Fantail Cafe

If you visit the USS Midway Museum and you’re hungry and you did not bring your own food, the Fantail Café is your only choice. I have been a museum member since it opened, and have brought many guests and fellow photographers for a tour of the ship, so I have eaten here quite a few times. First of all I should say that their menu is quite varied for such a venue and they do change it from time to time. They have hot and cold sandwiches, burgers, hot dogs, pizza and salads, but also very good Filipino Lumpia with sticky Rice, Quesadillas and Soup of the day served in a Sour Dough Boule. The variety and quality is much better than what you will find at the Zoo for example and actually quite tasty. Plus they don’t ream you with the prices, which they could, like at the Zoo. No $ 4 bottles of water here. Almost all the foo is between $ 7 and $ 9. Hats off to them for keeping it on this side of real. Plus members get 20% off which is cool. At the Zoo members get 0% off, not that I eat there, just saying. The setting is cool sitting in the stern of an Aircraft Carrier munching on Lumpia. The service is efficient, you pay, they call out your number. Nice variety of drinks too, including Beer and Wine. For being efficient, having good food, for not reaming their customers and for having good service, they get four stars from me, which I guess makes me a fan. But it’s true, I can bring guests here, there is a good selection and you can have a good meal.

Visited on a very busy Veteran’s Day and despite the lines, they were pretty efficient getting orders in and food out.
The sandwiches were reasonably tasty although you can expect to pay a slight premium for a waterfront venue. The portions are just enough to fuel you on your way to complete the ship’s tour.
Sometimes in «captive» venues like this you can feel ripped off by either price or poor quality. But this café does a pretty decent job.

5 star location and view, 1 star food and price. You really can’t beat eating or drinking on the back of an aircraft carrier, but the food was not great and cost way too much. But still, aircraft carrier…

USS midway museum is one of those places where you plan to visit for an hour and then you come out our pushing yourself after 4 hours. The visit here is never enough. This museum has so much to offer. I just love this place. But when you spend so much time here on such a huge ship, walking and going up and down on each deck, you are bound to get hungry. And then you head on to this small café located at the back deck of this huge carrier ship. We ordered a veggie burger and chicken quesadilla. The quesadilla was okay, but veggie burger was surprisingly tasty. The staff were courteous and happy. Are few tables at the back of the desk where you can sit and enjoy. Being on that ship is itself so amazing, and sitting at the deck and enjoying food is a difference experience all together. A must go place when you are at USS midway.

RUN LIKE HELL THE OTHER WAY!!! If you are planning to use this café for your catering services at the Midway museum, I recommend you search for another vendor. The staff is rude, does not communicate well, the food isn’t the best and it is very expensive. Ensure to read the contract thoroughly because the Café makes mistakes and then blames the customer. The service was an absolute disappointment!!! The catering department does great business on email but as soon as they provide the crappy service they treat the customer like garbage. I ordered 25 little mini sliders (a total of $ 700 on horderves only-​5 trays of 25 pieces each), for $ 150.00 and the bread was dry and meat was tasteless. They claim they bake the bread lol Please be very careful with this catering business. Save your money and spend it on another company worth your money. Had the experience and staff been better, I may have recommended the Café to others but after what I went through, I will tell you to run the other way!!! There is an obvious disconnect between the catering department and the Midway coordinator and they will never admit it. Even better, they block your emails after they no longer want to hear you out.

I ordered an Admiral Sandwich for lunch. It comes with roast beef, swiss cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, sandwiched between two slices of a bagel bun. In addition, chips were laid on the side. Overall the total cost was $ 9.50, a little pricey for what I am willing to pay for. However, some of the proceeds go towards the maintenance of the facility so that is that. Food came out promptly, no problems. Sometimes it can get crowded depending on the time of day you come. There is a Starbucks stand adjacent to the café if you want some espresso to perk you up for the day. I like their Square system for quick payment processing. Love the view from this side of the USS Midway. You can observe the Embarcadero boardwalk, Seaport Village (slightly), the Fish house, and I believe a trace of the sailor kissing the nurse statue. I wish there was more variety in food fare. All there seems to be is the banal food items: pretzels, churros, sandwich combos, pizza, nothing quite spectacular. Next time, I HOPE THERE ARE SOME MULTICULTURAL FOOD OPTIONS. Note, the main café is on the second floor of the ship. On the landing strip there is a smaller café vender with some chairs.

