Rewards: Eat Like A Trucker

How to tell the frozen from the greazed.

By Mark Barna; Additional Reporting by Darcy Totten

Bruce Mummery and Kevin Shaffer wait for their order
at the Oasis Grill. / Photo by Charr Crail

Everyone who has ever given in to the call of the open road knows that there is nothing quite so quintessentially American as an interstate truck stop. Waitresses in polyester uniforms and bright lipstick hustling grizzled and greasy men, and the occasional woman, for tips on $1 cups of coffee; sunglasses sold in every style next to maps and shot glasses, and CDs of greatest guitar hits of the ’80s. The truck stop has a smell, an aura and a life all its own.

Truckers are easy to distinguish from other road-weary travelers. Alone at the bar, maybe nursing a coffee, they’re content to be away from the rumble of the big rig and congestion of the interstates. These modern-day cowboys (and cowgirls) hunker down a seat apart, leaning toward each other to trade tales of road life.

Such Rockwellian scenes are becoming rare. Corporations such as Flying J, Pilots and Travel Centers of America are replacing the mom-and-pop eateries, once ubiquitous along highways and interstates.

Though franchises offer weary truckers the convenience of food, TV, a shower and a parking space, they lack the feel of smaller stops, where tales of the road are shared over rubber eggs and coffee served with a fork.

Todd Cundiff, a self-confessed hillbilly from Kentucky whose favorite dish is “beans and taters,” digs into an “average” taco salad at the Flying J in Lodi off Int. 5. He has traveled 35 miles from his Int. 80 route because he can’t find a Sacramento dining stop where he can park his rig for free overnight. (A federal law mandates that drivers be idle 10 hours for every 14 hours on the road.)

“It’s not my favorite place,” Cundiff says of Flying J, “but the showers are clean and fuel prices are good. It’s just that when you’re out on the road a long time, you want something more homey.”

Cundiff, 48, didn’t know that within walking distance was Rocky’s Café and Family Dining, established in 1984 by Rocky Benigno and now run by his son, Barry. Before the area became Flag City, a sprawling freeway island anchored by Flying J at Int. 5 and Hwy. 12, Rocky’s and a diesel fuel company were all alone at the crossroads.

“We serve good, homemade food,” says restaurant manager Gary Freitas, “not the franchise stuff that’s frozen and canned.”

Homemade Biscuits

At the Oasis Grill in Dunnigan off Int. 5, fruit is fresh, not canned. And almost everything, from biscuits to gravy to roast beef, is homemade.

“Sometimes (truckers) are tired,” says co-owner Maggie Kim, “so we give them a smile and we give them good service.”

Cindy Berry Knight, who drives with her husband for Knight Transportation out of Phoenix, always stops at Oasis on the couple’s routes to Washington state.

“This is a four-star while everything else is a one-star. Maggie takes pride in her food preparation,” says Knight, with an unconscious nod to the intimacy of the “road family” that exists within trucker culture.

Not all truckers care so deeply. Rafael Guerrero, gassing up his 18-wheeler at 49er Travel Plaza in Sacramento, grabs his plates at restaurants offering a freebie.

“I adjust my route to hit places that give free coffee,” says Guerrero, 54, looking rough with his unshaven chin and pulled-down cowboy hat. “If you get three free coffees a day it makes a difference.”

Source:Prosper Magazine