Chris Blasinsky:
Wow. So welcome Al. We’re very happy to have you here.

Al Hebert:
So excited to be here. I love NACS. I love everything about NACS. I’m your biggest fan.

Chris Blasinsky:
Aw, well we’re your fan too.

Rose Johnson:
Welcome. Welcome, Al. I also joined NACS in 2011.

Al Hebert:
Wow. So we have that in common.

Chris Blasinsky:
And Rose still works on NACS magazine. I moved on from that side of things, but yeah.

Al Hebert:
I’m so excited be here. I love NACS and I’m so humbled and grateful to be a small part of the NACS family.

Chris Blasinsky:
First thing I want to share, because of course we already established that we know you, but people in the audience may not know you. So they’re going to by the end of this podcast for sure. One of the things that I just wanted you to speak to is how did you start with Gas Station Gourmet? What was going through your head where it’s like, ‘I’m gonna go to gas stations and just start eating great food and make a name for myself on a brand out of it.’

Al Hebert:
That’s a great question because like everything in my life—wife, children, jobs—it was a complete accident. And u by trade I’m a health-care writer and reporter and I was an independent producer doing medical projects for television. And most of our projects were in Texas and my photog and I stopped in a gas station one day and we walked inside and it smelled like your grandmother’s kitchen on a Sunday afternoon, it was unbelievable. And we looked at each other and said, are they cooking in this place? And so we took a stroll around and sure enough, there were two chubby ladies and they’re the best cooks in the world. I made my wife gain 30 pounds so she could cook better. And I gained 50 pounds so I could cook better and they’re cooking behind this counter and they had roast and rice and gravy and green beans and rolls. And we have this wonderful meal and I told my photog, I said,

Al Hebert:
you know, if there’s two or three more places like this in America, we’ll shoot a package and we’re gonna get free lunch. You see in TV, Rose and Chrissy, what we really want is free lunch. And I thought the Gas Station Gourmet was gonna get us a few free lunches. We were on the road all the time. I said, you know, this will be great. And we came up with the name right there, Gas Station Gourmet. And come to find out, much to my pleasant surprise, there were people cooking all over and this thing just kind of grew. I was finding not just, you know, things on roller grills, but I was finding amazing home-cooked meals in these gas stations. And it just kind of took over. I went from ‘I don’t know if I wanna do health care anymore’ and started trying to focus a little more on gas station food. I got back into broadcast TV but continued to do this. And that’s how it started. It was just a fluke walking into a gas station and you smell the home cooking and we’ve been doing it ever since.

Rose Johnson:
I know that in general you are pretty involved in your community and kind of a local celebrity based on the things that I see. How has that worked in your favor as far as bringing to life what these gas stations have to offer?

Al Hebert:
Well, you know, I’m pretty lucky. I always tell my photog at the station that we have the best job in broadcast TV. Corporate never says, don’t do this or don’t do that. So consequently, I get to milk goats, make elf shoes, you know, squeeze chickens,—and that’s a long story squeezing the chickens—and when I can, I always try to go to a gas station. In the last few weeks I’ve been to two I think, and do food. We do a cooking segment every Friday and when I can, I like to go to gas stations. There’s one, it’s a c-store that I’ve written about for NACS Magazine, it’s called the Handy Stop Market and Cafe and they do very healthy food there.

Al Hebert:
So we’ve gone there a couple of times when I wanna talk about healthy food. I don’t go to the hospital to the dietician, I go to the c-store because the guy who owns it happens to be a registered nurse. He was very involved in health care. He’s got a master’s degree in health administration. So I just go to the c-store. He doesn’t have pumps. I’m pretty fortunate in that I get to integrate what we do on the show every morning with gas stations or c-store food occasionally. So it works out really well. And it’s always fun because, Rose, here in Louisiana, everybody cooks. There’s a quote that’s gonna be in my next NACS Magazine story.

Al Hebert:
I interviewed a guy, he’s the VP of Lavigne Oil, who said, ‘Man, if you’re gonna sell food in Louisiana, it better be really, really good, especially if it’s in a gas station.’ And he’s right, because everybody cooks—even I cook and pretty good too. So you find really outstanding food in Louisiana gas stations, but I found amazing food in Texas gas stations. I found Cristal champagne at an Exxon station, $450 a bottle. I did a story on that for NACS. So many of the people I run in into end up being in the NACS column. So I’m really lucky because NACS gives me a good reason to talk to these people, to eat their food. I was telling someone not long ago, I said, it seems like have every month I have a love affair with a new c-store and I kind of get attached to these people when I’m doing the story. And then there’s someone new at the end. So my life all blends together and it all kind of meets in America’s c-stores.

