Nancy’s Airport Cafe

Better alternative than McDonalds/​Starbucks for food or the free hotel bfasts.
Extremely large portion sizes. Next to airport. Very nice waitresses…
Homemade pie.

Family of 5 (kids ages 3, 6, 8) on a long roadtrip. Looking for a local place to eat… based on Unilocal we ate here. So great. Service was great, food was huge portions for an under $ 30 bill for 5 of us. We didn’t get drinks, but still. Right next to the airport so fun for the kids. Nice break and highly suggest.

This is Willows. We need gas and a place to eat. Unilocal said this place. Sure.
I have been to airport cafes, this is actually not too bad. The Broaster Chicken (fried chicken) were tasty. There were only two servers and they were quite busy, but also quite friendly.
The pie was just so so.
If you stop by Willows, for whatever reason, come here instead of other chain stores. It’s better.

Friendly staff and great food. I have had breakfast there several times and it was very good. I also have had dinner there several times. The best Chicken Fried Steak and the gravy is awesome. So far I have not been disappointed with Nancy’s. When you pull up it looks like a grease spoon but worth the stop if you are traveling on I-​5.

Always try and come here after a long race day at Thunderhill and it never disappoints. Outside is a little run down looking so that throws people off sometimes but once inside it’s worth it.

Had breakfast before the track.
The service was very good and the food very good as well. It’s our goto place for food before the track. Simple. Basic. Gets the job done.

Very unfriendly slow service. We had to work hard to win the affection of our server, and were continually reminding her to wait on us.
Hash browns were oily and flavorless.
I’ll give them 1 point for a decent blackberry pie.

Nancy’s Airport Café has a new owner but the same great pies! They have cleaned, painted and revamped the inside plus there is a new, friendly attitude from the owner and the staff all seem so happy to work there! Tonight we went after 9, thinking they were open until 10! They had a sign posted closing nine for maintenance. But the owner came to the door, invited us in, made our grandson pancakes and we were on our way with a sincere apology for the inconvenience and an invitation to come back soon. Delicious food, good prices, happy, attentive staff!

Wife and I are locals. She was hesitant to bring me here due to the fact when she visited about 7 years prior she did not enjoy her meal. She wanted to give it another shot and was pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed the «country» atmosphere and the planes taking off. I myself and from Hawaii and have never felt so comfy and cozy. Food was very delicious and big portions as well. Wife had the banana cream pie and did not make one peep while eating said pie. ;) Have visited 4 times in the last two weeks. Will be posting pictures of meals soon.

My husband and I had breakfast around 10am on Jan 31, 2016 and we will never ever return! The omelet my husband had was very small and very thin with hardly anything inside. The eggs looked and tasted like they came out of a carton. I had poached eggs and the eggs were well done and rubbery. The young waitress was very good… the manager (middle aged, thin, dark hair which was in a bun) was very rude to a table of two middle aged females. These two sent their food back and I saw the cook (middle aged, short, short hair female) take the plate off to the side and both the manager and cooks (older male and the female) were laughing very loudly! Sure makes me wonder what the female cook did to her food?! Then that plate of food was taken out and served to the females… written by Nanette

First things first. I did not eat here. Tried to go to this place while traveling from Las Vegas to Seattle. Unilocal says they’re open until 10 & when walking in at 9:15 we were told they were closed & had been since 8 and was not particularly friendly about it. If you have a restaurant right next to the middle of nowhere, it would be greatly appreciated if you kept your info on Unilocal current.

This place USED TO awesome! The chicken fried steak … The biscuits-​n-​gravey legendary.
Now … something awful has happened and this placed has hit an all time low.
Stopped in today (01/​09/​2016 @ 5:30pm) surprised to see an empty parking lot at the dinner hour. I have been here more times than I can count … Usually for breakfast by lunch and dinner too and this place is almost always packed.
There was one other couple eating and two tables just finishing up.
The service was terrible! Ordered hot herbal tea. It was stone cold.
After waiting for TEN MINUTES in a nearly empty restaurant I finally was able to flag the waitress over. At that time I also pointed out the sugar container had hard sugar and if I could please have another (I had already exchanged it with two different tables and those both had hard sugar too).
She never brought me sugar. She never brought the cream I asked for when I ordered the coffee.
We both ordered eggs and bacon and toast.
It was A W F U L !!! The over medium eggs we both over cooked. Cold, rock hard toast with sloppy barely there butter added. (((in a nearly empty restaurant!!!)))
Nasty soggy hash browns. Bacon ordered crispy … Bacon received BARLEY COOKED!!!
we were mid long road trip … We were starving … We barley ate and walked away sad that one of our (former) fav spots was gone :-(
I will never eat here again.

