a sectioned paper plate full of home cooked, gas station restaurant goodness — fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, squash casserole, sweet potato casserole, and Mexican cornbread, sitting on a counter next to a menu for The Pineville Store

‘Anybody Want Anything?’ The State’s Best Gas Station Food

By Steven Ward

June 2025

Gas station sushi? Who would eat gas station sushi?

a sectioned paper plate full of home cooked, gas station restaurant goodness — fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, squash casserole, sweet potato casserole, and Mexican cornbread, sitting on a counter next to a menu for The Pineville Store Apparently, plenty of people, if the stories from our friends and families over the years are true.

The fact is, down south, we take gas station food seriously.

All over the state, gas station food is in abundance, whether it’s barbecue at gas stops in the state capital or fried chicken and peach cobbler at convenience stores out in the middle of Smith County.

Mississippi native and photojournalist Kate Medley recently published a book about the subject — “Thank You Please Come Again: How Gas Stations Feed and Fuel the American South.”

Medley traveled across the South, logging thousands of miles across 11 states over 10 years, making 150 stops at gas station grills, buffets, and quick marts for her book. Medley said gas stations are often the hub of rural communities and attract a cross section of society.

“There is an egalitarian nature to the gas station, integral to the lives of people in every socioeconomic bracket,” Medley said.

For our second annual Food Issue, Today in Mississippi visited some gas stations around the state to see what all the food fuss was about. We also compiled a list of gas station food locales recommended to us by staff at your local electric cooperatives.

a gas station with two old and defunct pumps and gravel parkway

Having said that, our list is not the final word on the subject. We may have gotten some wrong. Tell us about the gas stations we missed by visiting our Facebook page and looking for the June 2025 cover story post, seeking your input.

In the meantime, give these places a visit. Try the fried chicken, fried pork chops, catfish, steaks, tamales, and the quesadillas. Be careful with the sushi though.

Crazy K’s

14 Lower Myrick Rd.
Laurel
601-518-0145

The signature sandwich at Crazy K’s in Laurel is the Flying Pig.

With a choice of grilled or fried chicken tenders, the folks at Crazy K’s slap on some sliced ham and bacon on top — hence the sandwich name — with some cheese, lettuce, tomato, and homemade honey mustard.

Crazy K’s co-owner Carson Kelley said the Flying Pig is very popular.

Crazy K’s in Laurel is a newer spinoff location of the original Crazy K’s in Buckatunna.

A buffet of home cooked, gas station restaurant food full of lima beans, okra, mashed potatoes, fries, chicken strips and more. “We bought the place in March 2024 and shut it down in June of that same year for a complete renovation. We wanted to change the concept from the Buckatunna location with a little more emphasis on the food and dining here at the store,” Kelley said.

Crazy K’s in Laurel has all the gas station staples you could think of — from chicken tenders and fried chicken to cornbread and potato logs.

But the store also has a full menu to order weekly blue plate specials, hamburgers, po-boys, and a full breakfast including pancakes, omelets, and biscuit sandwiches.

On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, diners can get gas station steak. Not just any steak either.

“We do hand-cut, black angus rib eyes on weekend nights,” Kelley said.

A restaurant owner in a t-shirt holds a plate of a fried chicken sandwich — Crazy K’s co-owner Carson Kelley holding a Flying Pig sandwich.

The menu items come from trial-and-error preparation with classic southern dishes as well as recipes from Kelley’s father, Terry, and his two uncles, Gerry and Tommy.

Crazy K’s has you covered for homemade dessert as well.

Just like in your favorite diner, there is class encasement filled with homemade pies.

On a board that says, “Kim’s Crazy K Corner,” you can choose from a menu that features lemon, pecan, and peanut butter pie along with cookies, cakes, and vanilla and choclate fudge.

When it’s all said and done, Crazy K’s is really a restaurant with some Valero gas pumps out front.

The Wildcat Corner

4607 High School Road
Leakesville
601-394-2503

Right next to Green County High School, The Wildcat Corner is a place where the students from the school come to hang out, laugh, and eat.

Wildcat Corner owner Kim Dearman bought the gas station and store 14 years ago.

“All our food is fresh. The hamburgers are not frozen. They are hand-pattied every morning.”

Two of the Wildcat Corner’s signature dishes involve French fries and ranch sauce.

Female in a purple shirt stands behind two paper plates of food — one two hamburger steaks coated in gravy served with crinkle fries and toast, the other a plate of fries smothered in cheese, bacon and jalapeños. — Wildcat Corner Owner Kim Dearman.

