Spirit of San Luis Restaurant

I was really excited to come and try this place. Growing up in SLO, I have heard many people loving this restaurant. The service was excellent, we were seated right away and had a wonderful view of the airport.
I ordered the shrimp and crab open faced sandwich and my friend ordered the open faced steak sandwich. We were both slightly puzzled when receiving our plates. They both looked like $ 5 plates at a diner. I took the first bite of my sandwich and it tasted awful, like mooshed imitation crab with chunks of old shrimp and a weird creamy sauce. My friends was meal was very bland and dry. However, we both very much enjoyed our side of potato salad.
Like I said, the customer service, atmosphere and view were wonderful. I was dissapointed after hearing such great things. I may try it again and get something less adventurous like a salad or club sandwich, or maybe for their brunch, but that’s a big maybe.

If you have a layover at the SLO airport, this is not a bad place and the view is enjoyable. However today will be my last visit, I live in this area and there is no reason to come to this location and deal with the staff. I’ve had the same waitress the last few times and getting refills on drinks is like pulling teeth. Getting orders correct seems to be asking for a lot. With so many locations to dine at in SLO, I should not have to beg to get my drink refilled. Also bottomless champaign (not mimosas mind you) means 4 glasses. I was giving e strong impression today that muffins and a limit on glasses of champaign were more important than our experience, l and accuracy of orders. I had to wait 30 min for my food which was fine but I guess I had too many glasses of champaign while waiting (3 – 4). Too bad

Great french toast and chicken-​fried steak! I had my first apple-​muffin here, it was something. I enjoyed the view of the airport and my bird on the ramp. I’ll be back!

This place is so old and out dated it felt like stepping into a time warp. The service here was pretty slow, so slow in fact that I ended up leaving cash instead of paying with my card and ordering a 2^nd drink.
I cant comment on the food because I just had a drink before my flight, but if I had to guess I’d say it’s nothing to write home about.
As much as I’d love to say I’ll never be back here it’s the only place to get a drink art the slo airport.

First and lasting impression was the friendly service. Mitzi and her team were hustling to take care of a packed house, and they did so w/​a friendly and gracious attitude. Thank you, Mitzi!
As for the rest: good pours from the bar, which was nice, especially since our plane was delayed 2 hrs. The chow? The club Sammie was really good, w/​fresh sourdough, plenty of crisp bacon, and thick tomato complimenting the tasty sliced turkey. Fries were very good. Don’t know if they are fresh cut or frozen, but they were tasty and plentiful. Lastly, the place was clean — and we all like that, right?
Worth a stop for a drink, chow, or just to check out the neat aviation memorabilia that adorns the restaurant.
Cheers!
RS

Always delicious and the owners are so sweet! We love the breakfast sandwich and the spirit spuds (potatoes) are so yummy! The tuna melt is good too :)

This is a budget priced restaurant located by the San Luis Airport. You might want want to dine here just to watch the planes take off and land. The menu is American food and features several local snapper fish dishes so I picked one of them. The local snapper with a tossed salad. My salad was large and nice and fresh with house made croutons. My snapper was edible but wasn’t as fresh tasting as I was hoping for but I do note that it was a holiday so maybe I shouldn’t have ordered fish on a holiday. They topped the fish with tomatoes, lots of fresh avocados and cheese. It seemed it little odd but the cheese tasted good on the avocados but didn’t do anything positive for the fish. My husband ordered a cheese burger medium rare with cabbage salad. His burger came out more well done than he asked for and received potato salad instead of cabbage salad. It wasn’t the beefiest tasting burger out there but it was ok. The potato salad actually was pretty good and tasted like dill and celery salt.
On a holiday you don’t expect the best.
2.5 stars rounded up to three because of the holiday and the potato salad was tasty.

Last evening the hostess allowed three armed mercenaries to be seated in the dining room. They flaunted two pistols each. One of the uniformed men was perhaps less than a heathen and was not wearing his weapons. They had arrived in a grey plane, perhaps border patrol. Can’t believe they were really «on duty». Sure ruined the atmosphere.
Fries were awful.

So the only person who should eat here is airline staff or people connecting flights. The food isn’t really a bargain and the quality is low. It’s just not good food. Nice staff but really poor kitchen skills and quality control. For example last time I was there I ordered the hamburger steak and eggs breakfast. My hamburger patty broke in half on the grill and the cook sent out just half a patty. It was a frozen patty and they fake char one side but it was literally the size of a egg yoke, And obviously just torn in half. I was bummed I paid the full price for half the food.
Any cook or server worth a dime would not send that out to a customer. You are way way better off down the street a few miles at Del Monte Café. That place is great! I’ve been there for years and always consistently awesome.
But if your a pilot or connecting then that’s the only choice as its the only place with food connected to the airport.

