Traveling isn’t easy as a religious Jew. You need to bring your own food for the plane, for your connection city, and if you want to travel anywhere interesting, food for your destination as well. And that’s not even getting into Shabbos and other issues.
In LAX all of the food at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf used to be kosher certified, but going forward none of the LAX locations will be under kosher certification.
Locations may still have kosher sealed sandwiches available.
My personal strategy when I need food at an airport is to locate the nearest kosher restaurant and ask them if they would be able to bring out an order to an Uber driver, sealed in kosher tape. When the food is ready I call for an Uber to go to the restaurant as the origin and use the airport as the destination. Then I message or call the driver to ask if they can take a bag of food from the restaurant to me at the airport and nearly all of the time it works out just fine. I’ve done this in Boston, Chicago, LA, Miami, NYC, and other airports.
An UberX from LA’s Pico area restaurants to LAX should run about $20.
NYC airports do sell kosher food and this exclusively kosher stand at United’s Tel Aviv gate is very impressive:
But at Newark I don’t even have to use my Uber strategy. The best kosher Sesame Chicken in the world (request the combo special with white meat) is delivered for free from New Kosher Special with a $40 minimum order.
On DDF there’s a thread with a Wiki that keeps track of other options for kosher food at airport here. If you know of other options not mentioned there please comment here or add it to that Wiki.
What’s your strategy for kosher food at airports?
what happened that they took away certification at LAX?
I’ll bet it’s a TSA issue
Actually, maybe they just don’t want to pay for hashgacha anymore
The previous owner of the company (Sassoon) was a shomer Shabbat Jew. I don’t know who bought the company but the new owners don’t have that interest is my educated guess.
I was there in January and didn’t see a certification when I asked them
Some were kosher and some weren’t since last February:
https://www.dansdeals.com/blank/select-coffee-bean-locations-at-lax-drop-kosher-status-roundup-of-which-ones-are-still-kosher/
Now none of them are kosher.
It makes sense. Shabbos is a big money loser.
Are you sure that they were closed for Shabbos previously?
Not closed. But they are limited in resupplying their food.
Coffee bean locations are not closed on Shabbos
They don’t have to be… Not owned by a Yid
why do you think they aren’t owned by a jew?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coffee_Bean_%26_Tea_Leaf
Horrible.
Thanks Dan,
I wish I knew of the option at lax when it existed.
I hope New Kosher Special will give you commission for posting them in the most popular jewish travel web page.;)
Lol, I wish.
the new united polaris at newark terminal C offers kosher food prepared with plastic etc. just ask for it and they make it in 5-7 minutes. during the 9 days it was a veggie choice. my suggestion- order, take a shower in their new amazing showers and come out and eat.
That’s great, have any pics of the food?
Polaris Clubs are amazing, would be great if they all stocked kosher food.
Pics next time sorry. Was too shocked to think pics! But it enabled me to skip both meals on the plane and to sleep nine hours. Woke up with 35 minutes left on flight. The gel pillows are game changers. Going to miss the 77w on the way home since I’m taking u84/777-200. Can’t wait for that plane to be swapped out.
Traveling kosher is getting less and convenient in the west..
First they took away the free hot kosher meals and proper scotch from the Centurion lounges. Now LAX is no more convenient for early morning departures or connections. Will have to “get food” before.
There are some kosher stands (CIBO Express) in LGA airport. One of them is at the end of the terminal, so you have to walk till the last gate (I can’t remember which terminal). However, there’s a non-kosher stand at the beginning of the terminal that has a big sign “Kosher Sandwiches”, with some packaged sandwiches without any hashgacha. (The pakistani guy and his family are the mashgichim, I’m guessing).
Isn’t that against NY State law?
Report them to the state.
Drinks are still fine, subject to one’s opinion regarding coffee shops that also sell food, though I don’t know if they will have hot trief which is potentially important.
Anyone know if the Venetian location is still kosher?
Yes. As of last week it was still under the hashgacha of LA kosher
Curious why this strategy is different than Uber eats (except obviously for stores that aren’t on Uber eats). In the five towns there are many restaurants that participate with Uber eats and I’m assuming would work fine for JFK for probably cheaper than a standard Uber.
Very few airports have ubereats kosher food within range.
In jfk term 4 they took away kosher food too in the store downstairs
Dan, The issue with your uber strategy is that you have to have a lot of time because you need to go outside security and wait by the door of the terminal, no? You wait by either departures or arrivals?
It does take time, but not bad if you have precheck.
Normally departures is less crowded
this is great news for uninformed travellers who keep kosher.
kosher-LA is a 100% worthless hechsher, that only exists for the sassoon family & Coffee Bean Company. no one recognizes it’s legitimacy, including the “lenient” kashrus organizations.
Thank G-d they removed it from LAX, and will stop fooling people into thinking they are eating kosher.
According to many knowledgeable people, it is better to drink a coffee from starbucks than coffee bean because of the concept of “nemonus” which means a non-Jew has certain amount of trust when asked about a kosher issue. If there is a “hashgacha” it doesn’t exist. so starbucks with no hashgacha is better than coffee bean with a worthless hashgacha
LostinCa:Where do you get your info? It’s mostly bs to many Orthodox Angelinos.
There is more than just Coffee Bean under Kosher LA hashgacha. Milkys frozen yogurt was recently certified by Kosher LA too and the most yeshivish people my city of LA eat there. So idk about that…
Traveling as a Jew is awesome!!!
Sure, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Does this have anything to do with OK buying out Kehila Kosher and raising the standards?
No.
I think just the opposite. Kehila was better then OK.
$20 makes for a rather hefty delivery fee, no? Must be, what, half or a third of the whole order!
I’ve used the Postmates app to get food from the Pico area delivered to LAX. We had a 3 hour layover and got our food in about 50 minutes after placing the order.
I’m flying to lax on Wednesday I have an 1hour51 min stop over, uber eats? What restaurant
Dan: Have you done this food delivery option since TSA’s regulation change requiring all food (including packaged snack foods) to be removed and separated for screening? Has it changed what can get through TSA?
Yes. No issues.
It’s a real big shame… live in LA used to always leave my house without eating knowing that I could go to the airport and grab a bite to eat before my flight, and also take a bagel to go and not be hungry during my flight… such a shame
Just stop at one of the dozens of CBTLs along the way, takes <5 minutes.
At least we still have the coffee bean in Las Vegas McCarran airport!
The AA flagship lounge in both JFK and LAX have kosher meals they can heat for you.
Wasn’t able to verify the hechsher of the meal in JFK, but the LAX meal was great.
Is there still a kosher coffee bean in san diego?
Yes
@Dan
I didn’t read all the comments yet. Why don’t you use uber pool for the sammich?
Hi dan they just opened one up in Baltimore if you come in and we go out your coffee is on me!!!
Familiar story. This happened with another large chain in California with a frum owner who eventually sold to another company and eventually none of their stores were kosher anymore. I hope that won’t be the case with Coffee Bean.
Hopefully the kosher one in Baltimore is a good sign of things to come.