Story and Pictures contributed by: River Parishes Picayune

Airline Motors Restaurant is cooking again!

Airline Motors Restaurant serves a healthy turnout of customers Thursday night.

At 6 p.m. Thursday, the red neon sign on Airline Motors Restaurant flickered on, nearly a year to the day after the LaPlace landmark closed.
More than 100 people waited outside the restaurant on Airline Highway as former owner Lewis Woods, flanked by new owners, Richard and Mary Jo Alford, opened the doors to the diner-style restaurant that first began dishing up Cajun and all-American specialties when FDR was president.
Richard Alford said he fulfilled a lifelong dream by buying the restaurant and restoring it close to its original style, including its 24-hour operation.
"I wanted people to feel comfortable coming back in here," Alford said. "There are too many changes in life nowadays. I wanted people to feel like Airline is the one place that will never change."

Airline: Landmark is cooking

Last Christmas Eve, Woods shut the diner, unable to find anyone interested in taking over the business started by his father as a car dealership in 1939. A cafe and service shop opened two years later and the auto division gradually faded out.

Ever since, Airline has been the place where generations met for coffee or went for supper after Saturday Mass or a football game. Tony and Delores Dottolo of LaPlace first met when Tony, fresh from a stint in World War II, was managing the restaurant in the late '40s and '50s. Doleres was hired later as a waitress. The couple recently celebrated 39 years of marriage.

"I just remember walking in one day and thinking he had the most beautiful eyes," Doleres Dottolo recalled as she and her husband reminisced with their former boss.

"LaPlace would never feel like home without this place," Tony Dottolo said.
Nearby, Noble, 33, bused tables, darting through customers. A busboy for Airline for 13 years, the LaPlace resident said he was unable to find work after the restaurant closed last year.

"It feels good to be back," Noble said.

No one was surprised to see Roland St. Martin among the first 100 people to pass through the doors in less than six minutes. St. Martin, a LaPlace lawyer, said he's been going to the restaurant almost daily since he was 16, usually meeting friends for coffee. For decades, he said, Airline was the main stopping point between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.


"Everyone came here. You saw the lawyers, the plumbers and laborers. This was the place for everybody," St. Martin said.

St. Martin, 70, was sitting down to a plate of crawfish etouffee, an old favorite that was on the original menu. Alford said he tried to stay true to the old menu so regulars wouldn't miss their favorite dishes.

Bernice Edwards, 73, Ouida Ann Nutt, 79, and Olean Clay 68, all of LaPlace, said the only thing missing was the turtle soup. The longtime friends said they hated passing by the empty parking lot for nearly a year.

"It was sad. We hated it because we always here on Sundays," Edwards said.

Bill Oubre, 39, of Norco, said not much had changed on the jukebox since his teen years.

"As long as I can remember you came for the company and the people," Oubre said. "That's what counted."

Alford said it was his mission to keep thins much the same in the 9,600-square-foot building, less than half of which is used for dining space. Most people agreed that almost everything was the same, aside from the fresh mauve paint.

"I guess what I'm hoping for is that those doors will never close again," Alford.