Chris Blasinsky:
The story you’re talking about, I don’t know if you know a little backstory. The story that you’re talking about where you interviewed Leyton Lavigne, his dad, Chip Lavigne, was on our board when I started NACS in 2005. He was on the cover of NACS Magazine, I think it was in either January or February 2006, because that was after Hurricane Katrina. And of course being in Louisiana, they got hit pretty good.

Al Hebert:
Wow, Leyton did not.

Chris Blasinsky:
It’s come full circle.

Al Hebert:
It really has. You know I spoke at the NACS Show in Chicago and Leyton came up after and said, ‘Hey, I’m from Louisiana’ and he told me about a store and I said I would love to do a story because he has chicken on a stick .

Chris Blasinsky:
And does that make it taste different?

Al Hebert:
Oh, absolutely. So Leyton said he thought I wrote this—and I’m not sure if I did or not—that he read in a NACS Magazine story, which is why you gotta love NACS if you’re in the c-store business, that food on a stick sells 40% more volume than food not on a stick. So, the great story is, and if people out there who have c-stores are listening, great tip here: If you’ve got chicken tenders and they’re not selling well, put ’em on a stick So he put his on a stick and he put a pickle between each one, batters it, deep-fries it—because we love deep-fried food here in Louisiana—and they’re selling amazingly well. And the cool thing is instead of just laying them down in the box, he stands them up. So it’s like little rows of chicken on a stick. Think of corn, but chicken on stick. Gosh, you gotta love that.

Rose Johnson:
You know what I think is so great about these stories is that you are changing the perception of this industry. One story at a time.

Al Hebert:
That’s sweet. Thank you. I tried. So let me tell you a story. When I was doing the medical projects, I was in a really nice hospital in Texas in one of these boardrooms, huge table. I’ve actually lived in an apartment smaller than this table. And so as we finished the meeting, I said, ‘Hey, is there a gas station around here where I could have lunch?’ And they all looked at me like I was crazy. Like you’re not gonna eat a gas station. I said, it’s kind of a thing that I do. And they pointed me to a gas station in this little town called Noonday, Texas, population, 777. And I walked into this gas station and there is this huge buffet, way too much food for 777 people. And come to find out the, the chef was a classically trained chef, went to the culinary Institute of America, and his dad own station.

Al Hebert:
He came back, there was cornish game hen, amazing food. He got fresh fruit for everything. Yes, Rose, I hope that I’m changing the perception because what you hear so much is, I would never eat in a gas station. And as you know, what, is it about half the people who fill up never go inside? I was doing a story at the Bourbon Street Deli here in Abbeville. I live in Abbeville Louisiana, 20 miles from the Gulf of Mexico as a crow flies,, on a river. How stereotypical Louisiana? I live on a river and I’m in a house now that’s four feet off the ground just in case we flood. When I was doing the story at the Bourbon Street Deli shooting the photographs and chatting with someone and they said, ‘well, I didn’t even know this was here.’

Al Hebert:
It’s adjacent to the Shop Rite, same owner. They’d been coming to Shop Rite for years didn’t know there was a restaurant next door. And so, you know, what I try to tell people, you gotta make the trip from the pumps to the door because that’s where the magic is. And you gotta go inside. What I love or the people or the attention to detail, so often the relationship that these people and these small individually owned stores have with their customers, they love their customers. I love that. It’s sort of a throwback because we’re in a digital age, we communicate on devices, we’re not as personal as we used to be. And what’s interesting is—there was a time I was a cop for 15 years and you’d go into a c-store and they wouldn’t make eye contact with you. Now, you go into some big box stores, they don’t make eye contact with you, but you go into your local c-store and they’ll look you in the eye and they’ll call you by name and you have a relationship there. And c-stores all over America, small ones, are really working with their staff to encourage them to form those relationships. And I love that. You gotta love that about c-stores.

Rose Johnson:
There was a story that you did just after Hurricane Ida that really showed the dedication to the community that convenience stores have. It was Le Marché in Louisiana. The gentleman you interviewed, he talked about how a lot of places were closed. He wanted to make sure that he would be open for the community because he knew that the community would need gas, they would need water, they would need the things that he had. So he was going to stay open in order to provide that. And that was such a touching story, showing how these owners love their community and the connection with the community.

