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Inside the kitchen at Iowa 80, the world's biggest truck stop.
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00:00This kitchen feeds the world's largest truck stop. Chefs sling out 350,000 meals
00:08a year. Iowa 80 covers over 150 football fields. It's one of the last major U.S.
00:15truck stops that's independently owned and thriving. Truckers come from all
00:20over for its movie theater, truck wash, chiropractor, dentist, and 900 parking
00:26spots for semis alone. It is impossible to find a place to park in other truck
00:30stops. There's always spaces to park here. But most of America's mom-and-pop truck
00:38stops are gone or barely hanging on. So this is what truck stops used to look
00:42like. It has a gas station, a cafe, and lodging. Reedn Island Corner in Colo, Iowa
00:48is one of America's last remaining one stops from the early 1900s. It sits at
00:54the intersection of two of America's first cross-country highways, routes that
00:58once carried travelers through small towns like Colo. They're so vital to our
01:02community and our state. But when the interstate carved new paths around Colo,
01:07the once constant flow of travelers disappeared. Now a few people from the
01:13town are trying to save it. We don't have any money. We're starting with zero. So how
01:18did American truck stops go from this to this? And as more professional drivers hit
01:23the road, why are truck stops so important?
01:30The Iowa 80 kitchen runs 24-7, 365 days a year. I got there around 8 a.m. on a
01:38Friday, just in time for the morning rush. Chefs were slinging out pancakes and
01:43French toast to order, making all the food for the 50-foot buffet, and working the
01:48omelet bar. There's a lot of calling out to each other. Kind of like a rhythmic
01:54dance or something like that. They're expecting 600 people today. So chefs tackle
02:00prep for lunch and dinner early in the morning too. When we're, you know, full
02:03steam, we'll have 20 workers probably today. Bacon is the first thing to hit the
02:08ovens. We usually prep up about 60 pounds of bacon for the day. Since opening 61
02:13years ago, Iowa 80 kitchen has served up to 23 million eggs. Scrambled eggs for
02:19the buffet arrive frozen. Chefs defrost the bags and drop them in a vat of hot
02:24water to steam. And then we just beat them up with the whisk and then we serve
02:28them. Head chef Rick Denny plans out how much food the team will make depending on
02:32the day and season. How are you related to the family? I'm not related at all. I've
02:37tried marrying in a few times, but they won't let me. My grandfather was the
02:41original owner of the restaurant. Chris Hans still uses her grandfather's recipe
02:46for meatloaf, a crowd favorite. She chops onions and celery and dumps in spices and
02:52tomato sauce for the base of the meatloaf. We got 90 pounds of ground beef here. The
02:57three main components is the beef, the mixture there, and then the bread crumbs. How
03:01many years has this been used? 40. 40 years, yep. This mixer's older than I am. This is
03:09enough meatloaf to last two to three days. So chefs portion it into tubs. So this
03:14won't be baked until probably tomorrow. We bake two off a day. For Iowa 80 kitchen
03:20size, chefs make a surprising amount from scratch. Like their ranch dressing with
03:25six gallons of buttermilk, 60 pounds of mayo, and nine
03:31packets of ranch seasoning. I'm going to try spreading it around. Iowa 80 staff also hand
03:36bread and dunk their fried chicken, one of the most popular dishes. Come 11 a.m. they
03:43flip the buffet over to lunch. Most of the people who stop in to eat are professional
03:50drivers who spend months at a time on the road. They enjoy being able to come in and
03:54get, you know, a home cooked meal. It's tiring. We drive 11 hours a day, have a 70
04:00hour work week. And I always stop here because I like the shop. I like the food
04:04court. It's one of my favorite truck stops. A lot of people eat three decent meals a
04:08day. Well, we're lucky to get one. Jerry Lenander has been driving a truck for
04:13nearly 50 years. Iowa 80 is the real deal. I mean, you can sit down for a home cooked
04:20hamburger steak meal. But there's a lot more than food here. We have a movie
04:24theater. We have a driver lounge that has a big TV. We toured the space with Lee
04:29Mayer, the founder's granddaughter and the third generation working here. Our
04:34philosophy is that when our customers are at home, they should be with their
04:39family, not running all these errands or doing laundry, getting a haircut, things like
04:43that. There's also a gym, a chapel and 24 private showers. There's even a dentist
04:50on site. If they're having an emergency on the road, they're not going to be able to
04:54pull their truck and trailer into like my dentist office, you know, in in a town.
