By A. H. Bosley
Ms. Manners wants to know YOUR favorite Mom & Pop Truck Stop/Restaurant.
With big corporations taking over and really killing off the independent owners of truck stops and diners along our highways, we are eating the same old thing in the same old places just in a different towns and states.
I love to try out Mom & Pop truck stops.
Usually great home cooked foods in shady little places. It seems the worse they look the better the food tastes. They are becoming fewer and far between with the never ending familiar haunts in the same old stops. We have Subway in every corporate truck stop in America. Then McDonalds and there is Chester’s. We have Taco Bell, Arby’s and Hardees’s every now and then. Then there are the regular sit downs with the buffets in the J’s, TA’s and Petro restaurants like the Buckhorn, Country Pride, Iron Skillet and don’t forget Denny’s. Most everything served is out of the freezer into the fryer right onto a plate. No extra TLC given.
I will admit that 50% of the soups are great and I do love the fresh salad bars with the many options to make a great salad, this is what I eat mostly. I still get bored with the same ole same ole menu. I do understand that LARGE corporations must maintain a uniformed standard and so we get the same restaurants in the same stops but the quality is lacking.
Let’s see with fuel, food, snacks, equipment etc., we spend over $500.00 a day in J’s Pilot each and every day, EVERY DAY. Once in a while we will get our fuel in Loves or the TA/Petro but most often it’s the Flying J. We stop elsewhere for our food 10% of the time and eat in our tuck 10% of the time. This adds up to a buying power. Let’s see, $500 a day for approximately 20 days a month (that’s usually how many days a month we are out) = $10,000.00 yes, Ten Thousand Dollars a month. Since my husband and I team we sometimes spend less and sometimes more. But on an average, that’s a lot of cash out of one truckers pocket into a business.
Mom & Pop Restaurants care about the food they serve and they love truckers. Most of you may have to buy your fuel where your company tells you to and the owner operator’s well they have to buy where it is the best business wise. Our food is another story. The back bone of the USA is and was built on the backs of hard working people, such as ourselves. Let’s spread the wealth around a bit to the America Americana diners where our trucks can fit into and are wanted in. Also a place we feel good when we get there. Get a great meal, with friendly wait staff and appreciative owner.
LET ME KNOW!
Let them know to post signs so a trucker knows we are not only welcome but there is a place to park our rigs. We pass so many places because we don’t or didn’t want to take the chance of getting off the big road with no place to turn around or get into.
WHATS YOUR FAVORITE MOM & POP SHOP?
One of mine is The Outpost Cafe in Hesperia CA off I-15 (take exit 141 onto Joshua St / US-395 they have parking and a pilot right next door). The exit is Just before you go down the hill into the valley.
The address is Oak Hills but the Pilot shows Hesperia.
Looking forward to some new places with smiling faces and great food…