The Sad Destruction of Flying J by Pilot- catering to cars

We were in the Flying J at Rock Hill South Carolina and were happy to see they were not destroyed yet by Pilot. I asked the man ringing us up if they were going to be able to keep their restaurant. A man came from around the side and said What is it you are asking? I said we wanted to know if the restaurant was going to be able to stay. He said no it will soon be a Denny's. Hubby and I both sighed and said that is such a huge mistake. Hubby said they are going to be losing a lot of business. The man a district manager said (very excited) oh no actually we have seen tremendous increase in sales since we put the Denny's in the other Flying J's. I said yes from CARS. He said yes from cars. I told him that the cars are not the ones who are out here having to survive off the truck stops the drivers are. So why cater to the cars? He said this. " I know we are catering more to CARS, but i am just a guy trying to run a TRUCK STOP"

Pilot Flying J can forget about getting anymore money from us.
They want to cater to cars fine let them apparently they don't want the drivers there anyway.

 

Wow! Denny's??? F that. I can say I will be using t/a and petro more then Pilot Flying J... Thats BS and my personal opinion was there restaurant was one of the better ones out of the big stops.

 

Go to truckstops from now on.

Flying J is not in many regards a truckstop !!!!!

 

so, what's the stark difference between "J's" current choke and puke chain, and Denny's. They still serve food. A salad is a salad, a burger is a burger. I just dont see the big hooplah about putting Denny's in truck stops, when most have BKs, McDonalds, other fast food crap. At least it's still food. They still have diesel, they still have truck parking. I saw dont talk of "boycotting" a chain until they start to take the things that matter away. like showers, decent parking, restrooms etc. They're going to make more money off of the 1000 cars that come in and out, rather then the 100 trucks that park in their lot for 10 hours then leave. It's simple economics.

Have a better plan?
then build a truckers only truck stop. Try to stay afloat.

 

I think what the idea here is that they will have more turnover with the car traffic than the truck traffic. The truck traffic is there for a few meals and then not going to be getting another meal for hours.

With the four wheelers, despised as they may be, they would be coming in and out and thus, providing more sales. More sales, more profits and better able to compete with other truck stops.

However, I remember seeing four wheelers taking meals at the Country Market Restuarant at the old Flying J. I also remember seeing bus tour groups, college sports teams, RVers and others coming in and utilizing the buffet so they did not use up alot of time waiting for orders coming off of the menu.

By Denny's taking away the buffet option, this will make some people unhappy campers. I hope they express their feelings to the Flying J front office and the Denny's front office.

 

I prefer a Denny's that is open to a J that is closed any night.

 

Yep, I agree. I try to eat healthy on the road and the Flying J's Country Market Restuarant's salad bars was one of the better ones. The salad bar from the Petro nor the T/A did not wow me.

 

I have tried to express my anger at the changes that are coming to Flying J's food service at various locations. The look I get from front line staff is "Uh ... do I care" and "What part of 'don't go away mad, just go away' ... don't you understand"?

For the near term, contacting the corporate headquarters of both Flying J, Pilot and Denny's should be the goal of expressing how much we don't like the changes coming.

In the long term, with a drop off of drivers business by going to competitors of the new Flying Pee-lot, maybe they will see their way clear to bringing back the buffet.

 

I hate to see the drivers' lounges dissappear.
But that'sthe price of 'progress'. [note sarcasm]

 

Does this include the laundry facilities?