05:00They still have the mom and pop feel and it's just it's kind of out of the norm.
05:05You can get your truck washed, your dog washed or your vehicle serviced. It's a
05:11trucker's truck stop. Trust me.
05:16Decked out rest stops like this are so crucial because truckers move about 70% of
05:21America's goods worth roughly $13 trillion in 2022. Iowa is the nation's top producer
05:30of corn and eggs and sits at the intersection of two of the country's
05:33busiest cross country highways. That's why Lee's grandparents built their business
05:38here back in 1964. The interstate was planned, so they kind of knew where it would run.
05:43Iowa 80 opened at the height of the nation's largest infrastructure project ever, the construction
05:51of the interstate system. America's first highways cut directly through small towns. They were
05:57narrow and had stoplights. But these new interstates bypassed communities entirely. They had four
06:04lanes and could handle trucks with heavier loads traveling at higher speeds. And they were built
06:09as the U.S. trucking industry was really taking off. By the 1960s, trucks began carrying more cargo,
06:15closing in on how much trains moved. Rest stops popped up along the new highways. And at first,
06:22many were small mom and pop businesses. I'm guessing it didn't look like this when your grandfather
06:26first opened it. It was so tiny. Our main building, when it opened, like literally would fit under the
06:33gas canopy now. But soon, truck stop chains started replacing family-owned ones. Big names popped up,
06:41like Flying J in 1968 and TA, or Truck Stops of America, in 1972. By 81, Pilot and Loves had expanded
06:49into nationwide chains. And slowly, they started gobbling each other up. Pilot bought Flying J in 2010,
06:57bringing itself to over 550 truck stops with the new merger. In 2023, British oil giant BP bought TA,
07:06now known as Travel Centers of America, for $1.3 billion. The large corporate chains gobbling up,
07:14you know, the family-owned truck stops has absolutely been a problem. That place that a truck driver used
07:21to always stop at so that he could get his clean shower and his good meal, all of a sudden, one year
07:26to the next, it's gone. A travel center that is just catering to your everyday drivers and to tourists
07:35isn't going to have a lot of the amenities that a truck driver needs. Things like a larger fuel nozzle that
07:42is going to actually be able to pump fuel quick enough to be able to fill up the, you know, really
07:47large truck. Loves and the TA and the Pilots, that's more of a shopping mall. They're crowded at night,
07:54there's no place to park, all the fuel islands are full. Jerry owns his own truck, so he can go
08:00wherever he wants for gas. But most drivers have to use a specific chain because their company has a
08:05contract for cheaper fuel. Iowa 80s fuel center became a TA franchise in 1992, but the entire truck
08:13stop is still family-owned. Through the decades, the truck stop renovated 33 times to keep up with
08:20ballooning demand. And over time, it just grew. We got busier. Who decided it's the biggest truck stop in
08:26the world? Well, we did, but other people said it first. When we were branded as an Amoco in the 70s,
08:33everyone would come in and say, this has got to be the world's largest Amoco.
08:37And it kind of stuck, you know, and no one's ever really challenged us on it. So then you were like,
08:42I'm brave enough to put in 10 giant signs claiming it. Right, right.
08:49But many other mom and pop truck stops died out when the chain started taking over.
08:55Two and a half hours away, one of the state's oldest roadside stops is fighting for survival.
09:00So this is what truck stops used to look like. At the turn of the century, America didn't have any
09:06cross-country highways. Roads between cities were terrible, mostly dirt, unpaved, and disconnected.
09:14But as cars got more popular, a guy named Carl Fisher, who launched the Indianapolis Speedway
09:19and Miami Beach, got funding from auto companies to build the Lincoln Highway in 1913, connecting New York
09:25City to San Francisco. Two years later, communities and business groups financed the Jefferson Highway,
09:31stretching from Winnipeg, Canada to New Orleans. These were two of America's first cross-country
09:38highways for automobiles, and they intersected in Colo. Shortly after they were built, the U.S. joined
09:44World War I, but U.S. railroads couldn't keep up with freight demand for the war effort. So America's
09:49truck fleet stepped in, growing by nearly 200,000. That's why, in the early 1920s, the guy who owned
09:56this corner of land opened a gas station. Charlie Reed eventually added cabins and a cafe, creating
10:03the Reed and Island Corner. It's argued he started Iowa's first one-stop along the Lincoln Highway.
