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<blockquote data-quote="greybeard" data-source="post: 1774382" data-attributes="member: 18945"><p>Nevermind? (there's ways around a paywall.... )</p><p>"</p><p>In June 2020, having used her life savings to buy back the failing roadside franchise that bears her family name, Stephanie Stuckey was in a Marion, Ark., parking lot in tears. The Stuckey's in front of her was beyond decrepit; it was disreputable. A storm had opened a hole in the signature teal tile roof, and the owners hadn't bothered to repair it. Sobbing, she called her vice president and said, "I can't even walk into this store." Without missing a beat he replied, "Welcome to your empire."</p><p>She wondered if she should have heeded the consultants who warned her off the purchase.</p><p>But using everything she owned as collateral and taking out a life insurance policy with the bank as beneficiary, Ms. Stuckey, a lawyer and former Democratic Georgia legislator who was then 53, pressed on. In six months, she said, she returned one of America's first roadside franchise operations — the prototype for today's convenience stops — to profitability (barely), with an unexpected boost from road trippers, who took to their cars during the pandemic to avoid Covid. That helped rekindle the tradition of the family trip.</p><p>The pandemic business bump underscored a connection. "Stuckey's peaked when the road trip peaked, and we plummeted when the road trip plummeted," she said. The question was: How do you make that pay?</p><p>These days, she puts 27,000 miles a year on her <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/automobiles/autoshow/ford-fusion.html" target="_blank">2010 Mercury Milan Hybrid</a> — a Craigslist find, its interior littered with wrappers from Smart Pop, Beer Nuts, Cheez-It crackers and, yes, Stuckey's signature pecan log rolls. And that's not counting the many air miles and rental car trips. She travels to kitschy attractions such as the toothy peanut monument in Plains, Ga., the Chat n Chew diner in Turbeville, S.C., and the Golden Cherry Motel in Opelika, Ala., extolling the joys of the road trip and parceling out the Stuckey's story in social media blurbs.</p><p></p><p>The aim is to make the Stuckey's name synonymous with the two-lane-highway road trip of the past, to leverage that nostalgia to re-energize the brand and rebuild the company one pecan log roll at a time.</p><p><img src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/31/business/00wheels-stuckeys5/merlin_206346864_54b82a57-3be7-4f7e-bcac-68bda703bef8-mobileMasterAt3x.jpg?auto=webp&quality=90" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /><img src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/31/business/00wheels-stuckeys3/merlin_206347494_108b3655-6d93-4e44-a342-c46e0dfc743c-mobileMasterAt3x.jpg?auto=webp&quality=90" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /><img src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/31/business/00wheels-stuckeys4/merlin_206346804_0d313d83-e6a8-4962-afa7-5af0b84b96ab-mobileMasterAt3x.jpg?auto=webp&quality=90" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /><img src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/31/business/00wheels-stuckeys8/merlin_206347179_c70efa17-fb37-442d-b08f-75cfb2f55433-mobileMasterAt3x.jpg?auto=webp&quality=90" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p>Stuckey's roadside souvenirs and snacks include its famous pecan log roll.Credit...Kristen Zeis for The New York Times</p><p>Stuckey's is generally said to have started in 1937 when Williamson Sylvester Stuckey Sr., known as Sylvester, opened a pecan stand along Highway 23 in Eastman, Ga. It started long before that, according to his son, Williamson Sylvester Stuckey Jr., a businessman and former five-term congressman who went by Bill in his political career, Billy at home and Possum at Burning Tree, a golf club near Washington.</p><p>The elder Mr. Stuckey was a born entrepreneur, who sought a job clerking in town but was instead hired to scour the local farms to buy pecans that his boss then brokered to distributors.</p><p>He soon recognized the profit he was ceding to the distributor. "He got the idea of just opening up that little stand, and selling three- and five- and 10-pound bags of pecans," said his son, 87, who is father to Ms. Stuckey. "For somebody raised in the Depression he was making some good money."