Tried to get a to-​go order from them today. They decided to ignore me and answer phones instead. After standing there and waiting for a couple of minutes I left hungry and pissed off.

Lovely, unpretentious spot with wonderful food and excellent service.
I can see why it gets such good reviews. We flew in from Orange County for lunch. The staff couldn’t have been any nicer. It was Father’s Day so they were naturally very busy but we never felt rushed.
Food was fresh and delicious. We sat outside on the covered area and enjoyed our meal while watching the planes take off.

Sitting here with great view of this tiny but beautiful airport, with mountains in background
Ordered tuna salad. Large portion came on bed of lettuce, with large portion of fresh cut fruit. Just what i wanted/​needed
Good service too

Everybody here is friendly, and tripping over themselves to make your day a better one. My flight has been delayed multiple times, so I’ve been back and forth. Highly recommend drinking a Firestone DBA on the porch if you find yourself in the same predicament.

I was happy that this restaurant was open because I arrived really early for my flight! I ordered the club sandwich with french fries. It was OK, a bit flavorless, a pickle on the side would have perked it up a bit. Also, there was so much bread compared to the meat that I ended up not eating the crusts. I should have cut off the crusts before I removed the toothpicks. Their fries were OK, slightly seasoned, but most were not crispy enough or too crispy for my preference. I dined outside, which was nice, I got to see the planes taking off and landing. The weather was stormy, so I got some good cloud pics, too!
I would eat here again, but wouldn’t order the same dish. I was limited by my business trip per diem, otherwise I might have ordered something else.

I love airports and one thing I love even more than airports is a good airport restaurant! I moved out of the area 10 years ago and still crave the food– especially the Shrimp and Crab sandwich on the Brunch Menu. The Clam Chowder and Kitty Hawk sandwich are a few of my other favorites :)
The owners Doug and Julie are very gracious, kind and attentive. Doug is quick with the humor and often has customers rolling with laughter. They aim to please and will leave you feeling happy about things.
I am gunna try and copy their shrimp and crab sandwich so I can get my fix while living 4 hours away. It’s THAT good.

Excellent service and great food. Had breakfast with our 6yr old and watched the plans take off and land. Really cool and really nice people. Highly recommended!

The view is great and the service was standard. Cool location and awesome HUGE portions. The reason for the 3-​star is that the food was just «OKAY», nothing to write home about. I got the burger and my friend got the chicken tenders (yes, we ordered like 11 year olds… haha). If you like crispy fries, this place makes pretty decent ones. My suggestion would be not to eat here before flying out, because you’ll smell like the food, and the guy next to you will know, and you’ll feel self conscious, in turn ruining your flight.

It’s not often that a restaurant’s location makes much of an impression on me, but in Spirit’s case, I can definitely make an exception. Sitting right on top of the runway, we had pilots walking past our table to go down a ramp to their plane. If you’re into planes at all, a Sunday brunch at Spirit is a pretty awesome experience.
We had a reservations for a large group on the back patio, and the service we received from the owners was over-​the-​top friendly. Really nice folks here, and the wait staff keeps things rolling along.
I ordered the Huevos Rancheros ($ 9.25) — two sunny-​side-​up eggs on a corn tortilla with black beans and salsa, served with fried potatoes. They were a bit of a disappointment by Tex-​Mex standards (I make these at home all the time), but still very delicious, and their potatoes are better than anything I’ve ever pulled off. Pretty much everyone else in our party got Eggs Benedict — stick with good ol’ American grub and you’ll be fine. Servings here are generous. I’d give the Huevos a 3 out of 5.
I’d love to come back here again in the future for their mimosa brunch — they pour the champagne with a heavy hand, and everyone was having a great time.
Be sure to come on a warm, sunny morning and enjoy your coffee watching the planes ascend. There’s nowhere else quite like it.

Everyone was so nice, especially our hostess /​server, April! Thanks ladies. Looking forward to seeing you again on another trip ;-)
The freshly caught red snapper fish n chips was delicious.
A great fly-​in destination.

Decent décor, beautiful staff and a fair California grilled chicken sandwich with avacado & bean sprouts on a wheat bun with french fries dosed with a tony sascharis like spice to give them an extra kick.
The staff was attentive and friendly. Making sure to keep my glass of earl grey ice tea filled and checking to see if I needed anything.
The Iced Tea and sandwich with fries cost $ 16.07, well above what I would normally pay, yet this is California and I’m next to an airport so we’ll go with that being the cause. I’d definitely visit this establishment again.