10:10This is Reed and Island Corner, and they've been running for over a hundred years.
10:14I heard a Johnny Cash came at one point. I don't know that for a fact. I heard that.
10:20Scott Burka worked at the gas station as a teenager in the 60s. So right now the station's empty. You
10:25can go in there and see a lot of the stuff that was there when the station closed back in 1967.
10:32I think this is probably the original cash register. This is a kind of an interesting artifact. This was
10:37self-defense. If you had an unruly customer that tried to give you trouble, this was a, I guess, a
10:45weapon you could use. I've been told it's a deer foot, but I don't know. It may be a hog foot or something
10:52else. I don't know. We also had a regular billy club. We gave away road maps. 65, 66. It's interesting,
11:01some of the older maps have towns on them that aren't on the map anymore. In the day, this counter
11:08was full of boxes of candy bars, and Charlie Reed loved to give candy bars to kids when they came in.
11:16For free. For free, yeah. Charlie just gave them away. I'm sure Charlie never made a dime on the candy.
11:24This was a measuring stick for your gas tank. It didn't have a gas gauge in the car. You stuck this
11:29in there and tell you how many inches of gas you had left in the tank. I'd get down to the bottom
11:35of the stick. I'd be thinking I'd be looking for a gas station. A few steps away is Nyland's Cafe.
11:41My mother worked here in the late 50s, early 60s, and she worked a midnight shift. And I can remember
11:49stopping here in the late 60s and mad because they raised the price of hot beef sandwich from 75 to 95 cents.
11:58How dare they? Yeah, how dare they? This became a beacon for hungry or weary travelers on their long
12:04journeys west. Many of the recipes in Nyland's Cafe have endured for generations, like this roast beef
12:12seasoned with just salt and pepper. There's really no reason to overcomplicate things, you know?
12:18And that's not how they would have done it 100 years ago, you know, when this building was built.
12:22It takes over 12 hours to cook this beef. We scrape all that goodness down in to finish getting the
12:29flavoring. We trim it out. That helps finish season in the gravy. We joke about this being liquid gold
12:37because it is the base for our gravy. Head chef Jessica McKinney makes many of its dishes from scratch.
12:43The cafe is famous for its handmade pies. The dough, we use shortening or a lard mix, all-purpose flour,
12:52and a little bit of ice water, like the grandparents intended, I think, because that's where I got my recipe.
12:58Always flour your surface. That's what grandma always said. The majority of our pie tins are definitely antiques.
13:05Why haven't you changed the recipe? Don't fix what's not broken. So right now we're just making it pretty,
13:13making sure the sides are standing up nice, then to make your edges.
13:22They're known for inventive pie flavors like grapefruit and rum raisin.
13:27Chefs also hand pound meat for the special of the day, chicken fried chicken.
13:32Is it nice to feel like they're getting out some aggression? Sometimes, sometimes.
13:37We do it for our tenderloins too, which I double them up when I'm having a real bad day.
13:42Oddly enough, they stay away from me with that in my hand and knives. I don't know what the deal is, but.
13:49Instead of buying them pre-cut, Jessica portions and pounds each chicken breast herself to keep costs low.
13:56Our chicken prices have over doubled. Our beef prices have over doubled. Pork has stayed pretty
14:02close to the same as far as the pork loins go. Bacon has almost doubled. But you can't charge that much
14:08for food or people won't come. They won't pay for it. So your profit margins are low. Despite that,
14:15the cafe doesn't skip. It uses a hundred percent beef tallow in its fryer instead of vegetable oil.
14:21I believe one time since we opened, we have raised prices and that was just this last January.
14:26Like 10 cents a piece on every item. Owner Kelsey Reed negotiated with a local egg farmer to keep
14:32egg prices low when they surged. But it's not just food prices this cafe is up against.
14:37You know, I can remember 10 years ago paying my electric bill at home. It's like $30, you know,
14:43and we come here and it's $2,400 a month. And it's just, things are way higher than they have ever been.
