A First Look Inside JetBlue’s JFK Food Court

JetBlue unveils its culinary mecca at JFK's Terminal 5 on October 1, and we've scored restaurant renderings designed by meatpacking-friendly firm ICRAVE (STK, Tenjune, One Little West 12). The designs are classy and varied: Alexandra Raij should be cozy in her warped tapas bar; Michael Schulson's Asian spot Deep Blue is meant to make you feel cocooned in water; and Mark Ladner's Aeronuova trattoria screens old Italian flicks. The Loft, which has no celebrity-chef affiliation, recalls a Soho apartment you can't afford. La Vie, the French café, isn't the most daring design-wise, but a menu from Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson could make up for it. Since you can't eat until you clear security, we're booking our tickets now.

A Peek Inside the New JetBlue Terminal at JFK: An Antidote to Air Rage?

The cornucopia of fine-dining options at JetBlue's soon-to-open JFK terminal isn't for everyone — some of us are fine subsisting on $8 trail mix from the Grove and a pouch of Terra Blue chips, thank you. But the affable David Rockwell and architecture super-firm Gensler recently gave a hard-hat tour that proved $743 million can buy a little something exciting for everyone. Starting October 1, JFK's landmark Terminal 5 (originally designed by Eero Saarinen) will no longer stand abandoned beside the AirTrain — it will be alive with JetBlue passengers. Among the highlights:

• Playgroundlike springy rubber floors specially designed for post-security bare feet.
• A marketplace (ahem, retail and concessions) with grandstand-style seating and JetBlue-sanctioned buskers (Rockwell cites Union Square as his inspiration).
• Four words: Ron Jon Surf Shop.
• Twice the number of required toilets, including an extra-large WC labeled "Family Bathroom," which may deter awkward foot-tapping incidents.
• A handy time-warp passage. As soon as the last speck of asbestos is wiped clean from Saarinen's 1962 terminal, passengers can be dropped curbside to reenact their own TWA-era farewells, and then proceed through the restored "flight tubes" to the new terminal.

To prevent a total meltdown on October 1 (à la London Heathrow's Terminal 5 debacle), the airline is staging a mock opening day on Saturday. More than 1,000 frequent flyers, plus crew, family, and friends, will show up, be handed empty suitcases and script, and embark upon a simulated journey — sans planes. Let's hope no one else ever has to wait around for a flight to nowhere.

High Five for T5 [JetBlue]