Burger, fries, flights of fancy

NORTH HAMPTON, N.H. — Freddie the Backyard Barnstormer’s giant model plane hovers high above customers at the Airfield Café, with Freddie — a doll wearing a leather cap and goggles — waving from the open-air cockpit.

The best thing about Freddie’s plane? That would be the clothesline, strung with women’s corsets and old-fashioned underwear, caught on the tail.

‘‘Freddie was a guy who was here a long time ago. He was a prankster,’’ said Theresa Aversano, co-owner of Hampton Airfield’s cafe. ‘‘Before there were dryers, people would hang their laundry out. He’d go by and buzz down and pick up their laundry lines and drag them around town.’’

Fred Perkins was indeed a pilot at Hampton’s tiny airfield, a 61- year-old throwback to the days of grass airstrips and wobbly propeller planes. The tale about the clotheslines isn’t true — no one can fly a plane that low — but it still gets told. Like everything else at the cafe, it’s wholesome fun.

Many small airfields have onsite restaurants, but few can rival Hampton’s ambience, solid food, and front-row airstrip seats. Prop planes and old-fashioned biplanes take off just a few hundred feet from the outdoor patio. When helicopters land, customers are advised to hang onto their plates.

As the hum of a Piper Cub grows louder, children abandon their hot dogs and grilled cheese sandwiches and push their faces against the cafe’s picture windows. Minutes later, when a pilot taxis to the gas pump just 20 feet from the restaurant, a gaggle of 2-, 4-, and 6-year-olds wave gleefully.

‘‘You should have seen them last week when the planes took off. They went nuts,’’ said Melissa Munroe, a diner seated with 21- month-old son Matthew and his friend, Max Moir, on a recent afternoon. ‘‘I don’t bring them to any other restaurant anymore.’’

The cafe opened about 15 years ago, when airfield owners Mike and Cheryl Hart converted an old hangar into a small take-out cafe. In 1996, they leased it to Aversano, her brother, Scott, and their father, Joseph. Since then, business has taken off, so to speak, with lines out the door on fair-weather weekends.

‘‘When we came here, it was mostly for the pilots. The public didn’t know about it. Even me, as a local who grew up here in Hampton my whole life, I knew the airport was here but I didn’t even know how to get into it,’’ said Aversano. ‘‘We had [a base of] customers from our old restaurant. They came and they brought friends and family.’’

The Aversanos’ customers may have initially come for the food, but they kept returning for the entertainment. Dozens of planes take off daily during the summer, and when it snows, half the grass landing strip is left unplowed so planes with either wheels or skis can land.

‘‘You’re not sitting on Route 1 watching the cars. Everybody likes watching older airplanes,’’ said Scott Aversano.

Because Hampton Airfield is a Class 3 facility with no commercial airlines — a flight school, banner planes, and scenic tours account for most of the activity — security is minimal, without even a fence between the landing strip and some of the cafe’s outdoor tables. If you catch a pilot working on his plane in a nearby hangar, he may give you a tour and even let your child sit in the pilot’s seat.

The cafe has its share of adult customers, too, from locals on their lunch break to a group of retired Marines who gather weekly for breakfast. But mostly it is for kids and families, with toy airplanes and crayons you can bring to your table, and dozens of model planes, aviation posters, and flying memorabilia on display from cathedral ceiling to floor.

‘‘Nobody seems to mind the kids being excited and running around,’’ said Munroe. ‘‘Even for an adult it’s kind of exciting. There was a bright yellow plane doing practice landings. The adults were all outside cheering ‘Yeah!’ ’’

Contact Peter DeMarco, a freelance writer in Somerville, at demarco@ globe.com.