Al Hebert:
We often talk in the stories we do about the community store. And so many of these small c-stores are community stores. Le Marché is really interesting. I don’t know how it is up there, but your electricity comes from power lines and there’s a pole often next to the house where the electricity comes from the main feed to your house. And those things get knocked down in hurricanes. Well this little c-store, Le Marché, they sell the power poles. So you can go there and if you’ve got a truck, big enough, you can get a power pole. I did a story about Buchiki’s over in Houma who after the last hurricane, they had two stores completely destroyed and they were trying to stay open as much as possible to sell gas because there’s a great quote: The guy said ‘gas is right under air’ as far as survival down there. They were running out of gas and there was chaos at the pumps and they managed the chaos. C-stores are the last places to close in a hurricane and the first ones to open. And that’s the way they care about people. And it’s like that all down here, I guess this might be called hurricane alley, but it’s wonderful.

Chris Blasinsky:
You’ve done so many amazing stories over the years, it has to be hundreds at this point.

Al Hebert:
I forget how many places I’ve been.

Chris Blasinsky:
But you’ve also, but you’ve been able to do some fun stuff. You’ve gone on some road trips going to NACS Shows, which for anyone who doesn’t know what the NACS Show is, I like to say it’s the Disneyland for the convenience store industry. And you’ve gotten out of your neck of the woods too, right? Not everything you do is in Louisiana. You’ve certainly been off the beaten path. What are some of the fun things that you’ve seen when you’ve been on road?

Al Hebert:
Well, a big shout out to Frank Beard who travels with me. Frank and I are sort of the yin and yang of c-store food. Frank, he’s fit, he exercises, he eats kale. I on the other hand, I’m fat. My exercise is getting off the sofa and not making a noise. I eat anything that’s deep fried and spleen-free. So we take these road trips together and along the way in a friendly way we force each other to eat the foods that—I drank grass juice one day on this trip and if you smelled a freshly mowed lawn, that’s how it tastes. It tastes just like that. And I got Frank to eat boudin, which is a Louisiana thing, and bless his heart I don’t think he realized there was probably a little bit of heart and liver in that thing. But he loved it.

Al Hebert:
So yeah, I found some really cool things. I love The Thumb in Scottsdale, Arizona. This is a really upscale gas station/c-store. They have two pastry chefs on duty and they create the most beautiful pastries and they have wonderful ribs and smoked meat. I love that place. And it’s got two chandeliers if I recall. You walk into a c-store with a chandelier, you go, okay, this is happening.

Al Hebert:
Again, one of those places with a lot of attention to detail. There’s a car wash there and there’s these big overstuffed wingback chairs. I mean, big chairs and there’s a chess board. It’s like, that’s where you sit to wait for your car in these very comfortable chairs. It’s so different. The food’s great. The environment’s great. I encourage people to go in to c-stores/gas stations when you fill up, because I went to a gas station one time and found Hitler’s limo in the middle of nowhere in Arizona. I walk into this place and for a dollar, they have a little oddities museum. There’s all this crazy stuff and there’s this limousine and it said, Hitler’s Limousine. So I asked the lady, is this Hitler’s limo really? And she said, well, we can’t say isn’t , I’m like, okay that was worth a dollar.

Chris Blasinsky:
I remember that story. I remember seeing the pictures. I was like, what in the world? Where did you go?

Al Hebert:
I know. And they took a mannequin, they put the little mustache on it. Oh my God, that’s so clever. And up in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, there’s a psychic goat that accurately predicted not the past election but the previous election. The goat predicted the election. So you find that kind of stuff in c-stores. If you don’t go from the pump to the door, you’re never gonna find Hitler’s limo or a cow cheek.

Rose Johnson:
We talked about healthy foods, wheat grass, we spoke about luxury items like Cristal champagne. Who’s looking for that, right. You gotta go inside.

Al Hebert:
When I go into a gas station to do a story, I never say I write about gas station food. I always eat the food. If it’s good, I talk to the owner or manager. If it’s not good, I just quietly leave because I’m not really a critic. This particular store, what I loved about it—it’s High Country Market & Gastro Pub in Round Rock, Texas, he makes his own ketchup. And he imports all the ingredients from Italy—the ketchup costs him about $300 to make a bowl of ketchup—and it’s the best ketchup I’ve ever had. That’s the kind of stuff that makes this job fun. You find that type of thing. There’s a great restaurant north of Fort Worth…

Chris Blasinsky:
It’s Chef Point Cafe, I’ve been there!

