a swath of aromatic pistachio cream. The dough was light while the filling was as rich as nut butter. I’ll be back to try more soon. 25 East Main Street, Oyster Bay, New York
See you soon with some thoughts on steaks — but not the type of steaks you’re thinking of — and on other matters!
Ryan!!!
This column has been updated for clarity and humor, lol
Ryan Sutton is a contributing restaurant critic for The New York Times and editor of The Lo Times. You can read starred NYT reviews by Mahira Rivers and Ryan Sutton right here. And you can read “Where to Eat” columns by Luke Fortney and Becky Hughes over here.
Thank you for articulating a lesson it took me far too many soggy wraps and grim celebrity-chef salads to learn: at an airport, the chain is often the safer bet.
The famous name and suggestion of health keep fooling me. Like Bourdain, I now try not to eat at all, arrive hungry, and don’t waste a good appetite before the destination.