Ashers at the Airport up and flying
By C.R. Nelson
It’s another perfect morning for a fly-in.
The sky is brilliant blue, and the windsock hanging at the edge of the runway at Greene County Airport has nothing to report.
But I do.
It’s 9 a.m., and I’ve come to Asher’s at the Airport to meet Matt Harding from Eighty Four, owner of the new restaurant that takes its name from the biblical tribe of Asher, noted for its prosperity and good food.
The long-awaited eatery opened its doors on March 15 — happily, just in time to serve the Greene County Flying Club when it held its April 8 meeting. This was very good news for local fliers and the folks who love eating breakfast with a view, but even more so for regional private pilots who take to the sky for a 100-mile breakfast or taxi in for lunch on the way back from a business trip or family outing.
Getting out the word to those frequent fliers that Asher’s is ready to serve you has been a must-do for Greene County Chamber of Commerce Director Melody Longstreth. When a smoky electrical fire on March 24, 2021, damaged the county-owned airport’s main building, its popular Airport Restaurant, managed for 20 years by Kathy Kiger and her family, closed. But throughout the long months, as insurance was sorted out and the building was finally brought up to code and refurbished, the chamber stayed in contact with the EAA 402 Experimental Aircraft Club out of Newark, Ohio. Its many members had been regular breakfast fliers, and “We didn’t want to lose them. We kept them in the loop and let them know when we were open again.”
Longstreth’s perseverance paid off. On November 4, a fleet of EAA members would be arriving for their first 9 a.m. breakfast at Asher’s, she texted me. Could I stop by for some photos, maybe write a story?
That Saturday morning, I was committed to helping with the Veterans Day Parade ceremony at the courthouse. But I did make it to the airport by 11:30 a.m. to talk to the last couple of couples standing beside their Cessnas, ready to head back to Ohio.
Yes, the food was great, and yes, they’ll be back, they told me. Where do you keep your plane? I asked Scott Thompson, and he beamed. “I fly out of my home. It’s tight grass, 2100 feet. I just have to watch for trees and power lines!”
There was no time for breakfast that day, but I would be back the next Sunday to meet the new owner, sample the menu and hear the latest news about what’s happening these days at the Greene County Airport.
Spoiler alert — lots!
SOAR (Save Our Aviation Resources) member Max Loughman and I pull into the parking lot at the same time. Loughman, a retired airline pilot, is ready to give an update on the events and educational opportunities his group supports — from Aviation Days in August through year-round opportunities for those who want to learn to take to the sky. He’ll also have an update on the Greene County Flying Club that SOAR helped launch. The club is a members-run organization that brings together professional pilots, certified instructors and students to help with its mission: “To provide access to safe and affordable flight and flight instruction to club members and to promote and support aviation in all forms including drones, electric aircraft, ultra-lights and alternative airborne vehicles.”
In layman’s terms, this means making flying more affordable for families, especially for kids who will grow up to be the next generation of pilots, air traffic controllers and the host of other well-paying careers in the aviation world. As a nonprofit, the club can take planes as donations, thus saving members the shared cost of purchasing them, Loughman explains. “People think flying is a pipe dream. But our goal is to make it accessible and affordable for those kids who will replace us. There’s lots of scholarships available in aviation, and we can help young pilots reach their dreams.”
It was the flight discounts that enticed Harding to join the club after his expanding business contacts lead him to take lessons at Washington Airport in 2021.
Harding’s big entrepreneurial break had come during COVID when the kids went home, and schools across the nation got federal funding and began retrofitting their STEM curriculum for 21st-century jobs. His communications cabling business was kept busy doing audio-visual installs. “We got a lot of work in schools during COVID. It really helped us grow.” Harding’s businesses include theme-oriented escape rooms in McMurray and Niles, Ohio, and he knows the benefits of taking to the air versus driving. “I was just in York to do a pre-bid that would be a three-and-a-half-hour drive. I made it in an hour and fifteen minutes. For a business guy, you can do breakfast at home and be home for dinner. That’s a big plus.”
He adds, “I started learning to fly, then heard about the Greene County club and got to know the folks here.” When the bids went out for the new restaurant last fall, Harding and his family, who had been thinking about starting a restaurant elsewhere, won the bid and signed a three-year lease.
“I like good food. I know pilots who live to fly in for breakfast, and it’s nice to have that back here.”
Harding has his work laptop open when we arrive. His business wings, a Piper PA-28-180, are visible from the restaurant windows that offer a bird’s eye view of the runways and the Greene County hills.
Today, I will also have a chance to meet the staff and thank Double Exposure Photography partners Jordan Kenneally and ex-Asher’s worker and new mother Sarah Eddy, who were willing and able to get the breakfast shots I missed last Saturday.
Manager Dawn Swassord is a mutual friend from church, Harding says. “My dad is pastor at Full Gospel Assembly in Monongahela, and he’s best friends with Dawn’s pastor at City Reach Church in Charleroi. As you can tell, we have a great support system. That’s the glue that holds everything together. It’s not just a business, it’s a family.”
Swassord honed her expertise by running the Eclectic Cafe through her church, serving weekly lunches to senior homes in and around Charleroi. She tells me Harding’s wife Melissa helped at the cafe doing desserts. When the Hardings hired her to cater a company event for 250 people, and it was a success, she was welcomed aboard the family’s new business venture.
Aviation themes are everywhere, from the restaurant’s logo to photos on the walls celebrating the airport’s 95-year history. Renaming the menu items that are carryovers of Airport Restaurant favorites is playful pilot-speak. The perennial Garbage Plate, “three egg scramble, sausage, ham, onion, peppers, home fries topped with cheese served with toast, is now the Bone Yard, that place in Arizona where airplanes go to die,” Loughman informs me with a grin.
“Biscuits with sausage and gravy” is just what it says it is, but after my first bite, I’m ready to rename it Smooth Landing – creamy, meaty and seasoned just right.
When I text Greene County Commissioner Mike Belding later, he admits that the classic corned beef and Swiss cheese on marbled rye, aka the Curtiss Reuben OX-5, is one of his favorites, “It’s named after the Curtiss OX -5 aircraft engine that powered mostly trainer-type aircraft such as the Curtiss JN-4 ‘Jenny’ during World War I.” Belding, a career pilot in the military, touted the big plusses of having a county airport to help the community “grow our own pilots’ program” in the January 2023 issue of the Business View Magazine. In the article, Belding described the educational benefits of having flight simulators at Carmichaels High School that teach kids the basics, then the follow-up aviation summer camp that leads to the Greene County Airport for an orientation flight with the Young Eagles Program.
Now that Pittsburgh Soaring Association is using the airport, “Gliders give us diversity. You can solo a non-powered aircraft at age 14, then you can pilot a powered aircraft at 16, so that is a great way to get young people interested in aviation. We want them to find industries that are already moving here or stay to work remotely and live here. The Greene County Airport has the potential to be at the center of this revitalization.”
The latest and greatest bit of airport revitalization happened after this interview when FFA-approved solar-powered landing lights were countersunk into the runways, expanding the airport’s hours of usage and adding to its importance as an economic driver. Pilots can now drop in anytime to buy fuel at the credit card-activated pumps or layover with no rush to leave before dark. Best of all, student pilots can now practice their night landing chops closer to home.
The wide blue yonder has never been wider for the Greene County – and its airport.
Asher’s at the Airport is on Facebook and is open Monday through Saturday, 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Sunday, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Do drop in!