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No road trip is complete without a stop to gas up or recharge and grab some snacks. Snacks are most important to me on road trips. Long before big chains like 7-Eleven and Circle K dotted the landscape, Stuckey's ruled the highways with its candy and Southern pecan log rolls. Now, a small-town Stuckey's in Missouri is attracting a new generation with halal dishes on its menu. From St. Louis Public Radio, Ulaa Kuziez reports.
ULAA KUZIEZ, BYLINE: In its heyday, there were about 400 Stuckey's stores around the country, and it had a snappy jingle.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "STUCKEY'S THEME (VOCAL)")
RAYMOND SCOTT AND DOROTHY COLLINS: (Singing) Every trip's a pleasure trip when you stop at Stuckey's. Dad and mother and hungry brother love to stop at Stuckey's.
KUZIEZ: Now there are about 60 franchises left, including one in Doolittle, Missouri, and it's located about 100 miles northeast of St. Louis, right off Interstate 44. And it's a big draw for some truckers.
MOHAMMAD PARAS: They have, like, signs and billboards. It says very big halal, you know? So that really attracts. So that's why I'm here.
KUZIEZ: That's Mohammad Paras (ph). He took the exit, parked his 16-wheeler and went in for a bite of halal food to fuel him up for his trip to the West Coast.
PARAS: I ordered, like, halal biryani with a drink.
KUZIEZ: Halal food is prepared according to Islamic dietary guidelines, and it holds spiritual significance for many Muslims. But on the road, Paras says halal food is hard to find. Immigrants make up about 15% of U.S. truck drivers, according to federal census data. And businessman Shahbaz Raza says enough are Muslim that he saw the lack of halal food as a need and an opportunity.
SHAHBAZ RAZA: When I'm traveling with my family or myself, only concern that is where to eat, what to eat. So we don't have many choices. But as soon as we see any single small signs of halal food, there goes the exit - instantly.
KUZIEZ: Raza owns several travel centers and says demand for halal food from Muslim truck drivers and road trippers has skyrocketed. So over the past several months, he introduced halal food to 10 Stuckey's stores around the country. The response has been positive and profitable.
RAZA: People come in and they look - ask for who is the owner, and they want to meet us, and they want to thank us. And one of the family wrote a wonderful page saying prayers, ask for our parents, for our families, for our business.
KUZIEZ: At the Doolittle location, managing partner Mohammad Kamal (ph) says about a fifth of his truck driver customers buy halal food such as chicken tenders and burgers or something off of the store's extensive Indian food menu.
MOHAMMAD KAMAL: We have a lot of trucking traffic on this highway. So truck drivers, many from the Indian subcontinent, they were asking for Indian food.
KUZIEZ: Chef Ritu Rani (ph) says, many other customers try out their spicy biryani dish and come back for more.
RITU RANI: There's one customer I remember. He came to me. He told me, I like Indian food, but it's a little bit spicy for me. But I want to try. But then he try. He told me, show my hair here is wet, and I have, like, sweaty, but it's awesome. I like it (laughter).
KUZIEZ: The layered chicken and rice dish is made fresh daily in an outdoor cooking station. The aroma here is strong as the cooks add in spices to the marinated chicken and sear it on a gas stove. The owners plan to offer halal food in more of their roadside stores around the country, maybe making it as popular as Stuckey's pecan log rolls once were.
For NPR News, I'm Ulaa Kuziez in Doolittle, Missouri.
(SOUNDBITE OF PSYCADA SONG, "HALAL") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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