This article is part of "Made to Order," a series highlighting the business strategies driving today's food industry.

When Sam Mink, the owner of Oyster House, made his way through the Philadelphia airport more than a decade ago, he wondered what it would be like to have a restaurant stationed in one of the international airport's terminals.

That may have been a premonition: This spring, Oyster House will open its second location between terminals B and C in the airport. The restaurant will seat 140 people and feature a shell-shucking station, Mink said.

He told Business Insider he understands that some people might feel skeptical when they hear the words "oysters" and "airport" in the same breath. But it's a chance Mink — and plenty of other food-and-beverage entrepreneurs across the country — are willing to take for the potential payoffs.

Across the US, airports are upping their selection of local eateries, often favoring them over nationally recognized chain restaurants and brands. Over the past two decades, this food-and-beverage trend has unfurled as part of a larger move to make airports feel more welcoming and authentic to their locales. Rather than fill US airports' fluorescent halls with more national chain restaurants, airport operators want to feature food and beverage options that speak to the cities where they're located.

"Airports, just like other concessions and concepts out there, are becoming more experiential. The airport that you're visiting can be just as much of a destination as where you're going, so it's a reflection of the local city," Liz Einhorn, a hospitality consultant and the founder of Experience Threee, told Business Insider.

Einhorn said that post-pandemic, more people are traveling just for fun, further incentivizing airport leaders to create unique and welcoming experiences.

A June report from the consulting firm McKinsey & Company found that leisure travel has become more popular than business travel in recent years. Within the US, travelers seek vacation opportunities year-round, compared to their European and Asian counterparts who tend to travel in the summer, the McKinsey report said.

In addition to the forthcoming Oyster House location, the Philadelphia airport is home to the Philly-born coffee roastery Elixr, the brunch favorite Sabrina's Cafe, a Geno's Steaks outpost, and, soon, a Federal Donuts and Chicken.

Chicago O'Hare International Airport has Tortas Frontera, from the award-winning chef Rick Bayless, and Berghoff Cafe, a spinoff of the city's historic German eatery. Travelers to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport can visit Lil Woody's Burgers & Shakes, which has five other non-airport locations. The Austin-Bergstrom International Airport features local favorites Salt Lick BBQ and Salvation Pizza.

For restaurant entrepreneurs, these partnerships can enhance their marketing strategies by widening brand recognition. They also require less of a hands-on approach than opening an on-the-street store location from scratch, since hospitality-group collaborators take on the bulk of the planning, which can include training staff, designing and building the space itself, and creating the menu.

Airport leaders want to make their spaces feel unique

As conduits for mass travel, airports are inherently uniform in their designs. Walking through any given airport can feel like you're moving outside time or space.

As Steve Taylor, a professor of psychology who studies consciousness, wrote in an article for The Conversation: "They are liminal zones where boundaries fade. On a literal level, national borders dissolve. Once we pass through security, we enter a no man's land, between countries. The concept of place becomes hazy."

Airport business leaders know this, so they aim to turn their airports into more tantalizing and pleasurable experiences, said Melissa K. Montes, the vice president and publisher of Airport Experience News.

"At the heart of the industry's efforts is the guest experience," Montes told BI. "For some operators, this means leveraging new technologies or offering innovative products to cater to the evolving needs of a new generation of travelers. For others, the emphasis remains on delivering personalized service that creates meaningful connections with passengers."

She added that "experiences" has become a buzzword in the industry, as retailers and restaurateurs focus on strategies for keeping travelers with limited time — and an interest in spending on authentic goods and services — engaged with their offerings.

Increasingly, airports achieve that through localized food and beverage concepts in their terminals, said Simon Lorady, a vice president at Jackmont Hospitality, the food-service group responsible for bringing Oyster House, Federal Donuts, and Elixr to the Philadelphia airport.

It's a trend Lorady, who began his career working in Philadelphia-area restaurants, said he started to notice about 15 years ago.

"Travelers were getting more educated about food. People are traveling more, they're seeing more local and new concepts coming about, especially in these popular cities," Lorady said.

These shifting consumer expectations are reflected in the requests for proposals, or RFPs, that Jackmont Hospitality and other concessionaires — the companies responsible for bringing food, beverages, and other products to various markets, like on the street or at stadiums — receive.

Instead of asking for Burger King and Auntie Anne's outposts, airports are asking for barbecue joints, seafood restaurants, local roasteries, beer gardens, and other concepts that reflect each location's unique culinary culture, Einhorn said.

