I'm Will Fulton and this is thrill Ust Explorers. While driving through Texas, there are only three certainties. Everyone will be speeding, you'll definitely smell cow boob at some point, and you will know exactly how far you are from a Bucky's at all times. All Right, we gotta buck He's coming up forty eight miles. You tell you earlier, so you have time to get excited. All right, BUCkies forty one miles now sign advertise the beef Jerky Bar. Another Bucky signed two miles now biscuits for breakfast. It's new. It's pretty good. Not breakfast time, so I probably won't get that, but um, we'll see what else they have. Although it is obviously far from a hidden gem. In the course of several interviews for this episode, which is our tribute to gas station food, Bucky's just kept coming up. The largest convenience store in the world sixty seven thousand square feet. This is it's basically an amusement park, so I of course had to see it for myself. All right, I am pulling onto Bucky's Boulevard. This is elaborate. This place is enormous. Crap risk get and sausage yeah, it's wild steak stuff, chickens. Okay, here's the wall of jerky Okay. BUCkies is less of a rest stop and more of a rest destination. It was like if a gas station pro created with a Walmart. That's what Bucky's. I don't know how that would work with two stores making love and producing a baby, but that is what Bucky's is like. The Texas based chain has close to forty locations across the American South, and inside any given Buckys you'll find the cleanest and biggest public bathrooms you've ever seen. You'll stumble into a brisket station and full rotisserie chickens being roasted. All this plus mountains of merch featuring their beloved mascot, Bucky the Beaver, plus ordering goods, home decre and even some furniture. But as I was not in the market for a new patio set, I just decided to get lunch. I got the Buckey spread. I have a sliced brisket sandwich. I went to the jerky bar. Obviously, I got some Hill Country tarayake, beef, jerky okay, and last, but certainly not least, I have what are called beaver nuggets. I really don't know what they are. They're not They're like popcorn ingredients, brown sugar, corn meal, corn syrup, vegetable oil. Okay, I don't think there's any beaver in them. The brisket sandwich, which was cut and preps right in front of me, was honestly just as good as anything that passes this barbecue up north of the Mason Dixon line. And the jerky was definitely jerky. So for me coming from New York, it was definitely a great experience. I mean pretty good. It's not It's not like the best jerky I've ever had in my life, but what do I know, and just a guy in the middle of Texas talking to himself in a gas station parking lot. So, but the beaver nuggets, those were something special, alright right up the bat gut reaction. These are fucking awesome. Oh god, there's definitely a breakfast cereal taste these. They taste like honey combs and corn puffs, but after they've been in the milk for a little bit and the flavor is really steeping. These are great. I need to get gas, okay, I need to leave. I need to stop talking to myself. I think people are looking this doesn't happen that much in Texas. In this episode, our love letter or tribute, our profession of adoration for all things gas station cuisine. Bucky's, though enormous, is just the tip of the iceberg. We're going to take you on an audio road trip of the United States of gas station food, and we're starting down south in Louisiana, where perhaps the most alific gas station food expert in the country put us in his pocket as he ordered an early dinner from one of his favorite gas stations. Hey, good afternoon, how you doing see? I would like one boot am Ball original And let's see, how about the Tasso prize. It's prize. It's tasso. What could be less healthy? I love that? And of course, because I'm care about my health a diet coo, I hear you're laughing back there. So Tasso. It's a highly seasoned smoked for and very lane by the way, and we used it here two seasoned beans and gravies and things like that. They have this French fry thing. It's gotten tasso and a sauce and then it's got green onions. We love green onions down here. So while we're talking about we just take a quick bite of this. Oh my god, this is this is incredible. Look at this. That's the Tosso cheating. Oh it's amazing. A winner. Boom. This is Al Hebert. He's a producer for a local news station in Lafayette, Louisiana. And while we were talking, he was outside of the Bourbon Street Delhi, holding a fried ball of sausage next to his head. Footamball. This is bigger than a tennis ball. Do you see the size of this? Kind of put this next to my head, son, get a frame of wrapper and look at that. My head is still larger, but this is a huge foot amp ball. But online, Al is better known as the gas station Gourmet. He has a blog, he makes video reviews on YouTube. He does public speaking and consulting work, all in the surprisingly interesting world of gas station food. And it all started a couple of decades ago on a road trip to Texas. We stopped at a gas station one day and we locked in and it smells like your grandmother's kitchen, unbelievably good. And so we had roast rice, gravy, green bes, roles. It was unbelievable. I said, hey, if there's a few more places like this in America, we'll go in, we'll shoot a package, and we'll get free lunch. I think America we still have a passion for cars, and we like to go places. You know, we've always had truck stops. You know, those have been around forever. So I think there's something in America's DNA that we liked this. As time has gone on, especially in the last twenty years, the profit margin on gas is dropped. I mean, these people, you might pay fifty bucks to fill your Cora, but these guys are making maybe five cents a gallon, so they're not making a lot of money on gas. But there's a great margin on food, more labor intensive, but we make more money. I never expected to find gas station include that I would eat, and I walk into this gas station. It's better than my grandmothers them. Over the past two decades, he has eaten the gas stations more than anyone who isn't a long haul trucker, and he's seen it all. I'll tell you what I found, things like cornish game hen lobster biss in gas stations. I found crystal champagne four fifty bucks a bottle in an exon station and that's run by a Somalia. It's called the High Country Marketing Gastro Pub and his name is a here Walgy, great guy level to Somalia. Has A has one of the I heard, one of the top fine wine collections in the Austin area. And Al notes that gas stations can often provide international cuisines in surprising places, and