Atlanta airport atrium hosts 20 food venues

Welcome back, everyone. Well, it's a taste of travel without even having to leave Atlanta, making it really easy for you. In fact, 20 restaurants are serving up bites today at today's Taste of Hartsfield-Jackson. There's a chef competition going on. There's music, there's giveaways. They are making this a whole thing. So our Chris Rosenthal. I'll speak up here and I'll... So I'll pan around and show you. We'll get to the food here. I mean, there are about, like you said, about 20 restaurants here, showcase restaurants from across Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport here. And people are coming out, open to the public here to come and taste. For $15, you can get a ticket booked to come and taste all of these restaurants here. And I've got the general manager here, Ricky Smith here. Tell me a little bit about this event. Why have this event here? You know, the passenger's experience is so attached to culture, culture of the city, culture of the airport, and food is such a big part of Atlanta's culture. And so we just want to showcase the many culinary assets that we have here. We have some 20 culinary features here. Four of them are new, and so people get a chance to try all of them. We're doing it in good spirit. At the same time, we're raising money for Meals on Wheels, an important charity in our community. And we just want people to have a good time. And when you look around, this is a big turnout, huh? Yeah, so we have some 600 people that registered, which is up from last year. And so we're excited. We think people are excited. And again, it promotes the culture of the city and the airport. Wonderful. And there's judging here, too, as well, huh? So we have some 20 chefs that will be competing. To be the top chef, and you know, as chefs go, none of them want to be second, so it's pretty stiff competition, and so we'll be judging them. We have, look, Tamela and her husband will be judging, and celebrity judges, and so we're looking forward to that as being part of the excitement as well. All right, wonderful. Well, thank you for joining us here. Appreciate it. Yeah, we'll go around here. Yeah, this goes on from, uh, till four o'clock today here at Hartsfield, uh, in the, uh, in the domestic terminal here. Hey, if you're coming out, maybe taking a flight today, come a little early, get a ticket, come get a sample of some of the food. Dude, um... I'll try and show you some of the food here, actually, because that's really the highlight after all, right? I mean, got all kinds of great stuff here. I don't know about you. My mouth is watering for sure over here, and they got some judging going on here on the other side. I think they have celebrity chef Kat Cora over here doing some judging, and yeah, I'll be here throughout the day. checking it out. So back to you, Elise. I gotta tell you, Chris, I feel like this is such a good look at what's actually offered at the airport. You know, you don't think of airports as just having something, you know, I don't know, a burger and fries that you grab. This is showing all the inside of the airport. What are some of the things that have gotten your attention? Those waffles look good. Oh, yeah, absolutely. The chicken and waffles look good. Yeah, I mean, some of these restaurants, you know, some are exclusive to the airport. Some of them you can see outside the airport as well, places that you can go. So, yeah, so, you know, it's a good way to try some food that you can have here or, you know, outside the airport. What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? Going down right now, is this like the chef tasting? Because they're doing everything about it. I just saw a sniff of this. They love you. They're looking, oh, yeah, what's going on? All right. These are the judges here. Yeah, you have Kelly Potter, Cat Cora, Chef Malone here. They're some of the judges here today. And they are taste testing from some of these local restaurants here. Yeah, exactly. I love it. It looks like they're having a time, too. I got to tell you, too, I'm impressed with just how many. How many people are out there at this event? There's a huge crowd, Chris. Yes? Oh, yeah. Well, they said they're expecting about 600 or so people who've gotten tickets. And this started at 11. So this, you know, just started about an hour ago. And it was already crowded. I'm excited. You know, as soon as they opened it up, they got music here, too. They got a band. So real festive atmosphere here in the atrium. I mean, if you've been through here, it's usually just kind of an empty... Yeah, do you get the sense, Chris, that they're trying to put a focus on local brands? Because that's one thing I feel like Hartsfield-Jackson does so well. I mean, you've got the big chains, but you also have a lot of local restaurants, breweries and bars that are out there as well. So are you seeing maybe some of those local brands that are being highlighted through this? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you see some of the brands here. I mean, of course, you know, Longhorn. You know, that's obviously a chain, but you know, Echo, you've got, you know, Ludacris is chicken and beer here, so that's a local one, so yeah, some local, some, you know, some bigger chains, so a little bit of everything here. Here. A little bit of everything and a whole lot of people out there at Hartsfield-Jackson enjoying the food and taking it all in, so Chris, thank you so much, I hope you get a chance to enjoy some of that food out there as well.