Turning an airport prospect into a local partnership

Once concessionaires view an airport's RFP for localized concepts, they seek out potential partners to collaborate with — often the owners of city-specific eateries.

Lorady said that the process of winning an airport hospitality contract is both an art and a science.

"They don't tell you the brands they are looking for, but they tell you a category," Lorady told BI. He gave the example of "elevated local coffee" as a category: "Our job is to decipher that category and think, 'What do they really want there?'" In this particular case, it resulted in Jackmont Hospitality bringing Elixr coffee to the Philadelphia airport in August.

The process is often driven by concessionaries' personal relationships with restaurant owners and involves ongoing conversations about how the partnership could work since each one can vary based on an airport's requirements for leasing, staffing, and safety, Lorady said. He added that a restaurant's resources and an owner's expectations can also play a role in shaping these partnerships. Some restaurants — say, one that slow roasts its meat for several hours — simply aren't suited for an airport outpost, Einhorn said.

Mink said that a hospitality company approached him about expanding Oyster House — his family's storied seafood restaurant — to the airport nearly 10 years ago, but he turned down the offer, unsure if he was ready to expand at the time. Fast forward to 2023, when Lorady contacted Mink with a similar offer.

"I was ready to take Oyster House out of Sansom Street and work on this dream of mine," Mink told BI about expanding the business. "I love the fact that it's a licensing deal, that they do a lot of the heavy lifting, and they work with us. I feel like we're partners in creating this restaurant that will be as close to the original one as possible — but obviously, it's not going to be exactly the same."

Restaurateurs see marketing opportunities with airport collaborations

Mink and Jeff Benjamin of Federal Donuts and Chicken — another Jackmont Hospitality partner restaurant — told BI that their collaborations provide an opportunity to market their brands to an audience of hungry travelers.

"It's a secondary or tertiary model to have these, what we call, nontraditional sites. It's less for the financial upside and more for the marketing and the visibility as we grow," Benjamin, the CEO of Federal Donuts and Chicken, said.

It's also a last chance for travelers to get a taste of local restaurants that they may have missed during the visit — or that they tried and loved — as they're heading back home, Lorady said.

Travelers appear to enjoy having more local options — commenters in travel subreddits often rave about their niche airport meals. And locals on business trips — including my father, a Philadelphia native — can enjoy a taste of home, in the form of a Geno's cheesesteak, even after they've moved away.

• Jimmy Carter has died at 100: the average life expectancy for men in the US is 73.5.
• Carter's 77-year marriage could have been key to his long life, longevity expert Dan Buettner said.
• Research suggests married people, especially men, live longer than their unmarried counterparts.

Former President Jimmy Carter, who died at age 100 on Sunday, said marrying his wife Rosalynn at age 21 was the "best thing" he ever did.

The couple were married for 77 years before Rosalynn died at age 96 last year — making their union the longest of any presidential couple. Rosalynn was diagnosed with dementia months before her death.

Together, they shared four children and 22 grandchildren. They resided at their modest family home in Plains, Georgia.

The former president surpassed the average US male life expectancy of 73.5 by more than 20 years, and his committed, loving relationship could have played a major role in his longevity, research suggests.

Marriage can have serious health benefits — especially for men

When researchers looked at the life expectancy and marital statuses of 164,597 Americans over age 65, they found that married men and women lived, on average, two years longer than their unmarried counterparts.

Even marriages that end can have a beneficial effect on our longevity. People who were divorced or widowed also tended to live longer than those who had never been married, according to the same 2020 study. (Important caveat: Unhappy marriages in which partners constantly criticize one another or are too demanding and controlling can erase these health benefits.)

Experts say the reasons marriage has great health benefits are numerous and complex, and the exact reasons why are still poorly understood. But there does seem to be something protective about the social bonds and support that a healthy union can provide, with more built-in opportunities to socialize and connect.

What we do know is that the health benefits of marriage seem to be greater for men than for women. Another study, published in March 2023, found that bachelors with heart failure were twice as likely to die within five years, compared to married men with the same heart issues.

Decades of other research point to similar findings. Being married can decrease a person's risk of heart disease, cancer, and other life-shortening health conditions like hypertension and high cholesterol.

Author and longevity expert Dan Buettner, the man who pioneered the idea that there are five "Blue Zones" for centenarians, told Business Insider that "investing in a spouse is a core value in all Blue Zones," whether a couple lives in Okinawa, Ikaria, Nicoya, Loma Linda, or Sardinia.

"Staying in a committed relationship is absolutely associated with about two years of extra life expectancy (and more for men) over being divorced or single," Buettner said.