Al Hebert:
Thank you! They have lobster bisque, he does great soups. Did you have the bread pudding?

Chris Blasinsky:
The bread pudding is amazing and I don’t even like bread pudding.

Al Hebert:
I know. And he sells that during Thanksgiving, like $160 for a pan of bread pudding and it’s great bread pudding.

Chris Blasinsky:
To this day, that is some of the best food I’ve ever had in my life.

Al Hebert:
And, you know, that’s the interesting thing is that some of the best food you’ll ever have are at gas stations. I think it’s a Chevron station in Idaho, you walk in and it’s just your typical c-store, but there’s a hall. You go down this hall and there’s a white linen Italian restaurant where the waiters have white shirts and black pants and the towels over their arms. And, you know, they’ve got white linen tablecloths and amazing Italian food. If you want to go to the restroom, you don’t go to the restroom in the restaurant, you go to the c-store restroom, so it’s really cool. I mean, there’s just wonderful places like that with such character. And of course you, you meet a lot of characters in these places as well.

Chris Blasinsky:
You’re big into the food, but over the years, I think you’ve spoken about what is it the differentiator. Like, what do you wanna be famous for? And I think the examples you give with these gas stations and the food is right in that sweet spot. What do you want to be famous for? Is it deep-fried Oreos? Wheat grass juice or whatever. You’ve seen some pretty neat stuff out there.

Al Hebert:
You’re talking about what do I wanna be famous or the gas stations themselves?

Chris Blasinsky:
Al, what do you wanna be famous for?

Al Hebert:
Man? You know, I am so happy to be doing the Gas Station Gourmet and I can still do it. I love that, I don’t need to be famous. I have such a good time doing it. You know, I love road trips and we’ve had a pandemic—it’s time to get back on the road and have some fun.

Chris Blasinsky:
How can you do a road trip without stopping a convenience store or a gas station? It’s not possible.

Al Hebert:
Not possible. I am really bad at leisure time and I don’t know how to have fun. And so one year my wife said let’s take the kids to Washington D.C. And I went, oh God, I’ve got so much going on. She said, look, we’re gonna drive and we’ll stop in every gas station you want to stop in. I ended up with two or three stories. We ended up at a great place in Virginia that had this amazing toy collection. They had these little metal cars hanging from the ceiling, and I did a story for NACS. I think it’s called Lee-Hi Travel Plaza and they had amazing stuff there that if you just filled up and left, you would’ve missed an incredible collection of toys.

Al Hebert:
I love this. I think that I’m so lucky to be able to work for NACS to contribute the stories and be able to do this. These people are so special. These are hardworking entrepreneurs who risk a lot to be in the business. And to me, they’re almost living in the Old West. They have to make quick decisions. Is this going to sell? If it doesn’t sell, I gotta get it off the shelf. But you know, these people, they just try something and it works. I think in a way, I hope I help these people. Like people listening to this podcast right now, they’re gonna come away with some ideas. Here’s an idea: Make sure your store has a sense of fun. If you’re listening, write that down or listen to this again because stores with a sense of fun, people want to be there. The employees want to be there. The customers want to be there—create that sense of fun. And it’s not hard to do. And of course, have good food.

Rose Johnson:
Al, you talked about convenience store owners having to make quick decisions, and you were at the NACS Show in October, so based on what you saw at the Show, what do you think is next?

Al Hebert:
Next for what me or the c-store world?

Rose Johnson:
For the c-store world.

Al Hebert:
You know, Rose, I think, there’s so many different tracks for c-stores in America now. You have the big chains and they are going to do what they do, and they do it well. They’re going to come out with big giant drinks or great food and things like that. I think for the small, individually owned stores, I think those people have to find a way to compete and compete effectively. What I love about them is what I just talked about with their ability to turn on a dime. Their spin on customer service is not something from a manual. It’s basically like you might teach your kids to be polite and things like that. It’s talking and so many have told me, we just try to hire the right people.

Al Hebert:
I’ll give you a good example. And I think this is something that we’re seeing more and more of in c-stores today. I think this is what’s next for the individually owned stores. And probably the big corporate stores could take a lesson from this. I interviewed a guy from Florida who runs five c-stores. And I always ask, tell me about how you train your staff. And he said, well, you know, every morning I tell my staff this: People are gonna come through that door. They just left a spouse they may not like who doesn’t like them. They’re heading to a job they may not like working for a boss they may not like and the only smile they’re gonna get comes from you behind the counter. And I think instilling in employees that passion to form these relationships, to have the eye contact, have the brief relationship when people come in because they wanna come in and want to get out.