on a place outside of d C and Chantilly, Virginia called every Momo, so Momo. It's from Nepal. It's a dumpling. And so this guy opens this. He has his place, but he wanted to do momos and he was selling fifty momos a day and now he's selling a thousand and two thousand momos a day. Crazy. And because of the low expectations, gas stations can be extremely flexible and really adventurous when it comes to building a menu. There's a great gas station about fifty miles from here called the Cajun Junction. Oh my god, these people open pit barbecue every single day. Then all his employees are from India, and so he he's cooking lunch for them, cooking Indian food. And customers went in and said, well, this smells great. Can we buy this Indian food? He said, well yeah, So the next week he cooks twenty plates sold out, continued to do so he's a barbecue place, but he's selling Indian food because it's so good. So one of my other great story that I love, it's in Texas is a place called the check Stops e Z E C H. Their specialty is Colachi and when I got there was a line down two walls. It's it's incredible, and I'm thinking, okay, I there's something good happening here. This place sells a hundred and four thousand Colachi's every seven days. That six hundred Collachi's every hour, okay, and they're all amazing. They baked twenty four hours a day. So if you want a Colachi, it's two in the morning, you go there and it's gonna be fresh. As a rule, I never turned down a solid Colachi. So I of course found my way to West Texas, which has a shockingly large check population, and in my mind, the country's best colachis at the check stop. Can I get a sausage with cheese please? And um a pulled board plump and uh a cream cheese Colo please, and a pepperoni one too please? All right, I have their cream cheese Colachi. It's like their standard there, classic, the good size, and it is predictably amazing. Whoa you know, you don't really think about breakfast. Colachi's did a lot of the States, great alternative to like a don't. I would rather have this than like a doughnut, for sure. There are a lot of people like just eating in their cars. Hey, how's it going in the parking lot? Yep, me too. Good stuff. Huh. It has to be some of the best gas station food in the entire country, at least that I've had. It smells so good in there. It's like you get all all of the meat smells and all of the bakery smells all into one. They do barbecue in the back. A lot of smells, a lot of people, a lot of people super enthusiastic about the check stop unless of merchandise. Good little spot right next to a Sonic don't go to Sonic stop here instead open twenty four hours. I love it. Throughout this episode, we're talking a lot about gas station food in America, specifically, how so much of the fair is surprisingly elevated but we want to make sure we celebrate what you and I might call standard gas station food, the cheese dusted, the corn syrup infused, the glazed. So we enlisted the assistance of Brian Park and Young Me Mayor, two comedians and hosts of one of our favorite podcasts, Feeling Agent. Just elaborate a little bit about our podcast. That's podcast where two Asians talk about their feelings. So we want to stress that you do not need to be Asian to enjoy the themes of our podcast, but yeah, check it out. We could basically listen to them talk about anything, and gas station food is certainly no exception. I usually associate gas station food with road trips, but I feel like it needs to elicit good memories, and for me, it's just that's heavily steeped in nostalgia. There's certain foods that I'll just buy at a gas station that I would never eat anywhere else. Brand do you do that thing on road trips where you're like, calories don't count on a road trip, So that's what I do on a road trip. I'm like, I'm going to get the nine packs of snowballs. The New Troops hundred percent Okay, So I grew up in El Paso, Texas. You know, it's on the Mexican border, and I have this obsession with Mexican candies out you won't really find it in most parts of America and their Lucas candies, and essentially it's just chilied, like candied chili powder, but you're essentially you just pour chili powder in your palm and just lick that. So I just have very like that for me, reminds me of home so much. The other food is my parents are from Korea, but I have a lot of family there and so Korean gas stations they're like these elaborate rest stops with like food vendors in them, and my parents would always get like these roasted potatoes, do you know what I'm talking about? Young me? They boil it and they put it in a like a yogurt cup and sprinkle salt on it. It's literally just translates to rest rest stop potatoes. But rest stops in Korea have amazing food in general. I have similar, very nostalgic through the taste, very similar to this Mexican candy. Because I grew up on a small island in Micronesia called Saipan, and they had like little guests obviously gas station stores, and they would sell green mangoes with like a side of chili powder or just pack get packages of like premads like candy and chili powder. What's like burned into my memory is because I grew up outside of America. When I came to visit America and I was like, oh, I'm going to try all these snacks that I saw on TV that I never tried, like snowballs, because I would always see them on TV shows and I'm like, it looks so like fantastical. You're like, what does that even taste like? You know? And so I remember buying it and being so like excited, and it tasted so bad. I was like, Okay. So in the past where I've been in the position where I had to make a meal out of gas station foods, well, obviously you get like the microwave burrito. Most gas stations have amies now, so he's if you're fancy and then or I guess this sometimes add a meal on its own. Even though it seems like a snack, it eats like a meal. If you're in a gas station in like California or Hawaii or areas where there's a big Asian population, there's gonna be sembay crackers like the Japanese rice CAx crackers that look like the what's they called the pinny moon, liver moon, the waning moon, the waning moon, not the unclosing moon, the opposite of the crescent moon. Yeah, the Japanese rice crackers that are that shaped. I feel like this is a big treat in Hawaii. I feel like my Hawaiian friend told me this. You get a bag of that and you get a bag of peanut eminem, very important. Make sure those two specific things and you put them in the same day and you mix it, you shake it, and then you eat. You eat them together and you eat two of the sembez with one peanut eminem. It is the best, most like savory and sweet flavor. It's like the perfect