We Need Italian Gas Station Food in the U.S.

It’s no secret that I have experience with road trip food. On the long road trips of my childhood, carefully prepared bologna sandwiches and Lay’s potato chips, pretzel rods and cold grapes were the fare of choice. As I got older and started taking road trips without my family, McDonald’s stops became the norm (apart from my two-year vegan era, during which I survived on canned chickpeas, unsalted plantain chips and motel vending machine Oreos for two weeks straight on one particularly budget-conscious trip). It wasn’t until I was in adulthood that I recognized the glory of QuikTrip, the southern rest stop phenomenon that boasts a wide variety of roller food, some of which I wholeheartedly believe is delicious (try the cheesy pepper jack taquito and thank me later).

QuikTrip still is my standard for a solid gas station in the States, although there are a few others that have more to offer than a few packages of three-year-old Combos and dried-out sour gummy worms. The average rest stop in the U.S., though, is a sad, liminal place, void of any vaguely appetizing food, made claustrophobia-inducing by the walls covered in cigarettes and scratch tickets.

So imagine my surprise when I first walked into an Autogrill, an Italian-based gas station-adjacent food stop that can be found on highways, mostly in Europe and especially in Italy itself, that, from an American perspective, is brimming with food options. It’s not just chips and other packaged snacks; you’ll be met with an array of fresh sandwiches with cheese, cured meats and vegetables, salads that are conspicuously missing the wilted lettuce you may expect at a convenience stop and even full-on pasta dishes. In some, you can stand at a counter while you drink an espresso to wake you up after hours on the road.

Autogrill isn’t an outlier in Italy. Many of the gas stations I’ve visited in the country boast an incredible selection of food to choose from—food that’s inarguably better than what you’d find even at the best rest stop food spots in the U.S. Is it the best food you’ll find in all of Italy? No, but it’s not like anyone expects it to be. I don’t think anyone can deny that it’s better than roller food, though. (Sorry, QuikTrip.)

I truly believe that the United States needs more gas stations like the ones Italy has. Italy, a country with a relatively comprehensive country-wide train system, is significantly easier to get around in without a car than the U.S. is. Yet, somehow, as car-dependent as we are, we still can’t compete with Italy when it comes to our gas station food. If any country could benefit from better-outfitted rest stops, it has to be a country as car-obsessed as the U.S. And considering our obsession with convenience—the U.S. is the birthplace of many convenience foods, after all—you would think it would be a little bit easier to get a decent, un-fried sandwich on the road in this country.

For years, I’ve hoped that the U.S. would adopt some of the facets of life that make living in other countries seem better or easier. It would be amazing if we had a healthcare system that wouldn’t threaten to bankrupt you at the first sign of a sniffle or at least cheap aperitivo so we could go out to see our friends without dropping $60 in the process. We may not get that lucky in our lifetimes. But if we can achieve anything good in this country at all, I have faith that we can convince a multinational gas station fast food chain to feed us some burrata.

Samantha Maxwell is a food writer and editor based in Boston. Follow her on Twitter at @samseating.