Episode 11 - Mega Truck Stop
A truck stop so big it has a dentist, gym, barbers and chapel as well as a massive kitchen catering for a thousand meat-loaf munching truckers a day!
Right in the middle of one of America’s largest interstates is the biggest truck stop in the world, Iowa 80. It’s home to the super-sized Iowa 80 Kitchen, a mega meal-making machine that has fed over 18 million customers in its 50 year history, and its loyal trucker customers just keep coming back.
Today is the first day of the new trucking season, and the ten-strong kitchen crew are bracing themselves for the busiest day of the year so far. General Manager Rick is in charge of powering out four hundred breakfasts, including their gargantuan trademark breakfast, the Hungry Man. Meanwhile butcher Bobby has over 120lbs of pork to hack through to make the restaurants most popular plate of meat, their signature char-broiled pork chops, and shift manager Chris has to keep up with the demand for her grandfather’s recipe meat loaf.
But catastrophe strikes when one of the most important cookers in the kitchen goes down, and Iowa 80’s Mr Fix it Jake has his hands full with trying to reignite it and juggle an emergency run to the suppliers for five hundred extra eggs.
It’s action stations to make sure every one of the thousand hungry truckers leaves fully-fuelled for their long onward journeys across America. But there’s no let up for this colossal kitchen which pumps out thousands of plates of food 24/7, 365 days a year.