Road-trip staple Stuckey’s tries to stage comeback
Gas stop nostalgia renewed with express shops, more
I’m 45 miles away when the first billboard appears. “Famous Pecan Log Rolls,” it declares. “An American Tradition Since 1937.”
I press on the accelerator a little harder.
The sales pitch steadily amps up. “Saltwater taffy,” promises the next sign. A few miles later, a Godzillasize squirrel peers out from another towering advertisement: “I need to stop at Stuckey’s to get my nuts!” it declares.
When the roadside shop finally appears on the horizon in Mappsville, on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, there’s really no choice but to pull over.
I step inside Stuckey’s, and even on a chilly winter day, it feels like a beach vacation, with spinner racks of T-shirts, piles of Mexican blankets and shelves and shelves of candy.
“A lot of people who come here say they remember traveling with their grandparents during the summer, and they would always stop,” said Jennifer Fletcher, who has worked the counter for 32 years.
I nod knowingly. The truth is those memories had prompted me to detour miles out of my way to visit the last free-standing Stuckey’s in Virginia.
The emporium traces its roots to a Georgia pecan dealer who started a stand to sell nut candies made by his wife. As the country emerged from the Depression, W.S. “Sylvester” Stuckey Sr. began to build stores and soon was outfitting them with gas pumps, lunch counters and gift shops. His newly founded chain, with a signature blue roof, grew along with the country’s new interstate highway system, reaching 368 locations in more than 30 states, with a concentration across the South and Southwest.
For baby boomers, it became a road trip staple, an oasis of souvenirs and sweets, plus clean restrooms. But it was sold a couple of times to conglomerates and began a downward spiral after the oil embargo of the 1970s temporarily put the road trip out of fashion, and fastfood challengers sprouted along the highways.
Now it’s trying to launch a comeback.
I had fallen anew under the Stuckey’s spell a few months earlier during a visit to Atlanta, when I stayed at a Stuckey’sthemed Airbnb furnished with brightly branded coffee mugs, vintage candy boxes and even a rubber alligator, one of the stores’ treasured souvenirs. They all brought back memories of childhood trips across Virginia, with Stuckey’s stops in Front Royal, Williamsburg and points beyond.
The guesthouse belonged to Stephanie Stuckey, the founder’s granddaughter, who recently bought the financially troubled company. I felt as if I was sleeping on sacred ground, or at least in the shadow of royalty.
Stuckey, 56, laughs at the idea, although the Atlanta Journal-Constitution did call her a pecan log roll “heiress,” a title that seems to both amuse and annoy her. “I thought heiresses were supposed to have money,” she said. “I got debt.”
A lawyer and former Georgia state legislator, Stuckey grew up in D.C., the daughter of Rep. Bill Stuckey Jr., who represented Georgia’s 8th Congressional District for 10 years. Every summer, she would road trip with her family in a “woodie” station wagon to Florida, seeing her last name on billboards and stopping at every Stuckey’s store along the way.
Inspired by these memories, Stuckey says that, in 2019, she invested $500,000 to purchase the vastly diminished company. The chain now has just 13 freestanding original stores in 10 states sporting their signature sloped roofs. (The Gallman, Miss., location recently took a “terrible hit” when a truck slammed into it, wrecking the front half, Stuckey says.)
In addition, it has about 65 licensed Stuckey’s Express locations housed in larger stores. That’s why you’ll find a couple of shelves of Stuckey’s products at places such as the sprawling Border Station souvenir shop and gas station along Route 168 in Chesapeake, Va.
The company recently bought a pecan-and-candy plant in Georgia. It’s also online, shipping candy and an endless variety of Stuckey’s merchandise (socks, hats, hoodies) that once were available only to those wandering in off the highway. Also available, of course, is Stuckey’s grandmother’s pecan log roll, a cylinder of nougat and maraschino cherries coated with caramel and pecan
pieces. The treat isn’t subtle: It’s a soft, chewy, crunchy sugar bomb. It remains the biggest seller.
The company has seen its annual revenue more than quadruple to $11 million in the past two years, Stephanie Stuckey says, but like its fans, Stuckey seems driven by nostalgia, traveling across the country to visit her outlets and other roadside attractions. “I love rubber alligators. I love snow globes, mugs, salt and pepper shakers, spoons, shot glasses, piggy banks, any of those kitschy collectibles. The tackier the better,” she said.
She also takes pride in her family’s legacy. “My grandfather really paid attention to what people wanted when they pulled over. We’re part of the DNA of the American travel experience by car.”
Indeed, the chain — which promised customers a place to “Relax, Refresh, Refuel” — made its mark on American culture. A 1995 article in the Society for Commercial Archeology Journal calls Stuckey’s “the forerunner of the modern convenience store.” At one point, it was the nation’s largest seller of Texaco fuel, and its stores lined 12 major highways heading to Florida, notes the journal. The chain also was an unexpected beacon of tolerance in the Jim Crow South, welcoming Black travelers as a company policy.
Stuckey’s was a relentless advertiser, boasting 4,000 billboards at its peak. It wore down parents’ defenses with an onslaught of signs alerting everyone in the car that a Stuckey’s was ahead. The company would typically locate stores on the northbound side of the road, knowing that southbound vacationers were so eager to reach their destination that they were less likely to stop, Stuckey said. Her grandfather also sought hilltop sites, so they could be seen from a distance.