Meet the 'Culinary Avengers' bringing local flavor to San Antonio's airport
Chef Johnny Hernandez poses for a portrait outside La Gloria at San Antonio International Airport. He's handpicked a team of local chefs to bring their restaurant concepts to travelers flying in and out of the city. (Charlie Blalock/For the San Antonio Express-News)
When a global airport concessionaire first approached Chef Johnny Hernandez to open a restaurant in the San Antonio International Airport more than a decade ago, the first thing he did was hop on a flight.
The San Antonio City Council had awarded HMSHost a multimillion-dollar food and beverage concession contract for Terminal A, and the airport concessionaire was looking for local restaurateurs.
Hernandez, who owns several popular culinary endeavors in the Alamo City, wasn't about to hand over his recipes and name to just anyone. He needed to see firsthand how the concessionaire operated at other airports. He also had a set of conditions for HMSHost. The deal ultimately brought his Mexican restaurant La Gloria to the airport and cleared a path for local restaurateurs to get final say over how their brands are presented.
After finding a profitable groove with the chef, HMSHost turned to Hernandez for his help in taking local cuisine to the next level at the airport. He's put together a team of six local award-winning chefs to bring their concepts to the airport - and, like Hernandez, they will be in control.
"This is probably the proudest project I've ever done in my 25-year career," said Anthony Alessi, HMSHost's vice president of business development. "This is a team of what I'm calling ‘Culinary Avengers.'"
Among those joining the HMSHost culinary team is James Beard semifinalist chef Jason Dady. "Nationally, they have a great reputation. This is not their first time around the sun, and more so than that is just Johnny's relationship with them. He's assured us that they've been great partners for him, and put us at ease knowing that we have someone in control of our brands that we trust."
Chef Johnny Hernandez speaks with employees while observing food preparation earlier this month inside La Gloria at San Antonio International Airport. Airport concessionaire HMSHost and Chef Johnny Hernandez have teamed up to build a powerhouse team to bring local flavors to the airport. (Charlie Blalock/For the San Antonio Express-News)
What most travelers may not realize is that the chefs or owners behind local restaurants do not have full ownership of their airport locations. Instead, big concessionaires bid for the chance to operate multiple stores at an airport. Sometimes they use their own in-house brands, but more often these days, they license names from local hot spots and serve a similar menu.
Maryland-based HMSHost, for instance, operates six restaurants throughout the San Antonio airport, including Rosario's Mexican Cafe y Cantina and Mission City Ice House. Not only that, but the concessionaires employ and train the restaurant staff, pay for the buildout of the space and fund the cost of equipment, food and supplies.
In return for allowing concessionaires to use their name and menus, the restaurateurs get a cut of restaurant sales without having to invest in the initial construction of the business or worry about day-to-day operations. Not to mention the free marketing to nearly 30,000 passengers traveling to-and-fro everyday.
Flavor destinations and ETAs
Here's what HMSHost and the "Culinary Avengers" are bringing to San Antonio International Airport and the respective ETAs.
Tre Pizzeria: From chef Jason Dady; opened in Terminal A in December
Pharm Table: Chef Elizabeth Johnson; opening in Terminal A in February
Chef Johnny's Mercado: Chef Johnny Hernandez; opening in the airport's new ground-load facility in March
Bakery Lorraine: Chefs Charlie Biedenharn, Anne Ng and Jeremy Mandrell; opening in Terminal B in March or April
Southerleigh Fine Food and Brewery: Chef Jeff Balfour; opening in Terminal B in March or April
Freight Fried Chicken: Chef Nicola Blaque, opening in Terminal A in June
2M Smokehouse: Chef Esaul Ramos Jr.; opening in Terminal B in June
The Tasting Room: Fredericksburg's Becker Vineyards; opening in Terminal B in June
They often have to accept a loss of quality control and a risk to their reputation when handing over their name and recipes to concessionaires.
But Hernandez has laid the groundwork to change that.
"My relationship with HMSHost is a true partnership," he said. "Despite being a very large restaurant operator, they are willing to partner with chefs in a way where they have complete control over their brand, which hasn't always been the case. National operators usually like to control everything with the food offering, how procurement happens and how it's staffed."
Back in 2012, when HMSHost first approached Hernandez, the concessionaire already was working with highly regarded chefs around the country, including Michelin-starred chef Rick Bayless at Chicago's O'Hare Airport and James Beard Award-winning chef Todd English at LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports in New York.