It's a key part of the way that some of the world's longest lived people connect with their tribe, and put their loved ones first, reducing inflammation in the body, promoting healthy behaviors, and keeping loneliness in check.

• There are many factors to consider when purchasing an electric vehicle.
• It can help to know your daily mileage and charging preferences and see if you qualify for tax credits.
• This article is part of "Getting Ready for Electric," a series of guides and practical advice for buying your next EV.

If you're considering an electric vehicle for your next car, there are various factors — like your anticipated daily mileage and charging needs — to consider.

Before buying, you may also want to think about EVs that are eligible for tax credits, which can lower the cost of your overall purchase.

Whether you go with a fully electric or hybrid model, there are plenty of new, used, and coming versions of this more sustainable car type to choose from.

In "Getting Ready for Electric," a series of shopping guides, Business Insider has been exploring the ins and outs of EV purchasing. Read on for the best tips for shopping for your next EV.

When choosing your EV, it's important to take stock of your lifestyle and surroundings.

Battery ranges can vary depending on your driving habits and the climate of where you live.

While driving a few dozen miles daily in a moderate climate like Florida could open a buyer to a wide variety of EV options, someone who drives hundreds of miles daily and lives in a locale prone to colder temperatures may have fewer options overall, Scott Case, a cofounder and the CEO of Recurrent, a startup that tracks EV-battery health, previously told BI.

Newer models tend to accommodate long-haul driving needs better than older models, but they usually have higher price tags.

For more budget-friendly options, consider EVs that come with government-provided tax credits.

The federal government offers tax incentives on certain EVs, while some states have rebate programs that can lower the cost of your purchase.

Each of these discount methods has its own requirements and varies for new versus used EVs.

For example, to get a federal tax credit of up to $7,500, your new EV must have:

• A battery capacity of 7 kilowatt-hours or more.
• A gross vehicle weight rating under 14,000 pounds.
• Final assembly in North America.
• At least 50% of the minerals used to make it extracted, processed, or recycled in the US, or in countries with which the US has a free-trade agreement.
• A suggested retail price of no more than $80,000 for vans, SUVs, and pickup trucks, and no more than $55,000 for all other vehicles.

If you meet some but not all of the requirements, you may qualify for a smaller tax credit.

When it comes to used EVs, you may be eligible for a tax credit — 30% of the vehicle price, up to $4,000 — if you have:

• An EV that is at least 2 model years old, under $25,000, and sold by a licensed dealership.
• An income that doesn't exceed $150,000 if you're a joint filer or surviving spouse, $112,500 if you're a head of household, or $75,000 if you're a single filer.
• Not used this credit in the past three years.

There's also a leasing loophole for the EV-curious.

For the EV-curious who don't want to pay for a yearslong commitment, the leasing approach could be the way to go.

Unlike bought EVs, leased ones fall into a different tax-incentive category because they don't undergo the same complex parts-sourcing process and don't have the same income caps.

Because of this distinction, dealerships get a $7,500 federal tax credit for each of their EVs. That's where the EV-leasing loophole comes in: Many dealerships are opting to pass these credits onto their lessees.

That extra cash, bumper-to-bumper coverage, and the ability to return the car at the lease's end are benefits worth considering when shopping.

When it comes to powering up your EV, public fast chargers are becoming more readily available.

The Department of Energy reported that there are more than 61,000 EV charging stations nationwide, double the number in 2020.

The majority of Americans — 95%, a Pew Research Center study found — live in counties with at least one of these stations.

If you're close to one of these stations, an EV could be a convenient and inexpensive alternative to a gas-powered car.

Or you can invest in an efficient at-home charging setup.

Though more of an investment, at-home EV chargers can make your green-car purchase that much more worthwhile, Jenni Newman, the editor in chief of Cars.com and an EV owner, previously told BI.

Not all public charging ports are compatible with all EV car models, and drivers have reported coming across broken chargers. An at-home charging setup could eliminate those issues.

EV owners can charge their cars within hours or overnight — a slower method that can prolong battery life — and end up with 250 to 300 miles of driving range without leaving their driveways.

These setups range in cost — from $250 to $7,000 — depending on your outlet location, the voltage your electric panel can support, and the speed at which you want to charge your vehicle.

Like with buying or leasing an EV, there are charger tax credits available from the federal government.

No matter your needs, you can expect to see a wider variety of EV options in the coming years.

As automakers adjust their EV-manufacturing strategies, they're investing in more hybrid EVs and models at lower price points.

Because of these strategic changes in the car industry, you can expect a bigger menu of EV options for both fully electric and hybrid cars.