Sky Galley restaurant at Lunken will be forced to close after city cancels its lease

Erin Glynn | Cincinnati Enquirer

UPDATE: Sky Galley patrons start petition to keep restaurant open. Owner says he'd like to be at Lunken Airport 'another 20 years.'

The Sky Galley Restaurant & Bar at Lunken Airport will need to close or relocate following the city's decision to cancel its lease agreement Thursday.

"It's a complete shock," Kirby Brakvill, who has owned Sky Galley since 1999, told The Enquirer. "[The meetings with the city] went great from my perspective. I'd love to stay. My employees love it there, I love it there, my regulars love it."

The city's decision came after a Cincinnati Health Department inspection that identified potential food safety risks in the restaurant's space on September 16, including exposed pipes and a cracked sink in the kitchen, rusted and chipping storage shelves, water and debris collecting near the dish machine and general cleanliness concerns, according to the Health Department's letter.

Sky Galley has been inside the airport's old terminal building since the early 1940s.

The restaurant is known for its unique art deco location where patrons could watch planes take off and land as they dined. Pilots occasionally flew in to grab a "$100 hamburger," aviation slang for a meal you fly a short distance to eat before flying back home.

City administration discussed proposals for making the necessary repairs with Sky Galley owner Brakvill in the months before their ultimate decision to cancel the restaurant's lease and regain control of the space.

[ Subscribe now for unlimited access to Cincinnati.com ]

The Lunken Airport Oversight Advisory Board recommended to the city the location continue to host a restaurant. It is also open to proposals from interested parties with other ideas for the space.