14:49How do you manage that as the owner of this business? I don't take a paycheck. I make sure
14:55everybody else is paid first. And if there's any leftover, then that goes to my account.
14:59Is there months where you don't get paid? Winter is hard. Winter, yeah.
15:05This isn't the first time the business on this corner has struggled.
15:10In the mid-1960s, the highway was rerouted south of town. And traffic to Reed and Island plummeted.
15:17And just like in some of the movies about Route 66, you know, out in the west part of the country,
15:24the same thing happened then, you know, so these places just kind of died out.
15:29In 1967, the gas station closed. In 1995, so did the cafe. And the town of Kolo took over the property.
15:38Many of the buildings on the site had fallen into disrepair.
15:41You know, the traveler now was relocated on a different highway, so they didn't even know it was here,
15:46you know. So it kind of just got lost in the shuffle of time, so to speak.
15:52The town raised a million dollars between grants and donations to restore it to its 1940s glory.
15:57We were able to get the restaurant open in December of 2003.
16:04But it's been nearly 20 years since those last renovations wrapped up. And again,
16:08the corner needs a lot of work. The motel doors are peeling.
16:12Coat of paint won't fix that door, I don't think.
16:15Even the classic neon signs have gone dark.
16:20But the city of Kolo isn't making money off of Reed and Island Corner, so it's giving the site up.
16:25Insurance has gone up, and I think that's one reason the city did not want to be apart anymore.
16:30Brenda McGuire and some other locals formed a community board to try to save the site.
16:34The risk is that it would just go full to pieces, and the property would be sold, and we don't want to lose that history.
16:42She remembers it as a hangout spot for her high school friends in the 60s.
16:46We came and looked at the boys.
16:50See, that's a pastime.
16:51Yeah.
16:52If anyone would have talked to us, we'd have been scared, so that's what we did.
16:56Just looked at boys from afar.
16:57Yeah, and so we would like to have the next generation experience that.
17:03Brenda's group hopes to turn the gas station back into a museum, renovate the second motel building,
17:08and get it all in the National Register of Historic Places to unlock more grants.
17:13We don't have any money. We're starting zero, and we're hoping that we can get some donations.
17:19Kelsey, who runs the restaurant, says if the city decides to sell, she'd buy the site.
17:24There's days that it's frustrating and stressful, but I generally enjoy it.
17:28It's really just all about the people.
17:31While it might seem like the corner is holding on by a thread,
17:34as soon as those cafe doors open, the energy is buzzing.
17:37We've never had a bad meal here.
17:41We'll come back for more.
17:42Okay, you got to tell me what I have to order.
17:45Well, my favorite thing is the half-hot beef, and then tender buns on a bun.
17:51Like a fried chicken sandwich kind of thing.
17:52You've never had a tenderloin?
17:54No, I'm not for around here.
17:56Well, we better get your tenderloin.
17:57This is a full hot beef.
18:00Just split for you guys.
18:03Here is the special chicken fried chicken.
18:06Here is tenderloin with our homemade onion rings and our homemade house dressing.
18:11You don't pick it up with your hands.
18:15No, we don't pick it up.
18:17We may live in a small town, but we're not like that.
18:20I'm a ketchup lover, so I always put them in ketchup.
18:26Like it?
18:27Mm-hmm.
18:28That white bread hits you at first, and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm back to being 12 years old.
18:32Mm-hmm.
18:33Let's count how many gravies are here.
18:34One, two, three.
18:36And how much ketchup, sir.
18:38And how much ketchup.
18:38Yeah.
18:39If it's your plate, everything has ketchup on it.
18:41Yeah, well, they used to say I put it on pumpkin pie, but I never did.
18:45Sausage gravy, chicken fried chicken, potatoes, coleslaw.
18:54It's like taking the best part of biscuits and gravy, smashing a fried chicken sandwich on there,
19:00and adding a bunch of pepper.
19:03Oh, that's got some heft to it.
19:07Okay, that half's yours.
19:09She shudders.
19:11Here you go.
19:16What do you think?
19:18We love tenderloins around here.
19:21The onion rings might have been the best thing on the table.
19:24Those are so good.
19:25They said they fry everything in beef tallow, which it's like, you can just let me bathe in that.
