The bar used to be a front desk

Lots of Adrian’s regulars learned to fly in the building where the restaurant got its start. It was one of the original buildings at the Langley airport, home to the Skyway Flight School run by Art Seller, the airport’s first tenant.

The restaurant’s website says many customers took their pilot’s licence there. They remembered the classrooms and the office fondly. And the front desk? That became Adrian’s bar.

Named for a newborn grandson

Demetre Exarhopoulos came to the airport from the Woodshed Restaurant, according to Adrian’s own history. When he took over, he named the place after his grandson, Adrian, who had just been born.

A move of a few feet that took years

In March 2021 Adrian’s moved into the airport’s new terminal building, just a few feet from the old one. Getting there took a while.

Exarhopoulos told the Langley Advance Times the move was about “two and half, three years” in the making. U.S. tariffs on steel slowed construction, and then the pandemic meant trades had to take turns on site. The restaurant finally held a quiet soft opening on Sunday, March 14, 2021.

“I’m relieved, definitely,” he told the paper. “It feels great.”

The new space was close to double the size of the old one, the paper reported, with room for 130 on the first level and 150 on the other. The old flight school building came down that February.

Planes with your souvlaki

The upstairs patio is the spot to watch the planes and helicopters come and go, the Advance Times wrote when the new space opened. The restaurant’s own pitch is simpler. Locals and pilots both eat here, and it’s open every day.

For dinner, the Greek side of the menu has souvlaki dinners with chicken, lamb, beef or prawns, each with rice pilaf, roast potatoes, Greek salad, tzatziki and pita. The tiger prawns are sautéed with garlic butter, lemon and ouzo.

Every schnitzel comes with red cabbage on the side. If you can’t pick a starter, one platter gathers kalamari, Greek meatballs, spanakopita, tzatziki and pita.

Call 604-530-9228 to book a table.

Photos: Adrian’s at the Airport.