"I said, ‘Well, I guess I need to go inspect some of your kitchens,'" Hernandez said.
Without giving the concessionaire time to prepare, Hernandez flew directly to Chicago and then to New York to see how the company operated those chef-driven concepts.
"I told them I didn't want to set up a meeting. I'm just going to fly in, and all I need is the name of the general manager and chef, and I'm just going to show up one morning," he said.
But even after seeing those operations in action, Hernandez had some conditions before agreeing to the partnership.
"I said, ‘If you want me to be your partner, I need to have creative control. The chef needs to be my employee, and the manager needs to be my employee, and those are nonnegotiable,'' Hernandez said.
His quality-control measures extended beyond the staff.
To ensure the food reflected what's offered at La Gloria's San Antonio locations in the Pearl and on the South Side, Hernandez installed a wood-fired kitchen at the airport restaurant. He also set up shop at a nearby commissary kitchen to replicate his made-from-scratch salsas, tortillas and chips.
The risk has paid off in full.
Hernandez is now a joint venture partner of HMSHost's entire portfolio of 1,000 locations in nearly 80 airports across North America. His airport location for La Gloria is also his highest-performing restaurant, as well as one of the most successful at the San Antonio airport and within HMSHost's portfolio.
As of September 2025, La Gloria had made $2 million in gross revenue, according to airport data obtained by the San Antonio Express-News. In 2024, the airport restaurant made about $3 million in gross revenue. Hernandez said that as a local brand, he's getting a standard royalty distribution of between 4% and 5%.
"When we first opened, we did around $1.3 million or $1.4 million in sales, and by year two, we were doing $2.5 million," he said. "Then we exceeded $3 million, which was unheard of. I think we're going to see the same success from these local brands" making up his team.
After opening La Gloria in 2013, Hernandez went on to open his other San Antonio restaurants, La Fruteria and Super Bien Mex Cocina in Terminal A.
"We've been our own for a while, so this (adding other local chefs) has been a long time coming," Hernandez said. "This team is really going to elevate the entirety of the food experience in our airport."
Chef Johnny Hernandez speaks with employees while observing food preparation earlier this month inside La Gloria at San Antonio International Airport. (Charlie Blalock/For the San Antonio Express-News)
The exterior of the La Gloria Bar is seen at San Antonio International Airport. (Charlie Blalock/For the San Antonio Express-News)
Airports haven't always been strong promoters of their local restaurant scenes, preferring in the past to rely on the most well-known fast-food restaurants or airport-specific brands. But that has changed significantly in the past decade as travelers became more interested in eating locally.
In July, the city awarded HMSHost a new 10-year contract and an additional five-year lease extension to open 14 new dining concepts in terminals A and B.
The concessions program, which covers an area of more than 19,800 square feet, is part of the airport's multibillion-dollar improvement plan. The focus for the concessions portion is introducing local, award-winning, chef-driven concepts to travelers flying in and out of San Antonio.
Hernandez handpicked a team of local chefs who he believed would be the most successful. He wanted chef-operators who are invested in their business and care about the community.
"There's a large investment of time upfront, and there's capital you have to invest," he said. "It's a very demanding. It's difficult to hire, difficult to procure a product, and it can be one of the most difficult places to operate a restaurant, so you really want to have partners who are in it and understand operations, sacrifice and hard work."
HMSHost has partnered with San Antonio chefs, from left, Esaul Ramos Jr., Jeff Balfour, Johnny Hernandez, Jason Dady, Elizabeth Johnson, Jake Dady and Nicola Blaque. (HMSHost)
In Terminal A, the culinary partnership will bring award-winning cuisine from Dady's Tre Pizzeria, Michelin Bib Gourmand-awarded chef Nicola Blaque's Freight Fried Chicken and chef Elizabeth Johnson's Pharm Table.
Also in Terminal A, Hernandez's La Gloria will get a refresh, and he's turning La Fruteria into Southtown Market, a grab-n-go market with alcohol.
In Terminal B, HMSHost is opening Michelin Bib Gourmand-awarded chef Jeff Balfour's Southerleigh Fine Food and Brewery, James Beard semifinalist chef Esaul Ramos Jr.'s 2M Smokehouse, the Tasting Room by Fredericksburg's pioneering Becker Vineyards and nationally recognized Bakery Lorraine from pastry chefs Charlie Biedenharn, Anne Ng and Jeremy Mandrell.
