Hello all. Here in the UK, Petrol Stations have small shops associated with them, just selling snacks, coffee, sandwiches etc as well as newspapers and some basic car accessories. However, I was recently visiting Baltimore for work and I walked around and visited a number of gas station stores. What the dfuck is the deal with those? They sold mostly the same stuff, but it was almost like being in a regular super market it was so big. THe food on offer there was some of the most grim looking food I'd ever seen. Do people really eat these? I feel that if I had eaten any of those hot dogs or burritos I would be on the toilet for a week.
My brother is a frequent visitor to gas stations, and always has been since I was little, my sister told me that she and him (along with some cousins) were super HYPED that a gas station opened up near our grandmother's house when they were kids, (this is back in the 90s) and they used to walk a whole hour to get icees, and stuff. Since my bro is overseas now, everytime he comes back home to visit the first stop he makes is to the nearest gas station (which is usually Quik Trip or Race Trac), he doesnt eat any of the food on display (at least to my memory) because our mom and grandmother said that stuff is usually DAYS old, but when I go with him, we usually get the food that's made in the kitchen (Which both QuikTrip and RaceTrac have), where the food is made fresh (we usually get pizza or pretzels), but they do make other food in the kitchen like breakfast food, subs, milkshakes, burritos, and coffee too. Oh, and RaceTrac has REALLY good frozen yogurt, they have a whole station for it (like they do for icee) and you can add toppings like choco-chip, gummy, sour gummy worms, cereal toppings (lucky charms, fruity pebbles, etc), sprinkles, marshmallows, the usual junk food beat.
But on the topic of gas stations specifically, the ones that are near me are usually clean and are pretty big, in my opinion the ones that look best are QuikTrip and RaceTrac, the one that looks kind of dodgey is BP and Shell (based on the last time I went there which was a few years ago)
QuikTrip Kitchen:
RaceTrac:
Frozen Yogurt Station:
Inside an average BP gas station:
I've been to other gas stations too, on like road trips but I don't remember the ones specifically and but the main feature of those where the ones on the highway usually had a fast food restaurant connected or inbuilt in (i.e McDs, DQ-Dairy Queen, Taco Bell, KFC, A&W, etc) those were the ones that fascinated me as a kid, but since my mom was on a tight schedule most of the time, we could only explore and get stuff from the gas station side not the fast-food side.
Combation BP and Mickey D's:
Basically, most of the smaller gas stations do have rank food, but the bigger ones usually try to have better food since they have kitchens and those are the ones people frequent to before going to work or school or on lunch break.