Both SCM and Troy are correct.
If you are in the business of doing airport shops for profit, they are amongst the most heinous, and often for the worst quality of food (compared to other shops they offer). That said, if you have a long flight ahead of you, have a delayed flight, or a long layover, why not do something productive and have a decent meal before or during your flight? You are going to be trapped in a flying cylinder for a few hours with terrible internet service (if any) so being concerned about an hour or two of that time unless you really need to catch up on movies is senseless.
Some of the good points:
-They do have some of the better restaurants in the airport.
-The counter service shops are actually pretty easy (for Coyle).
-While you cannot auto-assign, If you have a relationship with the scheduler, you can perform an open shop and send an email with confidence that you will probably have the shop assigned to you by the time you land.
In a perfect world, I would take the (non Coyle) burger shop that pays amazingly and has a simple report every time I flew out of LAX, but they have rotations and I have to battle with SCM for that assignment, so the Coyle shops work for me when I am flying. I would never go to the airport just for a shop, however.
We are also talking about a MSC that put shoppers in airports and pays for their flights more than most other companies, so they get a lot of credit with me if they are actually putting me in that airport and paying for my flight.
My main peeve is when I agree to a dining assignment in advance of the flight, then show up at the airport and find out I've been upgraded. I'm eating a vegan club sandwich while everyone else in first class is getting steak, and then I have to write a report about it ;^/
P.S. Not really Coyle related (it actually happened on the burger shop), but I found out that you can't take the food to-go and eat it in the airline lounge while working on the report. I tried to bring the burger in and they told me that outside food is forbidden. I even tried to bride the attendant with fries. No go...