The owner of a Toronto coffee shop that was a favorite of Air Canada pilot Mackenzie Gunther told The Post on Tuesday he tried texting his loyal customer after hearing of the LaGuardia Airport plane crash.
“When I didn’t hear back after a day, I thought it isn’t a good sign,” said Daniel Biro, owner and roaster of Rapid Ends Coffee in Peterborough, Ontario.
Gunther was killed in Sunday’s crash, as was co-pilot Antoine Forest.
“MacKenzie was an amazing young man. He just graduated a couple years ago. He was a regular here every week while he was in school,” Biro said — adding that the pilot had been recently married.
“He had his whole life for him. It’s super tragic.”
Gunther and Forest were killed when their jet collided with a Port Authority fire truck on a runway at the Queens airport shortly before midnight Sunday.
Over 40 passengers and crew were also injured in the shocking wreck.
Biro said Gunther had been in the shop just two weeks before and that his regular order was a cold brew, black or an espresso over ice.
The shop owner called Gunther a coffee “purist.”
Latest coverage on the deadly Air Canada crash at LaGuardia Airport
He said he would occasionally talk shop with Gunther over the years, learning how the tragic man had been “really excited” about becoming a pilot.
“That was his passion, flying. It was a life taken too young,” Biro said.
Biro wrote on Facebook that the cafe plans on honoring Gunther by combining his favorites: Haitian coffee and cold brew, into a signature drink they will be giving out for free while offering patrons cards to sign for his widow.
“He was an upstanding young man,” the coffee-shop owner said.
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