A question for truckers about eating on the road and truck stops!

On your restaurant menu, have healthy options. Many drivers aren't in the best of health. I've adopted a healthier way of eating. That's not to say I don't eat bad food sometimes, but majority of time, I choose healthier options now.

 

Smooth creamy Pumpkin soup with a hint of curry for spice. Accompanied with a side of crusty sour doug bread. Washed down with Chai "proper not power" hot drink made with rice milk.
Not a standard truckers meal but gee-wiz its a good one at home.

 

I love your idea. I've had similar one but I'm not chef or anything else just a driver with a wish ....... I have been thinking it'd be great to have a location with the following but NO FUEL......

Here's my thoughts...... There are plenty of fuel locations. What there is NOT plenty of is parking, good food and service, nor truck washes.

I've thought it'd be great to have big parking area with plenty of spots including pull-thru only ones for us that driver longer rigs or doubles. Surround are with a combo of the following: truck wash, home style restaurant, small hardware and grocery, deli, showers.

Charge for parking with a way to have parking reimbursement or waived if drivers use one or multiple other of your services.

 

I doubt the sort of setup you are describing would work anywhere other than in a very rural locale. Anything just off an interstate exit would have too high a rent to be profitable. Better to look at some reasonably busy surface road (US highway, most likely) in a smallish town quite a few miles from an interstate. This way your diner could serve a local area, and you wouldn't need to rely on just the truckers.

 

I know this one is nowhere on your list of potential states, but you could check out Indiana, somewhere along I 65. Pretty much anywhere between Indianapolis and Chicago would be a pretty good location, there are some pretty dead spots without a whole lot around, and truck parking is horrible along that stretch road pretty much anytime after five in the evening. I think you would do very well.

 

I've never seen a truck stop with a UPS store embedded in it although The Portlander does have a mail box type service plus a high quality convenience store. It used to have a good restaurant but last time I ate there it was terrible. It is a famous truck stop and a good example of what a truck stop can be but it's the people that make the place and drugs and homeless troublemakers have hit that town hard. People sleeping in the parking lot, competing with truck drivers for showers. A safe box to dispose of your heroin needles in every shower room.

Nor have I seen a truck stop that had a water dispensing machine that sold clean safe filtered drinking water by the gallon. No truck stops selling whole rotisserie chickens either.