Travel Centers of America is failing and will declare bankruptcy within five years.

As much as I hate T/A I’m not gonna judge them on the trash at the fuel aisle.

My company would “prefer” I go there, so that’s where the majority of my shower credits and bonus points are. And I plan stops based on their network.

That’s not to say there aren’t a few locations I’ll never set foot in if I can help it. Or places where I regret the lack of options.

As far as IHOP and BobEvans, for the locations I’ve been to, it’s generally an improvement, though there are a few independent restaurants that we’ve lost. What I’d really like is to staff these restaurants full time. I hate getting up at 3am and there’s no option for food. Or getting in late as well. Our industry isn’t 9-5 and you can’t staff amenities like we are. I even remember a place in Wisconsin where even the fuel desk and convenience store closed after 11!

Sadly it looks like the opposite, they’re shutting down the restaurants and blaming the Covid. They’re locking out the movie theaters/TV rooms and lounge areas. Soon there won’t BE a reason to step inside a truckstop except for a fuel receipt and a shower.

 

Infosaur,
Being an "old timer", 45 years behind the wheel, I've been to many truck stops both Mom/Pop and corporate stops and like most I prefer any good independent stop with a sit down restaur-ant.
I always went to the ones with 24/7 restaurants, good parking lots, clean showers and great people working there. I started with Pure, then 76, Petro, Truckstops of America and Flying J. I don't like Pilot and they have destroyed the J's and when TA became Travel Centers they went down hill.
If TA keeps there downward spiral they will more than likely become just a fuel stop with fast food and paid parking only. What a shame! I hope they spin off Petro to become the great stops they are.

 

That’s what I feel I missed about the old days. When I go into a lot of T/As (the old unmodified ones) you see a lot of rooms that used to have a purpose but now seem to be where they carelessly stock cleaning supplies and trash.

Granted the days of the block of pay phones are gone but the lounges, shops, game rooms, bars? Sometimes I wish I’d been around for that.

 

Take a stroll through Montana...except for the bars, they're all still there. Some even still have the payphones! (The Town Pump on the north side of 90 west of Butte I know for sure still has the old school payphones...)

 

Pilot is building a new site here in Buckeye on the North side of the 10 freeway at Miller Rd(mm114). They also started construction on the one in Gila Bend just off I 8 after they demoed the Shell gas station the was there for decades.

 

The problrm with Loves is that the lots are small. They fill up way too early. If you stop and it is full you have wasted time.

 

Well,,, I wasn’t counting that.
In fact in Youngstown there’s a bar that treats its customers WAY better than the T/A across the street. Truck parking too.

 

I haven’t driven over the road in 5 years or so, but even then it was mediocre. I think TA owns petro right? I never stopped at TA if I could avoid it, I would stop at the Petro in California before LA at the bottom of the grapevine. That was clean and had way too much parking and could always be counted on to stop at. But most TAs have mediocre food options, their convenience stores had high prices and poor selection, their showers show age, etc.

They need a plan to modernize for sure.

 

I stop there just to look at all the cute girls walking around inside