Al Hebert:
But that smile, customers feel valued. Because you know, Rose, so often, especially in our culture, it’s a fast-paced culture. It’s a digital culture. Sometimes it’s hard to get that value for people but c-stores in America, especially in the small town, customers feel valued. And I think the next thing is just more and more c-stores embracing that. The staff’s gotta love the customers because the customers will love the staff. When they love the staff, they love the store and you’ve got a customer for life. A deal at another c-store is not gonna take this customer because if Rose is behind the counter, they’re gonna say, wow, I wanna see Rose today,

Al Hebert:
or I didn’t see Rose today. I didn’t see Chrissy today. Wow, my day wasn’t as good, I wanna come back and see these people and that relationship is there and they keep coming back. You’re not gonna have that kind of relationship with Amazon. Although we all love Amazon, you know this mic came from Amazon, but we’re not gonna have that relationship. I truly believe c-stores have just pivoted and now so many big box stores you don’t have the relationship, c-stores have them, and I love it. And I love these people and you run into them at the NACS Show all the time and I love that.

Chris Blasinsky:
Well, Al, before we let you go, and this is a great conversation so we’re going to talk to you again. You’re not off the hook.

Al Hebert:
Oh, please. I love this.

Chris Blasinsky:
But we have this new fun thing that we’re doing with the podcast.

Al Hebert:
Ah, music—I love that!

Chris Blasinsky:
All right, so trivia. Are you ready? All right, Al and I’m giving this one to you on purpose because you love food. So let’s see if you can answer it. You ready? What is considered the first fast food chain? I’m going to give you four options. Is it McDonald’s, White Castle, Del Taco, or Dunkin Donuts?

Al Hebert:
I think it’s White Castle.

Chris Blasinsky:
Ding, ding, ding, ding! You won—something—I don’t know, but you won!

Al Hebert:
You know, a lot of people think it’s McDonald’s. I remember White Castle in New Orleans and getting White Castle hamburgers there.

Chris Blasinsky:
So here’s a little history is that White Castle is considered the first fast food restaurant. It opened in 1921 and had an open kitchen that allowed guests to see activity in the kitchen. There you have it.

Al Hebert:
And you know what, that’s a trend now in c-stores. Leyton Lavigne, that’s what they’re doing. Their kitchen’s open and that’s what I’m seeing more and more of where cooking can be a spectacle. It can be a show. And there’s a white linen restaurant I went to for our morning show here and their kitchen is basically in the dining room. I’m seeing more and more where you can go up to a counter in a c-store, sit there and watch them cook your food. People love that, you know? And what better thing to see a cook with personality cooking your burger, things like that. I love that kind of stuff.

Chris Blasinsky:
Well thank you, Al.

Rose Johnson:
I was going to say, thank you so much. I feel like what you said really wrapped it up. And it was the recurring theme that I’ve heard over and over in a lot of these podcasts that we’ve done to create connection and engagement, and that’s what’s going to be moving us forward in the future. So thank you so much, Al.

Al Hebert:
Thank you, Rose, thank you, Chris, it’s so good to see you again.

Chris Blasinsky:
You too. And like I said, we’ll have you back. And of course, if you want to hear more from Al or actually read more from Al, check out NACS Magazine every month, he is our Gas Station Gourmet. He has his own column and he finds pretty much the coolest places in the world where you can eat great food at a gas station.

Al Hebert:
Oh, you’re so kind. Hey, next time, let’s talk about food on a stick.

Chris Blasinsky:
All right. We’ll do a whole podcast on food on a stick.

Al Hebert:
I’ll operate a dangerous power tools holding food on a stick, it’s gonna be great.

Chris Blasinsky:
Oh boy.

Al Hebert:
We’ll wanna video that.

Chris Blasinsky:
Slightly terrifying. Like I said, check out Gas Station Gourmet at nacsmagazine.com and thank you for listening to Convenience Matters to those of you who tuned in. And if you want to hear more, you can check us out at conveniencematters.com and you can also download and subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast player. So thanks again, Al. Thank you, Rosie.

Outro:
Convenience Matters is brought to you by NACS and produced in partnership with Human Factor. For more information, visit convenience.org.

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