Bygone places / Wings Airplane-Café, the wonderful dream of my childhood
Ingenious idea: turning a DC-4 airplane into a café near Mexico City’s airport.
By Alejandro Pohlenz
My childhood fantasy was to become an airplane pilot. In fact, while researching the Wings Airplane-Café, I recalled a time when the pilots invited me into the cockpit of a jet. We were headed to Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, and I became the happiest child in the universe. (I don’t know why they chose me—maybe because I was a friendly red-haired, freckled kid, like Dennis the Menace). The thrill was immeasurable when the pilot tilted the plane (no joke) so I could get a perfect photo of Pico de Orizaba.
The Airplane-Café
So, as you can imagine, my ultimate dream was to have breakfast inside an airplane! In 1965 (I was 4 years old), Mr. Joaquín Vargas (1925–2009) bought a confiscated DC-4 airplane. After attempting to commercialize it in some way (for commercials, for example), he had the incredible idea of turning it into a café. To me, it was a fantastic dream! Especially because you could peek into the pilot’s cabin and then sit inside the plane to enjoy a milkshake, a banana split, or a hamburger (there were packages like the “Mexico–New York flight”), which was just a simple burger with fries with “international flavor.”
Every time we went to the airport and passed by the airplane-café, I would sigh. Airplanes continued to fascinate me until I decided not to become a pilot, but to study Communication Sciences. (I thought that as a pilot I wouldn’t have much of a future; maybe not as a writer either, ha ha.)
The Entrepreneur Joaquín Vargas
Joaquín Vargas founded Stereorey in 1967, the first radio station to broadcast in stereophonic sound. In 1989, he launched MVS Multivisión. By the 1980s, despite Vargas opening other Wings restaurants near and inside the airport (and forming the Mexican Restaurant Corporation), the magical Airplane-Café began to deteriorate. Later, a kitchen fire occurred, and the plane was dismantled (the cockpit ended up in the Papalote Museum).
Now, on the site of the airplane, there is a Wings restaurant, parking lots, and many antennas (and I am sad).
Boulevard Puerto Aéreo
Permanently closed.
