Gatwick North Terminal restaurants: the full list

Clear security and the choice opens up properly. For a sit-down meal, the North's departure lounge runs The Breakfast Club, the London brunch name doing pancakes and full Englishes through the day; wagamama for noodles and katsu; Sonoma, a Californian-styled restaurant and bar; and Juniper & Co, a gin-led bar and kitchen built around locally sourced ingredients. Quicker but still cooked: Shake Shack for American burgers and shakes, Tortilla for build-your-own burritos, and Pure for fast breakfasts, salads and hot boxes.

Coffee and the sweet stuff are covered by Black Sheep Coffee, Krispy Kreme's doughnut counter and a Pret a Manger, with Starbucks also listed by the airport in both terminals. Between them the airside floor covers most appetites and budgets, from a £4 coffee-and-pastry to a table-service dinner, without approaching restaurant-quarter prices in town. Menus and prices shift too often to print, so treat the names as durable and check the airport's live food and drink directory for this week's detail. If the plan is to eat without watching the clock at a counter, the fixed-price route is a lounge instead; the North Terminal lounges guide compares all six rooms.

The question people actually search gets a straight answer: yes, there is a Wetherspoons airside. The Red Lion, after security, is a proper Wetherspoon with the chain's usual menu and pricing, opening around 03:00 for the first wave and pouring until the evening departures thin out. It is the natural pre-flight pint at North, and the fact it opens before some coffee counters tells you everything about Gatwick's mornings.

The craft alternative is BrewDog, with 20 taps, an all-day menu and a games zone, open 04:00 to about 20:30. Juniper & Co splits the difference, more cocktail-and-gin bar than pub, and stays open to the last flights, while Sonoma runs a full bar alongside its restaurant floor. One honest note: airside drinking at 05:00 is legal, common and entirely your call, but airlines can and do refuse boarding to passengers who overdo it, so land the pint count on the right side of the gate staff.

Landside eating at the North Terminal is deliberately thin, because the terminal wants you airside. The one proper venue is Sussex House, a restaurant and bar on the check-in side themed around local Sussex produce, open 04:00 to 23:00; it is also the only table on this side of security for anyone seeing off a passenger or waiting for one late in the evening. Beyond it, the landside offer is grab-and-go: a Pret a Manger in the arrivals area running 24 hours, and the 24-hour M&S Simply Food nearby for meal deals, snacks and the shopping you forgot (the shops directory covers the rest of the landside list).

For arriving passengers the picture is the same: no airside options on the way in, then Pret and M&S once you are through. If you are landing late and hungry, those two are the answer at any hour, and they beat motorway services prices on the drive home.

North's food hours track the flight schedule. The early openers are the Red Lion (around 03:00), then The Breakfast Club and Juniper & Co from 03:30, with the rest of the airside floor open by 04:00. Most venues close around 20:30 with the shops, and the same three early birds run on until the last departures, so the late-evening choice is pancakes, gin or a Wetherspoon. Exact minutes drift with the season and the schedule, so check the live directory on the day rather than trusting any printed closing time, this page's included.

The pressure point is the morning. Gatwick's short-haul departures leave in early banks, and between roughly 04:30 and 08:00 in the holidays the sit-down venues queue for tables and the counters queue for coffee. If you want a cooked breakfast before an 07:00 flight, clear security with time in hand and order promptly rather than drifting; if you are tighter, the grab-and-go counters move far faster than table service. After the morning banks the floor calms down until the afternoon wave.

The practical kit is better than the high street's. Most venues at North carry kids' menus and highchairs, restaurants will warm a baby bottle if you ask, and seating areas are wired with power points and USB charging, so breakfast doubles as the phone's last full charge before the flight. The terminal's free play area sits in the departure lounge opposite the airside WHSmith, which is the standard move with small children: feed them, then let them burn it off before boarding. The wider family logistics, from the family security lane to pushchairs at the gate, are covered in the travelling with children guide.

Dietary ranges are chain-standard: wagamama and Tortilla flag vegan and gluten-aware options, Pure leans healthy by design, and the pub menus carry the usual marked allergens. Baby food and milk pre-ordered through Boots for airside collection (covered in the children guide) rounds out the feeding plan for the smallest travellers.

• Eat airside, not landside. One restaurant trades before security against a dozen after it, so clear the queue first and budget your eating time for the departure lounge side of the terminal.
• On an early flight, order fast or grab and go. The 04:30 to 08:00 banks fill the sit-down floors quickly in the holidays. Pure, Pret and the coffee counters clear queues far faster than table service when boarding is close.
• Flying late? Know the three that stay open. The Breakfast Club, Juniper & Co and the Red Lion run to the last departures; nearly everything else is shut by about 20:30. Sussex House landside serves until 23:00 if you would rather eat before security.
• Compare a lounge before a big meal. Two courses and drinks for a family at the counters can cost more than a lounge's fixed price with food and bar included; the lounge list starts around £36.
• Flying from the other terminal? Different list. The South has its own line-up, from GAIL's to Nando's and a second Wetherspoon; the South Terminal restaurants guide covers it, and the terminal lookup settles which one your flight uses.