Are you stuck on the USS Midway and you need to eat? You’ve made it halfway through the tour but want to grab a quick bite to replenish those calories? Come here. It’s through the giftshop on the hangar level.
They have movie theater prices for about the same quality food. Not the best food, nor is it a good value, but it beats having to leave and take the long and arduous walk elsewhere. They have a large but weirdly varied menu. I saw things like Lumpia on there but I did not want to take a risk so I just grabbed a Hot Dog and some chips. It did the trick and I finished the audio tour.

I’ve eaten at the Fantail Café previously and have been amazed at the large and varied menu. As a dining place on a tourist attraction (in fact the only real dining option) the prices are not much more (nothing over $ 10) than some place like McDonalds, and of course the food is immeasurably better and there are always multicultural options to choose from. Like everyone who works or volunteers aboard the Midway, the staff is cheerful and helpful.
On my most recent visit I had one of the specials, an Asian chicken wrap (pictured). It easily could have been shared by two. I like that the Fantail Café also serves a good selection of beers. Overall, despite being a bit of a captive audience, I would very much recommend this place.
There are, however, a few little quibbles (as I write this, the café has been shut down for major remodeling and perhaps some of these issues will be addressed during the change).
First, I’m not a fan of having any fast food chain aboard such a wonderful and historic vessel. The Starbucks that shares space with the Fantail Café reeks of commercialism and IMHO was a bad decision. The people who grab a cup of coffee (often folks that are on their own) hog an entire table to drink their coffee, depriving the Fantail diners from snagging a place to sit … and seating is very limited as it is. If they want to have a coffee shop it should be located in a different part of the ship.
Second, if there are no tables available it is possible to take your food to a side deck which is open and spacious but to do so you have to juggle your way through the crowded gift shop. It looks like direct access could be possible with a little modification on the port side of the ship so I hope that is in the plans. There is, by the way, a small, claustrophobic room just off the port side of the Fantail dining room for overflow. Wouldn’t that be a better place to put the coffee shop?
Third, the existing space is not well used for diners, much of it wasted for a poorly designed lineup to place your order, and the floors are in terrible disrepair. I hope part of the remodel is to bring the Fantail Café up to the maintenance standards as the rest of the Midway.
Despite the quibbles and the nasty negative reviews, I know of no other place in the world where the public can dine aboard an historic aircraft carrier. For that reason and for all the hard work the staff and volunteers do to make the Midway available to us, I give them their (only) 5-​star rating.
Hey, people, you’re on a friggin’ aircraft carrier, you’re eating on a ship and you complain about pigeons and that it wasn’t a Cordon Bleu dining experience … what in the world did you expect when you decided to eat at their café???

Eating here was an act of sheer desperation. We had been on the Midway for four hours, and still had a ton to see. We were cold (it was windy and drizzly that day), hungry (having only had a couple of Kind bars for breakfast), and eager to see the rest of the ship, that we thought hitting up the Fantail Café would be our best option.
I really wish we would have left the ship for lunch.
They’ve got quite the racket going here. The food sounds impressive, when you read the menu board, but it’s rather uninspiring when it gets to you. Plus, it’s kind of pricey. I wasn’t expecting gourmet food, or anything, but I was hoping for a lunch that was better quality than what I can get at the Zoo, or any other amusement park in the area.
The area surrounding the café is impossibly crowded. There are a few tables and chairs scattered around, and there is ample additional seating if you follow the signs, but there is no good space to stand to wait for your food, and because the only open space is in front of their condiment section, that gets crowded, too.
I think the best thing about our meal was the server who took our order (she was friendly and gave us a discount because they were out of both soup and chili, and the board had not been updated to reflect that). The next best thing was convenience — not having to leave the museum.
I’m all a-​jumble on this review. Let me try to organize my thoughts a bit. So, there was a line when we got to the café, but it moved pretty quickly, given the fact that they only have two registers. My parents and I both got to a register at the same time, and completed our orders at the same time, yet their lunch came out a good 15 minutes before ours was called. And I’m certain the only reason we got our food when we did is because we asked them where it was. We ended up waiting for over 20 minutes for a sad cheeseburger and an even sadder pastrami sandwich.
There was only one person working to keep the eating areas cleaned, so we had to clean our own tables. Not a huge deal, but it always amazes me how disgustingly dirty people can be.
Anyway — the food, as I mentioned above, was meh. The burger looked big, but it was all bun. The patty itself was super tiny. My husband’s pastrami sandwich was similarly lacking in meat, but at least the bread was toasted. Both lunch plates came with a huge helping of kettle-​style potato chips, which were decent.
I wouldn’t go back, unless I was truly desperate. My final thought about the café is more of a suggestion — I think it’d be rad if they chose to serve some of the items that were served when the Midway was active. Specifically, the dish lovingly called «SOS», which both of my parents raved on and on (and on and on) about the entire time we were there. It’d be a fun addition, and it seems to be popular with veterans… and it certainly is a dish that can be made for the masses, as is proven in the museum itself. Just a thought.

