Are we there yet? That phrase has been uttered by countless kids from the backseat of a car on road trips. A midday break for a restroom stop, a tank of gas, lunch and maybe a toy to occupy youngsters for the afternoon was a good idea during long rides.
In the 1960s and 1970s, kids on a road trip sitting in the “way back” seats in their parent’s Ford Country Squire Station Wagon may have offered the suggestion, “let’s stop at Stuckey’s,” the restaurant, gas station and gift shop combination with the blue sloped roof.
In my youth, I was a fan of Stuckey’s for its peanut brittle and weird items in the gift shop. I bought what appeared to be a preserved baby alligator and a straw golf hat with compartments for gold tees and a pack of cigarettes in their gift shop 60-some years ago.
At its peak, Stuckey’s had 368 locations, now down to a dozen independently owned stores. They became the first roadside retail chain, according to Stephanie Stuckey, granddaughter of the company’s founder W.S. Stuckey.
She purchased the company in 2019, many years after the business was sold away from the family. She said the decline of the stores was due to her grandfather selling the business to Dairy Queen, producing decades of outside ownership.
He started in business by opening a roadside pecan stand during the Great Depression outside Eastman, Ga.
“He started realizing if he made candy, more people would pull over and he did what all entrepreneurs do, he solved problems,” she said. “They would ask where can I fill up with gas, and where can I use the restroom and where can I get a quick hot meal.”
W.S. Stuckey built three full-service locations but had to shutter them during World War II when gasoline was rationed. He approached the military and began making candy for the troops and providing food for ration kits.
Overall, he created a candy manufacturing facility, a distribution center, a trucking line and billboard company.
“That’s why I decided we needed to revive it; it was such a great thing he did,” Stephanie Stuckey said.
When interstate highways came along, W.S. Stuckey moved his stores to exits along the roads, buying land before the road construction began, she said.
The former locations, about 340 buildings, have been repurposed into everything from fireworks stores to trucker bars, porn shops, a toy museum and one even as a residence.
Stephanie Stuckey said she is focusing on candy and snack manufacturing since only a dozen Stuckey’s stores remain and they are independently owned and operated. She can supply candy stores or convenience stores with their pecan-oriented products and also offers all the items online at Stuckeys.com.
She said Georgia grows more pecans than any other place in the world and her family still owns her grandfather’s pecan farm.
“At its core, we’re a pecan company and always have been. That’s how we started and so, we’re restarting how we began selling pecan snacks and candies,” she said.
The gift shops sold items that were fitting souvenirs for the area in which they were located, such as coconut head statuettes or seashell wind chimes in Florida and cowboy hats in Texas. Some of the Stuckey’s had talking mynah birds and honeybee hives on the premises, Stephanie Stuckey said.
She said her grandfather wanted limited seating in his restaurants so customers would walk around the stores while they waited and spend money.
“He created a maze, so if you wanted to go to the bathroom, you literally walked through a maze of merchandise,” Stephanie Stuckey said. “The bathroom was in a way back corner and he made it very hard to get to.”
Driving by former Stuckey’s locations, some of which were converted to not-too-family-friendly uses, was a heartache for her. She grabbed the opportunity to buy the business and bring it back into her family.
Inflation and high interest rates had not made life easy for the business because customers expected Stuckey’s to keep their prices the same, she said.
Stepanie wrote a new book entitled “Unstuck, Rebirth of an American Icon.” The book is an homage to her grandfather and all that he built. She said she realizes to move the business forward, she must embrace the new generation of consumers.
“I say in the book I’m not living in the past but I’m honoring it,” Stuckey said.
Her book, pecan candy and Stuckey’s logo items are available at stuckeys.com.
Jack Fichter is editor of the Cape May Star and Wave, sister newspaper to the Ocean City Sentinel, Upper Township Sentinel and The Sentinel of Somers Point, Linwood and Northfield.