SSP Group has opened eight food and beverage outlets at Vilnius Airport, the only international catering operator on site, in a move Lithuanian Airports says will “significantly broaden the choice available across the terminal.”
SSP has opened eight new food and beverage outlets at Vilnius Airport as part of a wider terminal redevelopment programme, and the rollout will create approximately 60 jobs. Two of the units sit landside and focus on Lithuanian cuisine, two more are international chains including a new Burger King restaurant, and a Bill Bentley beer bar is due to open in the non-Schengen area later this year.
The Lithuanian concepts are Sodai Le Grand Comptoir, a brasserie serving traditional soups, comfort food and local beverages, and Vilnius Bar Bistro Le Grand Comptoir, an all-day landside dining operation built around regional ingredients and drinks alongside international staples. Factory Bar Kitchen adds a sports bar format with draft beer from Lithuanian brewery Švyturys, fish and chips, wings and loaded fries. SSP’s existing travel brands Upper Crust, Camden Food Co. and Ritazza are also part of the build-out, covering baked goods, coffee, smoothies and light meals.
SSP said the concepts were shaped using passenger insight, travel-pattern data and dwell-time analysis, with menus designed for quick service and easy understanding by international travellers. That approach mirrors the thinking behind Gatwick’s recent 3,800 sqm food and beverage tender, where dwell time and unit mix were also central to the brief. It is the same commercial logic driving DFW’s 44% expansion of lounge space, where more floor area is being converted into higher-margin passenger spend.
Gintarė Norvilaitė-Tautevičė, interim CEO of Lithuanian Airports, said food and beverage is “an important part of the overall airport experience” and that the SSP partnership lets the airport “bring proven international concepts to Vilnius Airport while ensuring the offer is adapted to the needs and expectations of our passengers.” Stian Lund, CEO of SSP Nordic Baltics, said the new mix “reflects” a balance between local influence and SSP’s experience running concessions across international travel locations.
For airports watching spend per head rather than footfall alone, Vilnius is a useful reference point: eight units from a single operator, built on passenger-flow data rather than a scattershot tender. It sits in the same commercial territory as the retail mix pressures WHSmith flagged in its FY26 results, where concession mix, not just passenger numbers, decided the margin. SSP has worked with the airport since May 2025, and the full concession runs under the terminal redevelopment programme already under way.
Original announcement via Passenger Terminal Today.
The takeaway: commercial directors weighing a concession refresh should note the sequence here: data on dwell time and passenger flow first, brand selection second. Airports with a single incumbent operator, as Vilnius has with SSP, can move faster on a multi-unit rollout than those running split tenders, but should check whether that speed is costing them competitive pricing on the next renewal.