The Wildcat Fries are crinkle French fries with mozzarella cheese, bacon, ranch sauce, and jalapenos. It’s messy but customers love it, Dearman said.

Customers are also partial to the Chicken Bacon Ranch sandwich on sourdough bread, Dearman said.

The Wildcat Corner menu is filled with Southern comfort food. Hamburgers, ribeye steak sandwiches, shrimp and catfish, chicken wings, plate lunches, open faced roast beef sandwiches, all kinds of breakfast items, fried pickles, corn dogs, and almost anything else you can think of is available to hungry guests.

Have you ever had gas station salad?

A Columbia truck driver and Wildcat Corner semi-regular named Michael was finishing up a chef salad recently during a visit.

“I’m from out of town, but we always stop here. The fried shrimp salad is great too,” he said.

sitting on a counter is a menu for the Wildcat Corner, on top of that sits a paper plate filled with fries that are covered in cheese, sliced jalapeños, and bacon — Wildcat Fries, a favorite of regulars at The Wildcat Corner.

The menu also has hamburger and pizza salads — hearty salads with crumbles of ground beef and pizza toppings.

“We bought the place in December 2010. Then the February 2011 tornadoes came through and demolished it. We had to rebuild. It was sort of a blessing because we needed a newer place,” Dearman said.

Named after the nearby high school mascot, the Wildcat Corner is crazy busy on football game nights.

“We’ve been in here until 1 a.m. on game nights,” Dearman said.

The store and restaurant are a family business.

“Our three girls were in high school at the time we bought it. It’s been a place for us to be together and our baby daughter, Kelsey, helps me run the place today,” Dearman said.

The Pineville Store

9116 Highway 501
Louin
601-789-5068

Out in the green forests of the Pineville community of Smith County sits The Pineville Store, a gas station/convenience store/restaurant that caters to the area’s agricultural community.

“We get a lot of loggers and chicken house growers over here. I’m usually here at 4 a.m. cooking them breakfast,” Pineville Store owner Terry Hammons said.

The Pineville Store is surrounded by logging country.

Besides all the tall green trees, the inside of the store has hints galore. Saws adorn the walls, and in the back of the store there’s a section of tools and bar and chain oil along with other hardware items a logger or farmer might need in a pinch.

a fully dressed cheeseburger with a side of crinkle fries sits on a plate in a restaurant The Pineville Store is run by Terry Hammons and his wife, Emi’ Hammons. Emi’ Hammons, originally from Vera Cruz, Mexico, is head of the kitchen and the culinary wizard behind most everything served up each day.

“I do the frying, and she (Emi’) does the cooking,” Terry Hammons said.

If you visit, you might run into Mitchell Hammons, Terry’s 83-year-old father and the unofficial and unelected “Mayor of Pineville” telling stories about the place, the food, and the community.

“Everybody here is a regular,” Mitchell Hammons said recently during a lunch crowd.

G.O. Webb, 80, and his wife, Guilba Webb, 79, said they are regulars.“We’ve been coming ever since it opened,” G.O. Webb said.

a lovely older couple sit in a restaurant enjoying their meal — Pineville Store regulars, From left, Guilba Webb and her husband, G.O. Webb.

“We come here probably four times a week. Everything here is good,” G.O. Webb said.

The Pineville Store is known for the hamburgers and blue plates. Emi’ Hammons sometimes whips up some Mexican dishes. Terry said her beef, chicken, and cheese quesadillas are popular orders.

The chicken tenders are exceptional.

“All those places that brag that they have the freshest chicken, places like Raising Cane’s. Well, no one has fresher chicken than I do,” Terry Hammons said.

Hammons said he buys his chicken directly from Peco Farms of Mississippi, a nearby chicken plant.

“I get them after they have been dead for just four hours.”

The hamburgers are made from fresh ground chuck, and 20 pounds of hamburger are made each day.

a group photo of seven family members posing in the restaurant they run

The Hammons family makes ribeye steaks on Friday nights and boils crawfish on Saturdays during crawfish season.

The menu also includes pulled pork sandwiches, country fried steak, pork chops, shrimp po-boys, hamburger steak, chicken livers, taco potatoes, onion rings, fried dill pickles, cheese curds, and a variety of salads.

And if a visitor has a sweet tooth, Mitchell Hammons recommends the peach cobbler. It’s his favorite Pineville Store food.