meal. And then for my drink is a michelada, which here in the regional place, that's like the only place I'll drink that too, like a beer with it. But you know not when I'm drinking from a passenger, when I'm at a gas station, I always buy the bottled Starbucks prappuccino. I never buy these Starbucks drinks ever, aside from when I'm on a road trip. I don't even know why I still do. I have a huge sweet tooth. I love gummy candies, so I'll get sour rips, trolley gummy worms and Harrebo fizzy Cola does anything that has a tangy profile, and we'll just leave my tongue feeling like sandpaper afterwards. That's going into my bag and for something hardy, beef turkey if jurkey is a popular one, but I don't always get it when I'm on a gas station because I'm realizing I don't know how much beef jerkey should cost, because any time I pick up a bag of beef jurkey, always think it's way too expensive. But uh, you know, since this is a thought experiment, I'll go with beef jerky for my protein, and uh, I'm gonna have to top it off with some Mexican candies. Yeah, so that I would say that is a complete meal. That is my ideal gas station meal right there. It's a very democratic place that to say, you know, some of the worst people I've ever met in my life has since been at a gas station, but also some of the best I don't know, I really you know, we've all been there where it's like two am and you just like got finished playing video games and you're in your pajamas and you like some some random like person in front of the gas station will say the most profound thing you've ever heard, and you're like, I'm just here to get some beef turkey. No notes that it was perfectly said. All Right, we're going to take a quick break, but when we get back, we will tell the stories of three of our favorite gas stations in the United States, and we'll hear from a world class pastry chef who will tell us definitively why the Twist is the world's best candy bar stick around. We normally and rightfully associate gas station food with driving. But picture this. You're in the shadows of the Titan Mountains in the incredibly small town of Wilson, Wyoming. You're in the dead center of a twenty mile bike ride, and you run across a gas station that advertises natural wine, fried chicken sandwiches, and apparently reading only infamous alcoholic sloshies. If you were anything like me, you immediately stopped, which I of course did. True story, It's kind of funny when you walk in because everyone feels like they are in a bit completely different or wrong place. But base Camp overall is just like a modern spin on a gas station. So we try and have elevated grocery products for the locals and Wilson, but also just fun, healthy snacks, cool unique wine. We focused on a natural wine in the shop. It's usually stuff that people I feel like line up foreign city. We're in such a smallly unlocked area of the country. It's certainly a niche um, but it definitely gives the people a reason to come or to just stock up from when they're driving up from Utah, or if you live into a place like New York or l A and then you're visiting his detown and you're like, no way, they have this random math wine from the Canary Islands that I haven't seen even in my big city. And on the subject of those slash ees I talked about before, slashies, they're awesome. They've been to Jackson whole thing for a while, so who doesn't want to get off the river and drink a fresh gleeezed paloma we get these local rasberries in July and they mix it with still Org vodka, which is a Jackson Hole based distillery, and it's just like the freshest red rad Verry slushy you could have, not too sweet. This kind of perfect um goes really well with the burger and fries too. The burger and fries in this case come from Rations, which makes excellent sandwiches that you can enjoy in small picnic area outside of the gas station that has great views of the Titans. They kind of arrived me. And I don't want this to sound like nudity or anything, but I kind of remember me of cool little places in Europe where you could get like mom and pop pasta and fill up your bottle of wine and you don't have to get super process food all the time. But we can still make this kind of elevated junk food and have fun with it. And I'd say nineties of gas taking the United States could use an upgrade. So I guess it's a fun, fun business to work in, and for something even more remote, but with views that are arguably just as majestic and food that is equally surprising. Let's go right outside the California Nevada border, specifically to the Woe Nellie Deck. I'm Dennis Domell and I purchased the land and built the building while my daughter Denise was heck, I think she was in elementary school when I bought the land. She would come home from college and have to work in the summertime because there was there's no free lunch around this house. Only at the well Nellie Deli. I'm Denise Molnar and I'm the daughter of Dennis, and I managed the store while we're located at the eastern entrance of Yosemite National Park, and so we're kind of in the middle of nowhere. So from our store, if you look up towards Yoursemite, you're looking at the trees in the mountains and it's just gorgeous. But if you're looking to the east, you're looking out over the Mono Basin, which is part of the Great Basin that goes all the way to the Wahsat Range and Utah, we overlook Mono Lake, the oldest lake in North America. It's a spot that is our clientele, you know, if you exclude the Europeans and the people just traveling around the World really is a meeting place between northern California and southern California. And I mean they'll they'll stay there all day long. I mean we've seen people sit out on the picnic tables to where our employees will go out and tell them they probably out of move because they're all getting sunber. You know, they'll just sit there so long, and you know, they start drinking margaritas and pictures of beer, and next thing you know, it's getting dark and they've got long drive ahead of them. There's something for everyone. There's pizza slices, or we have really high quality on trades such as elk chops. Our fish tacos are number one seller, and they're really good with everything in between. We've got gone into buffalo meatloaf and uh, what's the other one. Well, of course, the fish tacos are the main thing that sell. You got to keep in context. When we built this store, it was it was literally in the middle of nowhere. We were on eighty acres, the only piece of private land around and there had been nothing there for millennium and we were sitting outside drinking a beer and these cars would come down Tyoga Pass and out at the corner of