19:32After our feast, Brenda had me try the cafe's famous pies.
19:37The pecan.
19:38Deep caramel-y notes in there.
19:40Listen to her notes.
19:41Notes.
19:42You've been watching Cooking Channel.
19:43I love the Cooking Channel.
19:45To rum raisin.
19:46That's a bite.
19:47That's commitment.
19:50I like the raisins.
19:51They're like little pops of flavor in there.
19:54But I like the meringue.
19:56I like it a lot.
19:57To Milky Way.
19:58I think that might be illegal, Kelsey.
20:02She just collapses.
20:04We lose Brenda.
20:04I think I might hate a moment.
20:07Just leave you with my pie.
20:11How do you get so much flavor in that?
20:13It's a secret.
20:14This place is far and few between.
20:16You just don't see many family-style little restaurants like this anymore.
20:22Back at Iowa 80, Lee's team is trying to stay true to its original roots, too.
20:26We have a museum here on site that has over 130 trucks.
20:30That was always my grandfather's dream.
20:32Unfortunately, he didn't get to see that dream come to fruition.
20:35But we opened the museum in his honor in 2008.
20:40Lee's mom and uncle now run the truck stop.
20:42So tell me what it was like growing up here.
20:44Oh, it was so fun.
20:46You know, we've been coming here since I was literally born and before that.
20:50So this is like my second home.
20:52And that's what's fun is that I've known all these people that work here for so long.
20:55And just like her grandparents, Lee's family has kept the truck stop and the restaurant open every day of the year.
21:02So you said that we can, thank you, order anything all day, right?
21:06Yes, 24 hours a day, breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
21:09This is a lot on the menu.
21:10I know, it's a big menu.
21:13Meaning you can get this giant breakfast plate at 3 p.m. like we did.
21:16Okay, so you said that this is a fan favorite.
21:19Oh yeah, The Hungry Man, big deal.
21:22People finish this?
21:23I bet they do.
21:24I don't know that I've ever seen it, but here we go.
21:26Big dude's coming off a truck with a huge appetite after 10 hours of driving.
21:30I could see this being a fan favorite for sure.
21:32Yeah.
21:33Okay, I actually think I like the sausage better than I like the bacon.
21:36The pancakes though, they're made with sweet cream instead of buttermilk.
21:40And they had the perfect amount of tang to sweetness.
21:43That's the best thing on the table because there is a crunch.
21:47Even with all the syrup, there's a little crunch.
21:49But gooey in the middle.
21:52Rivaling those pancakes was the meatloaf.
21:55Cheers.
21:55A lot of gravy.
21:57Let me get a good bite.
21:58Cheers.
21:59Our meatloaf cheers.
22:00It feels like when you're a kid and your mom makes meatloaf.
22:04That's not a joke.
22:05Midwest, just coziness right there.
22:07We did come here a lot of Sundays after church with my grandparents.
22:11So yeah, this is like home cooking for me.
22:13That same community spirit is on full display at Iowa 80's annual Trucker Jamboree,
22:21which draws about 45,000 visitors each summer to its massive parking lot.
22:26There's a Trucker Olympics and a beauty contest for semis.
22:31Jerry won Trucker's Choice 2025, the event's top honor.
22:35So next year, Jerry's truck will be on every t-shirt, hat, and banner at the event.
22:41The granddaughters are parking the trucks out in the concrete.
22:45And at the end of the show, the mother, Delia, is shaking your hand as you win a trophy.
22:52I mean, that's how involved they are.
22:54From the world's largest truck stop to one of Iowa's oldest, it's clear these places
23:01hold special meaning for people who spend their lives behind the wheel.
23:06Because the life of a long-haul trucker driving over 250 miles a day isn't an easy one.
23:12There's a lot of people that don't drive trucks, that don't understand what we sacrifice.
23:16It's mostly family that we're sacrificing, being away from them.
23:20Lisa Otto has over 20 years, 48 states, and 3 million miles under her belt.
23:26It was unheard of, of a woman doing trucking, you know, 40, 50 years ago.
23:30You know, a lot of the guys, they rag on us, they're like,
23:32oh, you're a woman, you can't drive. But that's not true.
23:35I can run circles around 90% of them out there.