"I don't think I've ever had a stronger culinary lineup of multiple James Beard-recognized chefs and Michelin-recognized chefs," Alessi said. "Who are you going to call when you need good food? You're going to call this team."
Hernandez also is offering a blend of his restaurants under a new concept for the airport, Chef Johnny Mercado. It will be in the airport's incoming ground-load facility, which will include new Terminal A gates and added concession space.
"I am at the mercy of whoever is going to travel all the way down to the concourse to the ground-load facility, but I wanted to take the riskiest spot," Hernandez said. "I wanted to make sure every chef had a location with visibility and volume."
Hernandez has ensured that the group of local chefs will get the same creative control over their restaurants that he has, with a final say on the menu and the ingredients, as well as some ownership role.
"Nobody is surrendering their brands to HMSHost," Hernandez said. "Everyone has been very meticulous in making sure they're well-represented, even if they aren't all our employees. There's a very clear expectation that each of these chefs has for their restaurant. I win if everyone wins."
HMSHost was willing to put in the work with the local chefs in order to create an elevated culinary landscape within the airport.
"We're not just taking their names and running their brands," Alessi said. "We truly want partners involved for authenticity and to help us create their vision for their concepts. We're all in the same business to obviously make a little bit of profit, but the passion on the culinary side is the No. 1 focus when you have such talent."
New arrivals
HMSHost's willingness to collaborate is what ultimately sold chef Dady and his brother/business partner, Jake Dady, on opening Tre Pizzeria's Terminal A location in December.
"During our first meeting with them, I could tell they were a step above," Jason Dady said.
Dady and his team all have airport badges and can pop in at anytime to check in on the brand. He's also hired his own manager to oversee the new location.
The chef-owner has replicated the recipes from the pizzeria's original Boerne location and is using the same distributor to deliver the products used at its streetside restaurant. He's adapted the menu to be more traveler-friendly with pizzas made fresh to order, salads and sandwiches.
"We're not using a different cheese," he said. "We're not using a different San Marzano tomato. We're using the exact same brands, so it's the flavors that people will come to expect from us."
Chef Jason Dady prepares a pizza in the kitchen of newly opened Tre Pizzeria in Terminal A at San Antonio International Airport. (Charlie Blalock/For the San Antonio Express-News)
Chef Johnson said Pharm Table's grab-n-go model already translates to the quick airport setting. The health-conscious restaurant, which started as a meal-delivery service, has been "putting food in containers for years, whether it's for our meal plans or cleanses," she said. "That's one of my superpowers: putting food into a box and making sure that it tastes good, that it lasts and that it's nutritious."
Pharm Table, which opens in Terminal A next month, will have existing employees from her own restaurant and others who have trained with her to ensure her standards are met.
Johnson said she's proud to be one of the first local plant-forward restaurants to open in the airport, as well as part of an experienced team of chefs that's helping put San Antonio on the map.
"When I think about the last 10 years of Pharm Table, I've always wanted to provide something that was a Venn diagram of health, flavor and convenience, so having the opportunity to be in a high-volume location like the San Antonio airport is really a dream for me," Johnson said.
Taking flight
In addition to a restaurant overhaul, the airport is in the midst of an expansion with the construction of a new $1.7 billion terminal. Rick Neel, the airport's aviation properties and development manager, said he expects the upcoming addition also will feature local talent to give the airport a sense of place.
"There are so many concessionaires out there that will have the chance to showcase local food concepts," he said. "This is a testament to our community and our evolving culinary culture as San Antonio becomes a well-known foodie town."
Looking down the runway, Hernandez hopes the team's success will inspire other concessionaires to take on the same challenge, as well as persuade local chefs across the country to take a chance.
"This is the future because customers today want local, and the airport is either the first or last steppingstone for travelers to get a sense of the culinary culture," he said. "I'm happy we've taken this next step to make the airport a real destination for food."
Hopping on that flight in 2012 and taking the leap to team up with HMSHost was the right course, Hernandez said.
"The opportunity to have our brand front and center as millions of travelers come through the airport has been a blessing," he said. "We've become one of the first margaritas they sip on their trip in, and the last they enjoy before their way out."