their eye. They would see us there and just slam on their brakes to make the turn to come in. And you don't just on a random comment. One of us said something like, whoa Millie and it just stop. We knew right then and there that was the name of it, and so that that's where it came from. That's truth. I think we've become almost the destination in ourselves. You know, people are going to Yosemite, but they're also they fit us into their trip. They're planning on stopping here at the will in Ellie Deli, so we're part of the destination. I would say it's definitely the unofficial official visitor center. If there's one thing we've managed to touch upon during this episode, it's the nostalgia and personal connections that buying so many of these gas stations to our life here in the New York area. I will always opt for Crispy Crunchy Chicken whenever I see it sold in a gas station. It might be the best quote unquote fast food chicken in America. Or when I'm driving westward through Pennsylvania, I'll make a note when the Wawa starts turn into sheets. This happens right around Harrisburg, and for the record, I think I like sheets better. But for some people, eating at gas stations isn't just the road trip novelty. For instance, my colleague and video producer Taylor Brown. For the past year, and really for a lot of my life, I've chosen to eat at a gas station almost every week. From the outside, the market looks like a normal gas station, and in a lot of ways it is. But inside you'll find a selection of sandwiches, salads, and, since it is a gas station in Virginia, really good fried chicken. While the market doesn't have the nationwide name recognition of Whahwa or certainly seven eleven, the mini chain is famous here in Charlottesville. It's more than a gas station. It's a gathering place, a lunch spot, local institution, and proof that gas station food can be legitimately great. Gordon Sutton is the president of Tiger Fuel in the market, and he and his family have been dealing with the unfair stigma of quote unquote gas station food ever since they opened decades ago. I mean, I'll start resting. It's a huge challenge, right Like, there's not a week that goes by that we don't get a really positive, like five star review on Yelp or Google that was like, don't let the gas station facade fool you, like, come inside. These are world class food. So it's it is a challenge, you know, I'm not so sure we've done as good a job as we would like to in debunking that. I also think that there's just a broader trend in the industry where more and more you see like we're not as unique as we were thirty years ago. Like I also think you sort of as the landscape with fossil fuels changes, you will see in order to survive, people are going to have to be really good at food, and I think as a necessary component to being a successful business that's viable well into the future, food is going to be more and more important. I'm only one person, but in my opinion, places like the market will hopefully soon be the norm in every city in America. So I implore you to go out and explore your local gas stations. You might just find the best sandwich of your life. For me, it's the toasted Walnut Creek, named after a nearby park. It's pepper jack cheese on chicken, which Potley Mayo. If you ever drive through Charlottesville, I highly recommend it. Oh and you can also get gas there too, obviously, And really that's the last step here. We can never cover all of the great gas station food across America, or highlight all the places doing great gas station food, or fully extol all the virtues of eating at a gas station. But we do like to think we've given you a taste, and we challenge you to go out and find the best gas station food on your next road trip or in your own city. Take a picture, put it on Instagram tag thrillists. We might even share it. And finally, we will leave you with this a cherry on top of our episode, something a little sweet to remember us by. I'm Caroline Chief. I am the pastry chef at Gagent Tolner downtown Brooklyn, and I'm also the head chef at Slow Up, and i just wrote a cookbook that just came out called The Sweet Side of Sour Dough, and it's all the sweet things you can make with your sour dough. Starter when I comes to the gas station snacks, and like, if I'm traveling road trip and I just like I want all those very like cravable things. For me, that's always gonna be chocolate, nuts, crunchy stuff. And then like the very salty, savory. So in a dream world it's TwixT Bar, Peanut Eminem's, Reese's Pieces, Snickers Bar. There's a simplicity to a twigs and I like that that it's very clearly defined. You have the cookie, like the short, gritty kind of cookie going on. You have the layer of caramel, and then it's covered in chocolate. It's sweet, it's salty, it's chewy, it's crunchy. I can see the layers. It's just like a perfect I don't think I could improve on a candy bar. I don't think it's possible. And then on the salty side, I personally am first of all, like obviously I love potato chips. Most people do, but I am so fascinated and inspired by potato chip flavors, Like if you really get into it and start looking at potato chip flavors like country to country and just like even regionally in the United States, there are so many specific potato chip flavors, and I just think it's like such an interesting study in what people find really crepable and satisfying at aagent Tolner. I have a we have a Sunday on the menu. You know, you have the cold creamy ice cream, you have a sauce, you have some crunchy elements. I wanted to make like a candy pecan that had you know, some spices and whatever. And I'm playing with the recipe a little bit and making it, and I'm showing some of the team like, alright, so we're gonna do these candy pecans what ever. And one of the pastry team members, Grayson, who's um he's from the South and he went to school in Texas. And I'm like making them and he's like, oh, you mean gas station nuts. And I was like what and he's like, yeah, Bucky's gas station nuts. Like you've never had them, and I'm like, what are you talking about. He was telling me like that they make these like candied nuts, and he calls them gas station nuts, and I'm like that is awesome and I love it, so we call him gas station nuts. I can't wait to go. I just want to book a trip to Texas to go to BUCkies and like get all of the nuts and stuff. This show was produced by myself and Me a fast edited and mixed by the other worldly Dean White and Abbey Austria Special thanks to all of My boss is Jim Demiko, Megan Kurge, Brett cush Her and Emily Felt. That's it for us. Put your trade tables up, lead your shoes on, and we'll see you next week. By