</p><p></p><p>Arguably it was the first Stuckey's, and the first in a series of ideas that would become the roadside chain. "He could come up with 100 ideas a day and you had to figure out what was the good one," Mr. Stuckey said. Noting that most customers were Northerners driving to Florida, "he realized tourists were the business," he said. It was the dawning of the road trip.</p><p></p><p>Stuckey's attracts locals, too. Antonette Wharton and her 7-year-old nephew, Jerimiah, are regular customers in Mappsville.Credit...Kristen Zeis for The New York Times</p><p>He also realized the value of expanding his product line. Company lore has it that the elder Mr. Stuckey, suddenly struck by the notion of adding pecan candies to his wares, ran home from the stand, a mile or more, hard leather shoes slapping the red Georgia clay, to interrupt his wife's bridge game, announcing, "Ethel, we need to make candy." The bridge ladies are said to have adjourned directly to the kitchen.</p><p>"The bridge club became the candy club," Stephanie Stuckey said. The women, often a rotating roster drawn from Ethel Stuckey's seven sisters and various neighbors, gathered to make pralines, divinity and, later, pecan log rolls for the stand.</p><p></p><p>The thing about lore, be it corporate or family, is that it is subject to embellishment. The Southern storytelling tradition practically demands it. And so it may be with this candy-coated brainstorm.</p><p>"I don't think he had any idea about candy — he sold pecans," Mr. Stuckey said. "I think it was my mother's idea to make the candy. I give her credit for that." He added that "they must have sold pretty damn good, because she kept making them," and that "it got to the point he was probably selling more of the candy than the pecans."</p><p>But the secret to Stuckey's success wasn't the pecan log roll. It was gasoline. Texaco, which sought to be the first nationwide brand of gasoline, teamed up with Stuckey's, paying it a percentage of each gallon sold, in some years close to 4 percent.</p><p></p><p>"You can't make that on candy," Mr. Stuckey said. Each company fueled the other's expansion. Free pecan log rolls with a fill-up were a lure to drivers.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="greybeard, post: 1774382, member: 18945"] Nevermind? (there's ways around a paywall.... ) " In June 2020, having used her life savings to buy back the failing roadside franchise that bears her family name, Stephanie Stuckey was in a Marion, Ark., parking lot in tears. The Stuckey's in front of her was beyond decrepit; it was disreputable. A storm had opened a hole in the signature teal tile roof, and the owners hadn't bothered to repair it. Sobbing, she called her vice president and said, "I can't even walk into this store." Without missing a beat he replied, "Welcome to your empire." She wondered if she should have heeded the consultants who warned her off the purchase. But using everything she owned as collateral and taking out a life insurance policy with the bank as beneficiary, Ms. Stuckey, a lawyer and former Democratic Georgia legislator who was then 53, pressed on. In six months, she said, she returned one of America's first roadside franchise operations — the prototype for today's convenience stops — to profitability (barely), with an unexpected boost from road trippers, who took to their cars during the pandemic to avoid Covid. That helped rekindle the tradition of the family trip. The pandemic business bump underscored a connection. "Stuckey's peaked when the road trip peaked, and we plummeted when the road trip plummeted," she said. The question was: How do you make that pay? These days, she puts 27,000 miles a year on her [URL='https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/automobiles/autoshow/ford-fusion.html']2010 Mercury Milan Hybrid[/URL] — a Craigslist find, its interior littered with wrappers from Smart Pop, Beer Nuts, Cheez-It crackers and, yes, Stuckey's signature pecan log rolls. And that's not counting the many air miles and rental car trips. She travels to kitschy attractions such as the toothy peanut monument in Plains, Ga., the Chat n Chew diner in Turbeville, S.C., and the