23:38Long-haul trucking is so difficult, it has one of the highest employee turnover rates in the U.S.
23:43It's roughly 90%. I'd see numbers as high as 150%.
23:49By comparison, most other U.S. industries see about a 13% turnover.
23:56There is no real driver shortage in the United States.
24:02There is a retention problem.
24:05Low pay, lack of benefits, lack of respect and good treatment.
24:12About 70% of professional drivers work for trucking companies called carriers.
24:18Not all, but many carriers. They tend to see drivers as almost disposable.
24:24Lisa's in the minority. She's her own boss. She bought her truck for $230,000.
24:30My dashboard here is all computerized. I have all the gauges on a tablet here.
24:35This is one of the most computerized trucks out on the road.
24:38No bathroom. No bathroom, no.
24:40That's why truck stops are really important.
24:41Yes, truck stops are very important for that.
24:44That's cabinet storage. I keep my dry food in that cabinet.
24:47And my microwave. Under here is, that's just storage space where I keep all my makeup,
24:54my brushes, deodorant, all kinds of my bathing stuff.
24:58Now this is a refrigerator down here. This is a table.
25:01My dream catchers, yes. I kind of collect them.
25:05That seems like a lot.
25:06It is. It's a small house.
25:07Basically, yeah.
25:08Wow.
25:09Yeah, on wheels.
25:10Yeah.
25:11And it sucks when your house breaks down.
25:14I've got a top bunk. I have the bottom bunk, which the dogs sleep in their bed,
25:19at the foot of the bed over here. This is her favorite toy.
25:23I don't know what I would do without them. They're my companions, my road companions.
25:28While some drivers have canine companions, others have human co-pilots.
25:34Preston Smith splits 12-hour shifts with his co-driver.
25:37I've been driving for about six months now.
25:40He used to be a merchandiser for Coca-Cola.
25:42Christmas 2020, I got shot 10 times as an innocent bystander for mistaken identity.
25:48And he hit my femoral artery and shattered everything from the knee down.
25:53I died on the way to the hospital.
25:54After my incident, when I lost my leg, finding a job that's more sustainable to me,
26:01not being on my leg consistently 24-7.
26:03So how do you pull yourself out of that and think about another career?
26:08Honestly, it was rough the first couple of years because I'm just now getting back.
26:13I just kept that drive and kept focused and just kept pushing forward.
26:17His co-driver, Latoya Blue Howard, has supported him with that.
26:21I actually lost my son in 2016. He was accidentally shot by his best friend.
26:28Oh my God.
26:29So yeah. And he was 17 at the time. Right now he would actually be 26
26:35if he was still here. This was my son's favorite. So I have this with me to remind me of him.
26:41So y'all can really support each other because you both lost a lot.
26:51Blue and Preston drive 24-7 for weeks at a time.
26:55One sleeps while the other drives and they only stop for gas or emergency bathroom breaks.
26:59Do y'all ever get lonely out here?
27:01We do. We do. But then a lot of times when I start feeling that type of way,
27:08I'll be like, yeah, it's time to get off the truck.
27:10Which is why in rural Iowa, a truck stop with lots to do can be a lifeline.
27:16There's barely nothing out here on the road.
27:18Truckers are people and they want exactly what any one of us wants
27:23when we finish a long day's work. You know, they want a cold drink.
27:26They want a warm meal. They want a hot shower.
27:29And they want to be able to do all of that in a place where they feel safe.
27:34Between the highways and the heartland,
27:36these family-run truck stops aren't just places to fill up.
27:39They're what keep America moving.
27:4130 or 40 years from now, there's not going to be anything like this.
27:45It's going to be all gone broadly.
27:48You know, so we'll try to keep it alive as possible as long as we can, you know.
27:55This truck is literally a freight train on concrete.
28:01The way that they cut us off, the way that they come around, flick us off.
28:06You never know what a trucker is going through.
28:08You never know what they're going through. We're just like everybody else.
28:11One hundred.
28:12I don't care what's going through.
28:14I don't know.
28:16They, they all know what to do.
28:20A last half long time...
28:27remember what you had written,
28:29if I couldn't ì—† sponsor us.
28:32They didn't manage it.
28:32Just kind of said,
28:33you should come back and experience it since we meet a child.
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