I'm Will Fulton and this is thrill Ust Explorers. While driving through Texas, there are only three certainties. Everyone will be speeding, you'll definitely smell cow boob at some point, and you will know exactly how far you are from a Bucky's at all times. All Right, we gotta buck He's coming up forty eight miles. You tell you earlier, so you have time to get excited. All right, BUCkies forty one miles now sign advertise the beef Jerky Bar. Another Bucky signed two miles now biscuits for breakfast. It's new. It's pretty good. Not breakfast time, so I probably won't get that, but um, we'll see what else they have. Although it is obviously far from a hidden gem. In the course of several interviews for this episode, which is our tribute to gas station food, Bucky's just kept coming up. The largest convenience store in the world sixty seven thousand square feet. This is it's basically an amusement park, so I of course had to see it for myself. All right, I am pulling onto Bucky's Boulevard. This is elaborate. This place is enormous. Crap risk get and sausage yeah, it's wild steak stuff, chickens. Okay, here's the wall of jerky Okay. BUCkies is less of a rest stop and more of a rest destination. It was like if a gas station pro created with a Walmart. That's what Bucky's. I don't know how that would work with two stores making love and producing a baby, but that is what Bucky's is like. The Texas based chain has close to forty locations across the American South, and inside any given Buckys you'll find the cleanest and biggest public bathrooms you've ever seen. You'll stumble into a brisket station and full rotisserie chickens being roasted. All this plus mountains of merch featuring their beloved mascot, Bucky the Beaver, plus ordering goods, home decre and even some furniture. But as I was not in the market for a new patio set, I just decided to get lunch. I got the Buckey spread. I have a sliced brisket sandwich. I went to the jerky bar. Obviously, I got some Hill Country tarayake, beef, jerky okay, and last, but certainly not least, I have what are called beaver nuggets. I really don't know what they are. They're not They're like popcorn ingredients, brown sugar, corn meal, corn syrup, vegetable oil. Okay, I don't think there's any beaver in them. The brisket sandwich, which was cut and preps right in front of me, was honestly just as good as anything that passes this barbecue up north of the Mason Dixon line. And the jerky was definitely jerky. So for me coming from New York, it was definitely a great experience. I mean pretty good. It's not It's not like the best jerky I've ever had in my life, but what do I know, and just a guy in the middle of Texas talking to himself in a gas station parking lot. So, but the beaver nuggets, those were something special, alright right up the bat gut reaction. These are fucking awesome. Oh god, there's definitely a breakfast cereal taste these. They taste like honey combs and corn puffs, but after they've been in the milk for a little bit and the flavor is really steeping. These are great. I need to get gas, okay, I need to leave. I need to stop talking to myself. I think people are looking this doesn't happen that much in Texas. In this episode, our love letter or tribute, our profession of adoration for all things gas station cuisine. Bucky's, though enormous, is just the tip of the iceberg. We're going to take you on an audio road trip of the United States of gas station food, and we're starting down south in Louisiana, where perhaps the most alific gas station food expert in the country put us in his pocket as he ordered an early dinner from one of his favorite gas stations. Hey, good afternoon, how you doing see? I would like one boot am Ball original And let's see, how about the Tasso prize. It's prize. It's tasso. What could be less healthy? I love that? And of course, because I'm care about my health a diet coo, I hear you're laughing back there. So Tasso. It's a highly seasoned smoked for and very lane by the way, and we used it here two seasoned beans and gravies and things like that. They have this French fry thing. It's gotten tasso and a sauce and then it's got green onions. We love green onions down here. So while we're talking about we just take a quick bite of this. Oh my god, this is this is incredible. Look at this. That's the Tosso cheating. Oh it's amazing. A winner. Boom. This is Al Hebert. He's a producer for a local news station in Lafayette, Louisiana. And while we were talking, he was outside of the Bourbon Street Delhi, holding a fried ball of sausage next to his head. Footamball. This is bigger than a tennis ball. Do you see the size of this? Kind of put this next to my head, son, get a frame of wrapper and look at that. My head is still larger, but this is a huge foot amp ball. But online, Al is better known as the gas station Gourmet. He has a blog, he makes video reviews on YouTube. He does public speaking and consulting work, all in the surprisingly interesting world of gas station food. And it all started a couple of decades ago on a road trip to Texas. We stopped at a gas station one day and we locked in and it smells like your grandmother's kitchen, unbelievably good. And so we had roast rice, gravy, green bes, roles. It was unbelievable. I said, hey, if there's a few more places like this in America, we'll go in, we'll shoot a package, and we'll get free lunch. I think America we still have a passion for cars, and we like to go places. You know, we've always had truck stops. You know, those have been around forever. So I think there's something in America's DNA that we liked this. As time has gone on, especially in the last twenty years, the profit margin on gas is dropped. I mean, these people, you might pay fifty bucks to fill your Cora, but these guys are making maybe five cents a gallon, so they're not making a lot of money on gas. But there's a great margin on food, more labor intensive, but we make more money. I never expected to find gas station include that I would eat, and I walk into this gas station. It's better than my grandmothers them. Over the past two decades, he has eaten the gas stations more than anyone who isn't a long haul trucker, and he's seen it all. I'll tell you what I found, things like cornish game hen lobster biss in gas stations. I found crystal champagne four fifty bucks a bottle in an exon station and that's run by a Somalia. It's called the High Country Marketing Gastro Pub and his name is a here Walgy, great guy level to Somalia. Has A has one of the I heard, one of the top fine wine collections in the Austin area. And Al notes that gas stations can often provide international cuisines in surprising places, and