A decent museum café with a nice view. I recommend that you try the tomcat turkey panini.

I bought the Afterburner Nachos and they were covered in some gelatin type «cheese» that was cold. The «chili» on the nachos was sweet and about 3 tablespoons. I tried to scoop everything off and just eat the chips. I gave up and threw my food away.
My son ordered the Chipotle Roast Beef Sandwich and threw it away. My youngest son ordered the Little Critter Fritters and ate them. They were the only thing that we could eat.
My son said we might as well have handed over our 38 dollars and called it a donation.

Far better than I expected from a little café in a museum. Tasty lumpia. A little pricey, but certainly not robbery. Cool view of downtown San Diego. I’d hardly suggest visiting the museum just to eat here, but if you’re spending the day wandering around this «floating city» anyway, there’s no great reason to leave and go elsewhere for a quick lunch with Fantail here.

Every museum has a café that sells overpriced and ok tasting food. This café has a menu that is beyond the usual hotdog and hamburgers but also sells Filipino food, paninis, and wraps. I tried the turkey panini with pesto and mozzarella and my husband had a salted pretzel and drink. The $ 9 panini came with chips and it was a good size with lots of turkey and gooey cheese. It was better than I thought for a museum café meal.
The seating is outside and there’s a net to keep the pigeons away but one did manage to get in. It never got to the food though and nibbled on the crumbs on the floor.
There are more places to eat after you visit the museum at Seaport Village which is about a 5 – 10 minute walk away. It would likely be cheaper and more selection. But if you can’t wait that long, this café serves a decent meal.

Has the usual stuff that little museum café’s would have, but also a few things that you’d wouldn’t really expect to be on there and they are possibly trying to be more than what they are (or should be).
If you go with one of their standard cold sandwiches, hotdog, etc you won’t be blown away or anything but you at least won’t be disappointed. I love a good burger (but they didn’t have one), reuben was very flat and had way too much thousand dressing, although the simple roast beef sandwich was pretty good… but personally not worth the $ 8.95 even with the side of chips.
We only really came here because we didn’t have enough time to go find another restaurant before our next planned activity, but definitely if time is not an issue then it’s probably best to check out some place else.

The only thing keeping this from being one star is the fact that there is a decent view and they serve beer. Which is very nice on a warm day after spending a couple of hours on your feet walking around the Midway. Our food experience was lacking to say the least. And there are a TON of pigeons.
Someone in charge has a very creative idea of what should go on the menu, more sophisticated ingredients than what you would expect in a museum café are present – however poorly executed. I kept it simple and got a caesar salad: The dressing was a legit caesar, complete with anchovies. Way too much (many?) anchovies. It was downright fishy. And the chicken was dry and badly seasoned.
My husband got the Turkey special which included chopped spinach and artichoke hearts as well as a sundried tomato aoli on multi-​grain bread. (I told you not typical museum café fare!) But again, the execution was just not «right.» I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but the bottom line is that neither dish was any good and we struggled with eating them. I just didn’t have the heart to go back and get something else.
So, if you go, stick with something safe like a hot dog. I wish I had!

Walking around the Midway Museum takes the better part of an afternoon and you will probably build up an appetite. The Fantail is a typical quick stop café with a limited menu. Even with a small menu they’ve worked some different items into the menu like SOS/​chipped beef, lumpia and sourdough chili bowls with the standard chicken fingers and burger fare.
The simple food comes with a great view and some pesky neighbors that will buzz you for some bites… mostly fearless seagulls and pigeons.
The best thing about the café is the ability to sit down in the shade.