North Carolina Is Filled With The Best Gas Station Food Locations

How often do you pull into a rest stop to fill up the tank based around how good the food is there? Well, according to a new report by USA Today's 10BEST, North Carolina has many of the best gas station chains when it comes to good food.

10BEST says of these places, "They're serving up delicious food and snacks that make them destinations in and of themselves, from fried chicken and pizza to organic salads and veggie burritos."

To first set the stage here, 10BEST named the following gas station brands among the best: TravelCenters of America, Kwik Check, Rutter's, and Casey's. The top-ranked chain was Royal Farms.

Throughout the state, we will find many of these best gas station food stops. In addition, there are some other notable chains like Sheetz scattered around North Carolina. In fact, there are 121 Sheetz locations here. That is the second most in America, making up 17% of their total stores, according to the data analysis site, ScrapeHero.

However, let's focus on the chains 10BEST highlighted for having the best gas station food. There are five Royal Farms locations in North Carolina. They were applauded for having great breakfast options, "in addition to other hot food menu items, including sandwiches, burgers, hot dogs, and their popular fried chicken," 10BEST said.

There are also 39 QuickTrip locations in North Carolina. QuickTrip ranked as the ninth best gas station food chain.

Since Royal Farms was awarded as the number one spot, let's highlight what to get if you stop there. Among the convenient things you can do here, like get a car wash, grab a coffee, and get gas, they categorize their snack options as "Fresh Food."

Among those items is their "world famous" fried chicken. Royal Farms describes this as "Hand-breaded with our famous spice blend, pressure cooked in small batches around the clock, and always fresh and hot!"

If you add a side order of the hand-cut western wedge fries, and you have a tasty and hearty meal to eat before you head back out on the road.

The Kitchn recently detailed the best gas station snacks, as did TimeOut. Both featured name a collection of candy, chips and pretzels as items where you can "fuel you at the same time as your car." With North Carolina having many of these best gas station food chains, we can opt to fuel up with a full meal in replace of or addition to just a snack.

Ben and Jerry's new flavors couldn't be more different from each other. The popular New England based ice cream brand has added three options to their creative family so far this year, and here I will rank them all.

Coincidentally, I tried each of these in one sitting. This was an unplanned taste test. With a house full of young kids, a visiting friend recently stopped by and knew the way to quickly win over the youngsters. Pints of ice cream.

Before I get into explaining which was best, I should note I am not an ice cream (or dessert) enthusiast by any means. Dare I say, I hardly seek out ice cream, even in the summer months. However, if it is put in front of me, I will eat it if it's one of my favorite varieties.

If I'm going for ice cream, though, Ben and Jerry's is easily my brand of choice. Being a New Englander, I have toured their Vermont location a handful of times. Their half-baked in a cone is my go-to choice.

If you are not familiar, these are the Ben and Jerry's new flavors that have rolled out in 2024. Impretzively Fudged, PB S'More, and Marshmallow Sky. Now, it's important to note that Marshmallow Sky is new just to pints. Meaning, it was available in their scoop shops only.

Another flavor entitled Strawberry Cheezecake was also unveiled earlier this year. This did not qualify here as a new flavor ranking because it had been an ice cream flavor (branded "cheesecake). The new "cheeze" version is a vegan dairy-free dessert.

Upon seeing these at my house, I realized they were new. So, instead of selecting one pint to scoop, I took one for the team and realized I needed one proper scoop of each.

My process was to try one at a time and not have all three in the same bowl. Blending flavors might compromise the intended taste.

As a result, there was a flavor where one bite was enough. Another where I couldn't get enough, and the third was somewhere in between.

Here is my official ice cream ranking of Ben and Jerry's new flavors.

It's chocolate ice cream with fudge covered pretzel pieces and pretzel swirl. The problem here is that I do not like chocolate covered pretzels. Oddly enough, I love pretzels alone. Dip them in sugar and ice cream and it either compromises the flavor or classifies as "too much." So, this was my least favorite.

Here we have toasted marshmallow ice cream with peanut butter cups, graham cracker pieces, and marshmallow swirl. The graham crackers are the star of this show. They pair better with the ice cream and chocolate than the typical marshmallow of a S'More. This was certainly a tasty delight, but I feel if the marshmallow swirl did not need to be invited to the party.

Admittedly, I was a little cautious about the blue ice cream color thinking it could suffer from cotton candy syndrome (where too much equals upset stomach city). That is not the case here. It's marshmallow ice cream with swirls, and then chocolate chip cookie dough and chocolate chocolate chip cookie dough. The latter of the cookie dough bites just brings this to another level. Some sweets get forced together and some just belong together and make each other better. That's the case here. It's no wonder Ben and Jerry's decided to promote this flavor. It tastes as cheerful as it looks.