on a place outside of d C and Chantilly, Virginia called every Momo, so Momo. It's from Nepal. It's a dumpling. And so this guy opens this. He has his place, but he wanted to do momos and he was selling fifty momos a day and now he's selling a thousand and two thousand momos a day. Crazy. And because of the low expectations, gas stations can be extremely flexible and really adventurous when it comes to building a menu. There's a great gas station about fifty miles from here called the Cajun Junction. Oh my god, these people open pit barbecue every single day. Then all his employees are from India, and so he he's cooking lunch for them, cooking Indian food. And customers went in and said, well, this smells great. Can we buy this Indian food? He said, well yeah, So the next week he cooks twenty plates sold out, continued to do so he's a barbecue place, but he's selling Indian food because it's so good. So one of my other great story that I love, it's in Texas is a place called the check Stops e Z E C H. Their specialty is Colachi and when I got there was a line down two walls. It's it's incredible, and I'm thinking, okay, I there's something good happening here. This place sells a hundred and four thousand Colachi's every seven days. That six hundred Collachi's every hour, okay, and they're all amazing. They baked twenty four hours a day. So if you want a Colachi, it's two in the morning, you go there and it's gonna be fresh. As a rule, I never turned down a solid Colachi. So I of course found my way to West Texas, which has a shockingly large check population, and in my mind, the country's best colachis at the check stop. Can I get a sausage with cheese please? And um a pulled board plump and uh a cream cheese Colo please, and a pepperoni one too please? All right, I have their cream cheese Colachi. It's like their standard there, classic, the good size, and it is predictably amazing. Whoa you know, you don't really think about breakfast. Colachi's did a lot of the States, great alternative to like a don't. I would rather have this than like a doughnut, for sure. There are a lot of people like just eating in their cars. Hey, how's it going in the parking lot? Yep, me too. Good stuff. Huh. It has to be some of the best gas station food in the entire country, at least that I've had. It smells so good in there. It's like you get all all of the meat smells and all of the bakery smells all into one. They do barbecue in the back. A lot of smells, a lot of people, a lot of people super enthusiastic about the check stop unless of merchandise. Good little spot right next to a Sonic don't go to Sonic stop here instead open twenty four hours. I love it. Throughout this episode, we're talking a lot about gas station food in America, specifically, how so much of the fair is surprisingly elevated but we want to make sure we celebrate what you and I might call standard gas station food, the cheese dusted, the corn syrup infused, the glazed. So we enlisted the assistance of Brian Park and Young Me Mayor, two comedians and hosts of one of our favorite podcasts, Feeling Agent. Just elaborate a little bit about our podcast. That's podcast where two Asians talk about their feelings. So we want to stress that you do not need to be Asian to enjoy the themes of our podcast, but yeah, check it out. We could basically listen to them talk about anything, and gas station food is certainly no exception. I usually associate gas station food with road trips, but I feel like it needs to elicit good memories, and for me, it's just that's heavily steeped in nostalgia. There's certain foods that I'll just buy at a gas station that I would never eat anywhere else. Brand do you do that thing on road trips where you're like, calories don't count on a road trip, So that's what I do on a road trip. I'm like, I'm going to get the nine packs of snowballs. The New Troops hundred percent Okay, So I grew up in El Paso, Texas. You know, it's on the Mexican border, and I have this obsession with Mexican candies out you won't really find it in most parts of America and their Lucas candies, and essentially it's just chilied, like candied chili powder, but you're essentially you just pour chili powder in your palm and just lick that. So I just have very like that for me, reminds me of home so much. The other food is my parents are from Korea, but I have a lot of family there and so Korean gas stations they're like these elaborate rest stops with like food vendors in them, and my parents would always get like these roasted potatoes, do you know what I'm talking about? Young me? They boil it and they put it in a like a yogurt cup and sprinkle salt on it. It's literally just translates to rest rest stop potatoes. But rest stops in Korea have amazing food in general. I have similar, very nostalgic through the taste, very similar to this Mexican candy. Because I grew up on a small island in Micronesia called Saipan, and they had like little guests obviously gas station stores, and they would sell green mangoes with like a side of chili powder or just pack get packages of like premads like candy and chili powder. What's like burned into my memory is because I grew up outside of America. When I came to visit America and I was like, oh, I'm going to try all these snacks that I saw on TV that I never tried, like snowballs, because I would always see them on TV shows and I'm like, it looks so like fantastical. You're like, what does that even taste like? You know? And so I remember buying it and being so like excited, and it tasted so bad. I was like, Okay. So in the past where I've been in the position where I had to make a meal out of gas station foods, well, obviously you get like the microwave burrito. Most gas stations have amies now, so he's if you're fancy and then or I guess this sometimes add a meal on its own. Even though it seems like a snack, it eats like a meal. If you're in a gas station in like California or Hawaii or areas where there's a big Asian population, there's gonna be sembay crackers like the Japanese rice CAx crackers that look like the what's they called the pinny moon, liver moon, the waning moon, the waning moon, not the unclosing moon, the opposite of the crescent moon. Yeah, the Japanese rice crackers that are that shaped. I feel like this is a big treat in Hawaii. I feel like my Hawaiian friend told me this. You get a bag of that and you get a bag of peanut eminem, very important. Make sure those two specific things and you put them in the same day and you mix it, you shake it, and then you eat. You eat them together and you eat two of the sembez with one peanut eminem. It is the best, most like savory and sweet flavor. It's like the perfect