Earlier this week, we asked you about the worst gas station food that you’ve ever eaten. The responses were just as shocking and repulsing as you would assume. But there were a few service stations that had ardent supporters to vouch on their behalf. One commenter claimed that a tainted egg salad sandwich boost his cognitive abilities. From culinary catastrophes to non-existent food safety, here are the worse food items consumed by our readers:
Day before we moved into our house, my Mom picked up some gas station sandwiches on the way over to see the place. I was violently sick the next day and couldn’t help move anything. One of the worst cases of food poisoning I’ve ever had. Reminded me of the Futurama episode where Fry eats the sandwich from the truck stop vending machine and gets worms.
Submitted by: crankywindow
Anything from Royal Farms. They can fuck up a scrapple sandwich. I mean, scrapple is already fucked up, yet Ro-Fo has the ability to take it to another level.
Submitted by: Hugh Tchasj
hard disagree. I used to work in the sailing industry in the upper chesapeake bay area and a RoFo chicken tender sandwich were always a welcome lunch
Submitted by: GoalieLax
I was at a gas station somewhere between Huntsville and Birmingham AL that offered hot food.
On the menu board I saw ‘Stromboli’ ; what I imagined was cheese and tomato sauce in some sort of baked pizza crust, or at the very worst a Hot-Pocket kind of set-up.
What I was handed was a oblong ground beef patty covered with a slice of Kraft American cheese and brown gravy and served on a seeded sub roll.
My Italian ancestors must have been rolling in their graves.
Submitted by: The Old Man from Scene 24
Excluding breakfast/lunch tacos in the South that I can watch someone prep, I generally expect gas station food to be bad. What disappoints me the most are when I get a common candy bar and it has issues like it’s been melted/hardened a bunch of times or it has that weird gray color because it’s probably 3 years old. Almost anything pre-packaged under a heater is garbage and I know I’m taking a gamble with it, but a gray, crusty Hersey bar is because that owner knows no one will ever be back again and feels like a big F you.
Submitted by: engineerthefuture
When I moved to Georgia in 1995, I used to go out for drives on nice weekends just to see what was out there.
One of my trips took me to Baxley, which is about 25 miles east of Savannah and roughly dead center of the triangle formed by Savannah, Macon and Jacksonville FL.
I stopped to fill up at a roadside mini-mart just outside of town. No pay at the pump here, so I went into the station to pay for my gas. While stocking up on snacks and drinks, I passed by a steam table with three trays. When I asked the clerk what was in the trays she responded in a heavy southern accent “Chinese Food!”
She came over and lifted the covers to reveal fried tice, lo mein and what I assume was pepper steak. All of it was dried out and crusty looking, and the smell was like no Chinese food i had ever encountered.
Hnmmm. Chinese food...at a gas station...in middle of nowhere Georgia.
Um, no thank you, hard pass.
Submitted by: Earthbound Misfit I
I bought a egg salad sandwich from a vending machine in the bathroom of gas station. Shortly after, with working with a alcoholic coworker of mine on the plasma fusion boiler, it exploded and impaled me with a piece of metal. Strangely, my body was able to repair itself immediately. Apparently the egg salad was the eggs of worms, which greatly evolved into a society capable of advanced technology. Some coworkers were able to enter my body using Fantastic Voyage style technology to combat the worms. The advanced worms, unbeknownst to me, were improving my cognitive abilities. A one eyed attractive coworker I had long had a crush on, started to show interest in me romantically, after long ignoring my advances to her previously. Due to the worms increasing my mental abilities, I was able to play a very difficult musical instrument to impress my cycloptic coworker. Long story short, after the worm infestation was dealt with, and my cognitive abilities reverted back to my pre infection level, my coworker lost interest in me romantically.
Submitted by: Paul
Bought an order of those rolled up cheese things that resemble some sort of Americanized Mexican food. Hard, tasteless (except for salty) and greasy. Bleh. I was starving. Next time it’ll be a bag of cheesy poofs.
Submitted by: sybann
Very fortunate that I personally have avoided carastrophe, I have issues as it is so I am very cautious of sketchy food on trips, I’ll starve rather than risk dysentery. I’ll go to some iffy looking joints if I get a recommendation and have had some really good eats, otherwise I stick to pre-packaged items and always check the dates, ALWAYS, check the dates.
Someone I was traveling with wasn’t as fortunate, they didn’t check the date on a bottle of milk they bought, they popped it open and took a swig, they gagged and turned green, it was past its expiration date, not a little past it, it was 10 months past it. This wasn’t from some random place, it has a nationwide presence, not like a place that just sells Shell or Exxon, I will not name them as I’ll say it was most likely staff at the location as have been to dozens and not had any similar issues. I’m still trying to figure out how they managed to take a swig without the smell hitting them first, I smelt it on the other side of the car as they went for it, it was exquisitely pungent. Thankfully the incident didn’t end with vomit in my car, so that was good.
Submitted by: CitronC
The worse is the best.
If you go into a place and it reeks of dirty socks and the twinkies are advertising the Bicentennial, you aren’t really tempted to get into trouble.
But if you find a place that is covered up on older pick ups and dudes in work boots surrounding an orange and green Food truck blasting Accordian music, you will find that tempting.
And after tasting some, you will find it irresistable.
Then 45 minutes later, you will find your gringo stomach can’t handle that much lard, Cholula and tripe and you will end up at another crappy gas station and making it smell like something died there during the Truman Administration.
But hey! Look what’s in the parking lot! Surely a cup of Corn won’t hurt you...
Submitted by: hoser68
Can’t say what sucks, but certainly Bucc’ees has it right, with fresh food made on the spot. It helps that they’re the size of small Walmart, but yeah, fresh sandos made-to-order is fantastic grub.
Submitted by: Polysyllabic