My Experience at United’s Secret Restaurant “Classified”

My mileage run ended up giving me three hours to kill at EWR. I was pleasantly surprised when earlier this week, I was emailed an invite to dine at United’s invitation-only dining location near gate 120 at EWR.

a close-up of food

Called, Classified, I read about it when it opened, but was never given an invite to attend before now. I was led to believe it was for 1K and GS members of Mileage Plus, but they apparently are dipping down into Platinums like me. I had nothing to lose and made a reservation.

a room with tables and chairs and a large chandelier

Making a reservation time based upon a plane landing on time is a little trick, but I allowed 30 minutes from the scheduled time. Turned out we land a little early AND didn’t have to wait half an hour for the plane wranglers to get in into the gate. Although the reservation said it was near Gate 120, it wasn’t obvious from standing in front of that gate where it was. Reading further, it said to go to the restaurant Saisson and tell the host that you had a reservation for Classified.

people sitting at tables in a restaurant

After mentioning Classified to the host (should I have whispered it?), he led me back a long path.

a man walking in a restaurant

a long room with tables and chairsa dark hallway with lights

Inside was a long narrow dining area. Basically, a dozen table with one aisle to serve. Smart use of what was probably back-of-the-house space that wasn’t making any money. There was a nice waitress who seated me and then explained how to use the tablet ordering system.

a tablet on a table with a fork and knife

They had a full restaurant menu and were serving brunch since it was Sunday. The server recommended the burger, but I decided to go for something that I rarely have anywhere – a lobster roll. Added a beer and I was done.

a screen shot of a menu

One nice thing is that if you use your Chase United card, you get 20% off. Since the prices are normal for airport food, that pretty nice. As you can see, I got 7 bucks off. You do have an option to pay with miles, but that’s very poor value, less than a penny a mile.

a screen shot of a computer

The beer can a couple of minutes later and the meal within ten minutes.

a plate of food on a table

Now, was this the best lobster I had ever had? No, but certainly good and meaty.

I should mention that for AvGeeks, you do get a nice view of the ramp. Unfortunately, heavy rains made it a poor day for sightseeing (and bumpy flying).

a view of an airport from a window

One thing that was really interesting is that they told me that once I had dined here, I did not need a future invite. Just go to the reservation site and book next time I am in EWR. I think I’ll bring the wife next time I have extra time at EWR.

 

4 Comments

  1. Oh you will bring the wife next time eh??? I thought she passed away from cancer. Let me see….her name was “Jen”…

    1. @Dorothy – You sounds like you are the victim of the social media fraudster who uses my name and images. The report I received yesterday was that 2,663 fake pages have been removed by the Army just this calendar year. Yes, my wife is alive and we just celebrated 31 years of marriage.

  2. Glenn,

    Thanks for the link to the website. Turns out that you can request an invitation on that page, we’ll see if they let this 1K in.

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