Twice a day, Adele Platt and her 96-year-old father-in-law drive five miles from their adjacent homes for a meal at the Virginian Truck Center in Toms Brook, Va., 90 miles west of Washington, D.C., in the Shenandoah Valley. ”We eat the special every day,” said Mrs. Platt, a widow and retired bookkeeper. ”It runs me $6 a day per person but it keeps my sanity.” Her father-in-law is a persnickety eater, she explained.
Said chef and co-manager Robert Cooper: ”People come here from 30 miles down the road. Truckers stop by, coming and going.”
The Virginian Truck Center is representative of the ways in which America`s truck stops are changing. Many of the nation`s 4,400 truck stops are broadening their services to cater to the general public as well as truckers. Truck stops have ”come a long way from the 25-seat counter in a diner environment to upwards of 275 seats in a 40-acre complex,” said Frank Bader, who manages national truck stop accounts for Graphic Menus Inc. ”An interstate truck stop is a city within itself.”
Today`s travelers on American highways can pull in to a truck stop 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. There, besides buying fuel, they may shop for everything from truck accessories (chrome-plated lug nuts, perhaps) to necklaces, TVs, snack food, and billed caps (”My Wife Ran Away With My Best Friend,” reads one, ”And I Miss Him”). They might cash checks, transfer money, launder clothes, make telephone calls (half the interstate truck stops have phones in the dining booths), pray in a nondenominational chapel, watch a movie, play games, send telegrams, fax documents, and sleep in an inexpensive motel (around $25 a night).
More and more, truck stops are adapting to accommodate families and other ”civilian” travelers. ”Our members are finding it necessary to be competitive among themselves for RVs, four-wheel traffic, and senior citizens who arrive in buses,” said Roger King, spokesman for the National Association of Truck Stop Operators. About 20 percent of truck-stop business is from nontruckers, and that percentage is rising, King said.
Truck-stop restaurateurs are upgrading menus to suit changing tastes. Kitchens have gone from short-order grills and deep-fat fryers to fully equipped restaurant-style kitchens. They can broil and bake foods now, and they use fewer steam tables, preparing food as needed instead.
The traditional truck-stop favorites, steak and potatoes, are still popular, but ”Truckers` tastes have changed just like the average
American`s,” King said.
For example, salad bars, not to be seen three years ago, have recently entered truck stops in a big way. The salad bar at the Petro Travel Plaza in Portage, Wis., about midway between Minneapolis-St. Paul and Chicago on Interstate Highways 90 and 94, is ”as big as a truck,” said manager Jim Coetz Sr. The 30-foot-long salad bar at Mr. J`s restaurant in the Elgin West 90-76 Truck Stop, 36 miles northwest of Chicago`s O`Hare International Airport, includes spinach, cole slaw, fruits, cold pasta, bean salad and condiments.
Average truck-stop prices are 10 to 15 percent lower than independent, privately operated restaurants, said restaurant consultant Dan Winer. The average dinner buffet at a truck stop costs $6.02, he said. And portions tend to be larger.
Many truck stop restaurants also have menus for children, typically with five items-hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken, spaghetti and fish fillets-priced from 95 cents to $1.95. ”We have the finest family restaurants in the United States of America,” said Coetz of Petro Travel Plaza in Wisconsin. ”We have a secure environment for the traveler with lots of activity. People enjoy watching 18-wheelers being fueled and lifted by 40-ton towing and recovering units.”
Occasionally, some famous folks pull into truck stops. With 15 minutes`
notice, Jack Hamilton, owner of the La Salle/Peru Auto/Truckstop outside Chicago, readied his 180-seat restaurant for then-Vice President George Bush, who arrived with a 250-person campaign entourage.
Bush sat at the ”Drivers Only” counter to eat meat loaf, a taco salad and strawberry shortcake. He left a $50 tip, instructing Hamilton to ”be sure all (six) girls split it.”
