NASHUA – A welcome fixture at the Nashua Airport for decades, the Midfield Café, 83 Perimeter Road, is a stalwart for its regular clients and the perfect hideaway for folks who come for the food, while the kids come to watch planes taking off and landing.

Owner Sandy Cushing-Adams said business at the café has been gaining speed after a quiet spell during the COVID crisis.

“I have my regular dining area which is half capacity right now,” she said. “I’m still keeping everyone spread out and I rented some space at the end of the hall so that I could keep people spread out.”

With additional seating in a separate space, the café also boasts great outdoor dining which was expanded when the pandemic struck. Cushing-Adams estimates she can seat 49 inside and outside she can facilitate 35.

“Business has been picking up,” she continued. “The winter was really, really rough. I thought about closing for the winter because I was still paying my employees fulltime. It was painful. There were days when we would do $100 in business.”

When the state mandated restaurant closures, Cushing-Adams said that some employees were able to collect unemployment but when that ended, she didn’t want to see her staff making less money.

“I pay my employees really well,” she said. “I didn’t want to make them lose money. But we did get the PPP money both rounds. That helped us for a period but when business was so bad, it was hard to pay the bills. That second round was like a lifesaver.”

Cushing-Adams acknowledged that she doesn’t necessarily have people seated at both indoor and outdoor tables. Weather is an obvious factor with outdoor seating and sometimes, one person may sit at a four-top which makes it harder to bring the café even to half-capacity.

“When the woman from the board of health came in, she was talking about the fact that I have six tables of four in the overflow seating area,” she said. “I said, ‘That’s true but there’s a party of one sitting at one four-top, and another party of one sitting at another four-top. We’re not meeting our capacity, just because we have a few extra chairs.”

The regular café clientele is a big part of Cushing-Adams’ business and she said they’re the bread and butter of the operation.

“There are airport regulars,” she said. “They’re a big part of how well we do. And boy, it’s weird getting old. I used to see parents bring their kids in. Now I see those kids who are adults now come in. And some of those kids who are now adults are bringing in kids of their own. And some of the kids who grew up coming to the diner are now working here for me.”

Cushing-Adams said traffic at the airport, with flights resuming, more people are coming into the restaurant.

“I think with some people during COVID, they were actually taking their aircrafts out more often,” she said. “People were just stuck home or working from home. So that part has been good.”

During a time when Southern New Hampshire University was offering engineering and flight programs, Cushing-Adams said students also patronized the café.

The café itself became airborne in 2001 when Cushing-Adams bought the restaurant. She sold the café for two years when she was attending school to become a nurse and was working at an assisted living facility. She sold it (and bought it back from) Celebrations Catering’s owner Fred Manheck.

“It just wasn’t for Fred,” she said. “And I was missing it. I didn’t tell my husband that I had bought it back. It was a surprise that he wasn’t very happy about.”

Today, Cushing-Adams and her husband together have six children and 11 grandchildren.

And the hope is that this summer will be busy, but recouping money is another thing.

“It’s funny,” she said. “Fred and I were talking about it the other day. We were talking about the funding that we’ve received and how fortunate we were. It was so hard to hold on and some people couldn’t hold on.”

Cushing-Adams said that there were some days when she asked herself, “Why am I even going into work?”

“I don’t mind not making money,” she said. “But I didn’t like losing money every day.”

Manheck and Cushing-Adams were talking and discussed that while the PPP money they received was essential, it didn’t erase the months of losing money.

“Fred said it’s not getting us ahead,” she shared. “It just kept us from sinking. I am hopeful. After we opened back up in the summer and fall, business was fine and then winter hit.”

Cushing-Adams lost two freezers and between buying extra gloves and sanitizer and hiring extra staff to do deep cleaning nearly all the time, she said it was never ending.

“The cost of supplies was up there,” she said. “We ran out of gloves and I said, ‘We can’t run the restaurant without gloves!’ It was a lot.”

Like many other business owners who closed and opened – sometimes more than once – without knowing when the worst of COVID was ever going to be, Cushing-Adams remains optimistic.

“I think we’re pretty much past it,” she said. “I don’t think we can every fully recover what we lost, but I know we can move forward.”

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