meal. And then for my drink is a michelada, which here in the regional place, that's like the only place I'll drink that too, like a beer with it. But you know not when I'm drinking from a passenger, when I'm at a gas station, I always buy the bottled Starbucks prappuccino. I never buy these Starbucks drinks ever, aside from when I'm on a road trip. I don't even know why I still do. I have a huge sweet tooth. I love gummy candies, so I'll get sour rips, trolley gummy worms and Harrebo fizzy Cola does anything that has a tangy profile, and we'll just leave my tongue feeling like sandpaper afterwards. That's going into my bag and for something hardy, beef turkey if jurkey is a popular one, but I don't always get it when I'm on a gas station because I'm realizing I don't know how much beef jerkey should cost, because any time I pick up a bag of beef jurkey, always think it's way too expensive. But uh, you know, since this is a thought experiment, I'll go with beef jerky for my protein, and uh, I'm gonna have to top it off with some Mexican candies. Yeah, so that I would say that is a complete meal. That is my ideal gas station meal right there. It's a very democratic place that to say, you know, some of the worst people I've ever met in my life has since been at a gas station, but also some of the best I don't know, I really you know, we've all been there where it's like two am and you just like got finished playing video games and you're in your pajamas and you like some some random like person in front of the gas station will say the most profound thing you've ever heard, and you're like, I'm just here to get some beef turkey. No notes that it was perfectly said. All Right, we're going to take a quick break, but when we get back, we will tell the stories of three of our favorite gas stations in the United States, and we'll hear from a world class pastry chef who will tell us definitively why the Twist is the world's best candy bar stick around. We normally and rightfully associate gas station food with driving. But picture this. You're in the shadows of the Titan Mountains in the incredibly small town of Wilson, Wyoming. You're in the dead center of a twenty mile bike ride, and you run across a gas station that advertises natural wine, fried chicken sandwiches, and apparently reading only infamous alcoholic sloshies. If you were anything like me, you immediately stopped, which I of course did. True story, It's kind of funny when you walk in because everyone feels like they are in a bit completely different or wrong place. But base Camp overall is just like a modern spin on a gas station. So we try and have elevated grocery products for the locals and Wilson, but also just fun, healthy snacks, cool unique wine. We focused on a natural wine in the shop. It's usually stuff that people I feel like line up foreign city. We're in such a smallly unlocked area of the country. It's certainly a niche um, but it definitely gives the people a reason to come or to just stock up from when they're driving up from Utah, or if you live into a place like New York or l A and then you're visiting his detown and you're like, no way, they have this random math wine from the Canary Islands that I haven't seen even in my big city. And on the subject of those slash ees I talked about before, slashies, they're awesome. They've been to Jackson whole thing for a while, so who doesn't want to get off the river and drink a fresh gleeezed paloma we get these local rasberries in July and they mix it with still Org vodka, which is a Jackson Hole based distillery, and it's just like the freshest red rad Verry slushy you could have, not too sweet. This kind of perfect um goes really well with the burger and fries too. The burger and fries in this case come from Rations, which makes excellent sandwiches that you can enjoy in small picnic area outside of the gas station that has great views of the Titans. They kind of arrived me. And I don't want this to sound like nudity or anything, but I kind of remember me of cool little places in Europe where you could get like mom and pop pasta and fill up your bottle of wine and you don't have to get super process food all the time. But we can still make this kind of elevated junk food and have fun with it. And I'd say nineties of gas taking the United States could use an upgrade. So I guess it's a fun, fun business to work in, and for something even more remote, but with views that are arguably just as majestic and food that is equally surprising. Let's go right outside the California Nevada border, specifically to the Woe Nellie Deck. I'm Dennis Domell and I purchased the land and built the building while my daughter Denise was heck, I think she was in elementary school when I bought the land. She would come home from college and have to work in the summertime because there was there's no free lunch around this house. Only at the well Nellie Deli. I'm Denise Molnar and I'm the daughter of Dennis, and I managed the store while we're located at the eastern entrance of Yosemite National Park, and so we're kind of in the middle of nowhere. So from our store, if you look up towards Yoursemite, you're looking at the trees in the mountains and it's just gorgeous. But if you're looking to the east, you're looking out over the Mono Basin, which is part of the Great Basin that goes all the way to the Wahsat Range and Utah, we overlook Mono Lake, the oldest lake in North America. It's a spot that is our clientele, you know, if you exclude the Europeans and the people just traveling around the World really is a meeting place between northern California and southern California. And I mean they'll they'll stay there all day long. I mean we've seen people sit out on the picnic tables to where our employees will go out and tell them they probably out of move because they're all getting sunber. You know, they'll just sit there so long, and you know, they start drinking margaritas and pictures of beer, and next thing you know, it's getting dark and they've got long drive ahead of them. There's something for everyone. There's pizza slices, or we have really high quality on trades such as elk chops. Our fish tacos are number one seller, and they're really good with everything in between. We've got gone into buffalo meatloaf and uh, what's the other one. Well, of course, the fish tacos are the main thing that sell. You got to keep in context. When we built this store, it was it was literally in the middle of nowhere. We were on eighty acres, the only piece of private land around and there had been nothing there for millennium and we were sitting outside drinking a beer and these cars would come down Tyoga Pass and out at the corner of