Golden Cherry Motel in Opelika, Ala., extolling the joys of the road trip and parceling out the Stuckey's story in social media blurbs. The aim is to make the Stuckey's name synonymous with the two-lane-highway road trip of the past, to leverage that nostalgia to re-energize the brand and rebuild the company one pecan log roll at a time. [IMG]https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/31/business/00wheels-stuckeys5/merlin_206346864_54b82a57-3be7-4f7e-bcac-68bda703bef8-mobileMasterAt3x.jpg?auto=webp&quality=90[/IMG][IMG]https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/31/business/00wheels-stuckeys3/merlin_206347494_108b3655-6d93-4e44-a342-c46e0dfc743c-mobileMasterAt3x.jpg?auto=webp&quality=90[/IMG][IMG]https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/31/business/00wheels-stuckeys4/merlin_206346804_0d313d83-e6a8-4962-afa7-5af0b84b96ab-mobileMasterAt3x.jpg?auto=webp&quality=90[/IMG][IMG]https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/31/business/00wheels-stuckeys8/merlin_206347179_c70efa17-fb37-442d-b08f-75cfb2f55433-mobileMasterAt3x.jpg?auto=webp&quality=90[/IMG] Stuckey's roadside souvenirs and snacks include its famous pecan log roll.Credit...Kristen Zeis for The New York Times Stuckey's is generally said to have started in 1937 when Williamson Sylvester Stuckey Sr., known as Sylvester, opened a pecan stand along Highway 23 in Eastman, Ga. It started long before that, according to his son, Williamson Sylvester Stuckey Jr., a businessman and former five-term congressman who went by Bill in his political career, Billy at home and Possum at Burning Tree, a golf club near Washington. The elder Mr. Stuckey was a born entrepreneur, who sought a job clerking in town but was instead hired to scour the local farms to buy pecans that his boss then brokered to distributors. He soon recognized the profit he was ceding to the distributor. "He got the idea of just opening up that little stand, and selling three- and five- and 10-pound bags of pecans," said his son, 87, who is father to Ms. Stuckey. "For somebody raised in the Depression he was making some good money." Arguably it was the first Stuckey's, and the first in a series of ideas that would become the roadside chain. "He could come up with 100 ideas a day and you had to figure out what was the good one," Mr. Stuckey said. Noting that most customers were Northerners driving to Florida, "he realized tourists were the business," he said. It was the dawning of the road trip. Stuckey's attracts locals, too. Antonette Wharton and her 7-year-old nephew, Jerimiah, are regular customers in Mappsville.Credit...Kristen Zeis for The New York Times He also realized the value of expanding his product line. Company lore has it that the elder Mr. Stuckey, suddenly struck by the notion of adding pecan candies to his wares, ran home from the stand, a mile or more, hard leather shoes slapping the red Georgia clay, to interrupt his wife's bridge game, announcing, "Ethel, we need to make candy." The bridge ladies are said to have adjourned directly to the kitchen. "The bridge club became the candy club," Stephanie Stuckey said. The women, often a rotating roster drawn from Ethel Stuckey's seven sisters and various neighbors, gathered to make pralines, divinity and, later, pecan log rolls for the stand. The thing about lore, be it corporate or family, is that it is subject to embellishment. The Southern storytelling tradition practically demands it. And so it may be with this candy-coated brainstorm. "I don't think he had any idea about candy — he sold pecans," Mr. Stuckey said. "I think it was my mother's idea to make the candy. I give her credit for that." He added that "they must have sold pretty damn good, because she kept making them," and that "it got to the point he was probably selling more of the candy than the pecans." But the secret to Stuckey's success wasn't the pecan log roll. It was gasoline. Texaco, which sought to be the first nationwide brand of gasoline, teamed up with Stuckey's, paying it a percentage of each gallon sold, in some years close to 4 percent. "You can't make that on candy," Mr. Stuckey said. Each company fueled the other's expansion. Free pecan log rolls with a fill-up were a lure to drivers. [/QUOTE]
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