We stopped here on the way north from Sacramento. We had fond memories of flying in to eat pie here many years ago, and wanted something out of the ordinary again today. So, we stopped by. The kids’ milkshakes were very good. When our food came we were quite surprised by the large portions.
My Cobb salad included mushrooms– a nice touch. It was rather tasty, but a bit too much on the plate to avoid toppings falling off, especially when I needed to cut tomatoes, cucumber slices and eggs down to size.
The breakfast-​at-​any-​hour offering was a happy finding for our son ordering from the kids’ menu.
My husband’s burger and fries were terrible– very plain and unsatisfying.
My daughter really enjoyed her open faced hot beef sandwich, complete with mashed potatoes.
The restrooms were unkempt, although stocked with all necessities and roomy.
We wish that the quirky aviation photos that grace the walls appeared to be a continuing tradition rather than a fading one.
Overall, this is a place we are unlikely to visit again, we are sad to say.

I finally had a chance to have the food at Nancy’s, and not just their delicious pies. We decided to pick up breakfast and lunch from here, and I called my order in ahead of time since they were pretty busy when I came in before. The food was ready in about 15 minutes, and I was able to pay and grab everything right away. I tried:
–Biscuit & Gravy ($ 2.99,
): One biscuit = a giant box filled with biscuits and gravy. They definitely do not skimp on either, and you get a LOT of bang for your buck with this dish. I loved the white cream gravy, although I did wish it had more sausage chunks and a bit more salt. The biscuit was nice and fluffy though, and really good. Recommended!
–Broasted Chicken (
): Nice and crispy! I loved the skin on the chicken, and the pieces were flavorful and cooked well. Recommended.
Overall, I enjoyed both dishes I had at Nancy’s, and look forward to coming back for more food and pie!

Nancy’s is wonderful. I try and fly there once a month for a burger and the occasional pie to-​go. Great staff. Great cooks. Great atmosphere
Keep up the great work!

Food was great, server very friendly. i had the Philly steak sandwich, and mom had the chicken fried steak, both were great!

Love this place!!! Great food and awesome pie. It’s a must stop everyone I come though here.

Nice restaurant with a solid breakfast. One of the only places I’ve been to in awhile w perfect over medium eggs. Bacon was perfect. Pretty good hash browns!

I’ve read through the other reviews and I agree with them. For a small restaurant they have a diverse menu. And truth be told there are some things they do better than others. Since I’ve been here many times I’ll just list my general impression instead of a rundown of my last visit.
Broaster Chicken:
Crispy shell, moist meat. And when you first take a bite the chicken will be very hot and you will burn your mouth. I usually get this when I go for dinner and I’ve never had a bad batch. Though I would say they should season the chicken a tad more. It’s one of those things that you can only get at Nancy’s and I tend to get it every time I’m up at thunderhill.
Soups:
Can’t have Clam Chowder (shellfish allergy) so I usually get the vegetable beef. It’s homemade. Broth is very meaty with small chunks of ground beef and sometimes it has frozen vegetables and sometimes it’s fresh vegetables. (depending on the season). It’s very… very…GOOD. I don’t crave it like the chicken, but l usually get it instead of the salad bar.
Breakfast:
Standard run of the mill food. The Coffee is good. Haven’t had anything bad or truly exceptional either. Want an American style breakfast, you won’t be disappointed.
Steaks:
Oh Nancy’s how you torment me with your beef. The prime rib is good. Steak sandwich nice! Steak dinner… ugh. I like my steak rare/​medium rare. And Nancy’s cooking surface is just not hot enough to do this right.
The beef is decent quality but when I get my steak its either nice crust and toast in the middle. Or rare in the middle with a pale outer. I’ve been disappointed too many times to order it again.
Pies:
Get the pies in season, and often. I don’t know what they do to these things but they’re addictive. Fruit pies when in season are made with fresh fruit. Get them!
Misc:
Garlic bread: Good
Fries: Good

The Good:
Logging 3.8 hours of flight time with the wife and daughter as passengers. Enjoying a brunch with like minded pilots & friends. Oh, and doing a soft field landing (wheelie) in my plane the entire length of a 3000 feet runway while being recorded (
).
The Bad:
The Willow-​Glenn Airport where Nancy’s is located (
). An IMC nightmare.
The Ugly:
I’d have to say the restrooms. Singe stack only, creating a waiting line to get in. No bueno.
The Synopsis:
After landing late and past the noon hour. I decided to order off the breakfast side of the menu instead of lunch. Since I don’t eat pork, the only item appealing to me was the «Popeye Skillet» Made with spinach, mushrooms, swiss cheese and I substituted ground beef for the bacon.
The Conclusion:
After hearing so many great things about Nancy’s, I wanted to love it before ever trying it. But, love just wasn’t meant to be.
My best description would be, a diner in between Black Bear Diner, IHOP and Denny’s but, with a better wait staff.
The food was just okay. Nothing to brag about. I thought the portions were small and the food was bland. Whenever I have to doctor my food up with hot sauce, pepper and ketchup after my initial bite, there’s an issue.
But, In Nancy’s and my friends defense. I did state I opted for breakfast well after the noon hour. Maybe there’s something there. Maybe past the lunch hour, I should have ordered from either the lunch or diner menus.
I’ll return soon and try something from either the lunch or dinner menus. I’ll also have to try a piece of their pie since everyone raves about that too.