Gas stations were gas stations when I was a kid. You drove in over a rubber hose that rang a service bell. Regardless of weather conditions, an attendant came out to your car to fuel you up and check fluids under the hood. Next to the cigarette machine inside were a couple of candy dispensers: gumballs, jaw-breakers, and sometimes, dyed-red pistachios. It was a different world.
Nowadays (that’s a term we old farts use), self-serve pumps are standard, and gas stations have morphed into convenience marts. We pop in and pick up lottery tickets, replacement charging chords, hot and cold beverages, booze, and choose from a bevy of snacks that range from the sweet or salty to vacuum-sealed sandwiches and such that can suffice if we want something a little more substantial. If we’re lucky, there’s a clean microwave to blast a store-bought burrito.
When a friend told me about a Shell station I needed to try for lunch or dinner, I laughed. Turns out, she wasn’t joking. Inside an otherwise indistinct fuel depot at Telegraph and Van Born Roads sit two most meal-worthy, quick-serve concepts in Saroki’s Crispy Chicken & Pizza and Taystee’s Burgers.
“Have you ever had Saroki’s before?” my friend asked me after I looked at her funny.
“Once, but it cleared up,” I quipped, since it sounded like a skin condition to me.
“I’m serious,” she insisted. “Go. You’ll see. Taystee’s is good, too. A little pricey maybe, but good.”
Stepping up to order at Saroki’s (which has eight locations in metro Detroit; sarokis.com), I’m somehow recognized as a rookie by Carolyn, smiling big at me from across the counter.