their eye. They would see us there and just slam on their brakes to make the turn to come in. And you don't just on a random comment. One of us said something like, whoa Millie and it just stop. We knew right then and there that was the name of it, and so that that's where it came from. That's truth. I think we've become almost the destination in ourselves. You know, people are going to Yosemite, but they're also they fit us into their trip. They're planning on stopping here at the will in Ellie Deli, so we're part of the destination. I would say it's definitely the unofficial official visitor center. If there's one thing we've managed to touch upon during this episode, it's the nostalgia and personal connections that buying so many of these gas stations to our life here in the New York area. I will always opt for Crispy Crunchy Chicken whenever I see it sold in a gas station. It might be the best quote unquote fast food chicken in America. Or when I'm driving westward through Pennsylvania, I'll make a note when the Wawa starts turn into sheets. This happens right around Harrisburg, and for the record, I think I like sheets better. But for some people, eating at gas stations isn't just the road trip novelty. For instance, my colleague and video producer Taylor Brown. For the past year, and really for a lot of my life, I've chosen to eat at a gas station almost every week. From the outside, the market looks like a normal gas station, and in a lot of ways it is. But inside you'll find a selection of sandwiches, salads, and, since it is a gas station in Virginia, really good fried chicken. While the market doesn't have the nationwide name recognition of Whahwa or certainly seven eleven, the mini chain is famous here in Charlottesville. It's more than a gas station. It's a gathering place, a lunch spot, local institution, and proof that gas station food can be legitimately great. Gordon Sutton is the president of Tiger Fuel in the market, and he and his family have been dealing with the unfair stigma of quote unquote gas station food ever since they opened decades ago. I mean, I'll start resting. It's a huge challenge, right Like, there's not a week that goes by that we don't get a really positive, like five star review on Yelp or Google that was like, don't let the gas station facade fool you, like, come inside. These are world class food. So it's it is a challenge, you know, I'm not so sure we've done as good a job as we would like to in debunking that. I also think that there's just a broader trend in the industry where more and more you see like we're not as unique as we were thirty years ago. Like I also think you sort of as the landscape with fossil fuels changes, you will see in order to survive, people are going to have to be really good at food, and I think as a necessary component to being a successful business that's viable well into the future, food is going to be more and more important. I'm only one person, but in my opinion, places like the market will hopefully soon be the norm in every city in America. So I implore you to go out and explore your local gas stations. You might just find the best sandwich of your life. For me, it's the toasted Walnut Creek, named after a nearby park. It's pepper jack cheese on chicken, which Potley Mayo. If you ever drive through Charlottesville, I highly recommend it. Oh and you can also get gas there too, obviously, And really that's the last step here. We can never cover all of the great gas station food across America, or highlight all the places doing great gas station food, or fully extol all the virtues of eating at a gas station. But we do like to think we've given you a taste, and we challenge you to go out and find the best gas station food on your next road trip or in your own city. Take a picture, put it on Instagram tag thrillists. We might even share it. And finally, we will leave you with this a cherry on top of our episode, something a little sweet to remember us by. I'm Caroline Chief. I am the pastry chef at Gagent Tolner downtown Brooklyn, and I'm also the head chef at Slow Up, and i just wrote a cookbook that just came out called The Sweet Side of Sour Dough, and it's all the sweet things you can make with your sour dough. Starter when I comes to the gas station snacks, and like, if I'm traveling road trip and I just like I want all those very like cravable things. For me, that's always gonna be chocolate, nuts, crunchy stuff. And then like the very salty, savory. So in a dream world it's TwixT Bar, Peanut Eminem's, Reese's Pieces, Snickers Bar. There's a simplicity to a twigs and I like that that it's very clearly defined. You have the cookie, like the short, gritty kind of cookie going on. You have the layer of caramel, and then it's covered in chocolate. It's sweet, it's salty, it's chewy, it's crunchy. I can see the layers. It's just like a perfect I don't think I could improve on a candy bar. I don't think it's possible. And then on the salty side, I personally am first of all, like obviously I love potato chips. Most people do, but I am so fascinated and inspired by potato chip flavors, Like if you really get into it and start looking at potato chip flavors like country to country and just like even regionally in the United States, there are so many specific potato chip flavors, and I just think it's like such an interesting study in what people find really crepable and satisfying at aagent Tolner. I have a we have a Sunday on the menu. You know, you have the cold creamy ice cream, you have a sauce, you have some crunchy elements. I wanted to make like a candy pecan that had you know, some spices and whatever. And I'm playing with the recipe a little bit and making it, and I'm showing some of the team like, alright, so we're gonna do these candy pecans what ever. And one of the pastry team members, Grayson, who's um he's from the South and he went to school in Texas. And I'm like making them and he's like, oh, you mean gas station nuts. And I was like what and he's like, yeah, Bucky's gas station nuts. Like you've never had them, and I'm like, what are you talking about. He was telling me like that they make these like candied nuts, and he calls them gas station nuts, and I'm like that is awesome and I love it, so we call him gas station nuts. I can't wait to go. I just want to book a trip to Texas to go to BUCkies and like get all of the nuts and stuff. This show was produced by myself and Me a fast edited and mixed by the other worldly Dean White and Abbey Austria Special thanks to all of My boss is Jim Demiko, Megan Kurge, Brett cush Her and Emily Felt. That's it for us. Put your trade tables up, lead your shoes on, and we'll see you next week. By