I’ve often driven past truckers feeling frustrated by their slow speed or uneasy that one might merge into my lane. I never gave much thought to who was behind the wheel.
However, Iowa 80, the world’s largest truck stop, cracked my heart open a bit.
Iowa 80’s been dubbed the “Disney World” for truckers, but it’s much more than its flashy signs, lines of semis, and large buffet. It’s a home away from home for the people who move 70% — $13 trillion worth — of the goods Americans eat and buy.
Iowa 80 is a place where truckers can find some temporary peace, a shower, and even a dental exam. I was surprised to learn just how important a truck stop like this can be for people bound to the highways.
Watch our video of Iowa 80 below and keep reading for an inside look at its delicious food and friendly people:Iowa 80 is a lifeline for professional drivers, one trucker told me.
It sits along I-80 in Walcott, Iowa, and spans 225 acres. It has 900 parking spots, nine restaurants, 24 showers, and a massive chrome shop.
It’s not in any world record books, though. After decades of folks saying, “This has got to be the biggest truck stop in the world,” the family behind Iowa 80 adopted the name. Now it’s on dozens of signs around the property.
I visited Iowa 80 on a hot day in September.
Iowa 80 is in a prime location, along one of America’s busiest highways that connects New York City and Chicago to Des Moines and San Francisco. Plus, as the nation’s top producer of corn and eggs, Iowa is a major agricultural shipping hub.
What sets this truck stop apart, besides its size, is that it’s one of the few mom-and-pop ones still around.
Owned by the Moon family since 1964, Iowa 80 always has parking. Its main restaurant makes a surprising amount of food from scratch. It’s a welcome change, truckers told me, from the big chains, like TA or Pilot, which often have full parking lots and fuel stations and only offer fast food to eat.
Right from the start, I was overwhelmed by its immense size.
I knew it was going to be big. But even I had underestimated the size. When I walked in, I thought, ‘How on Earth am I going to see it all?’
Big guys with their big gulps parted ways under the old-timey truck hanging over the entrance.
Walking in, it felt like a shopping mall, complete with a food court filled with Orange Julius, Wendy’s, and Taco Bell. On the right, the Iowa 80 Kitchen churned out homemade meals that were delicious.
The Iowa 80 Kitchen serves 350,000 meals a year.
It’s no surprise they’re working with a huge quantity of food. In their 61 years, they’ve gone through 23 million eggs. Bacon is one of the first things to hit the ovens each morning. The staff has to juggle both breakfast and lunch prep early to beat the rush.
I was surprised how much is made from scratch.
For its size, I expected a lot of the food to be frozen. Indeed, the scrambled eggs and biscuits did arrive pre-cooked and frozen. However, most of the main dishes were cranked out by hand.
Chef Chris Han uses her grandfather’s recipe for meatloaf, which includes chopped onions, celery, a tomato sauce mixture, breadcrumbs, and ground beef. She incorporates it all together in a 40-year-old mixer.
They make their own buttermilk ranch with 60 pounds of mayo.
The cooks told me they tried to switch to pre-made ranch dressing, but there was an uproar among customers. So they went back to mixing it themselves. Mayo arrives in big buckets. That gets mixed with six gallons of buttermilk and nine packets of ranch seasoning.
The most popular dish on the menu is the Hungryman.
Diners have two options at Iowa 80 Kitchen. They can either pay for the buffet for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Or they can order off the expansive menu.
The Hungryman is a crowd favorite, with three kinds of meat, hash browns, eggs, and pancakes. When it hit my table, I couldn’t believe people finish it.
The pancakes were my favorite dish.
These are sweet cream pancakes, which means they’re made with heavy cream instead of milk or buttermilk. This swap felt like a brilliant indulgence to me.
Despite sitting out for a bit while we took pictures, these pancakes had an incredible crisp on the outside. On the inside, they were still fluffy and almost gooey. I loved the unique tang to them.
The second-best dish was the meatloaf.
This dish sang of Midwest comfort. I grew up a few hours south of Iowa 80, and it reminded me of my mom’s recipe (I plead the fifth on which is better). It was warm, melty, and full of interesting textures, thanks to the breadcrumbs and celery.
The buffet had some stand-outs, as well.
For breakfast, they had a chef working a choose-your-own-adventure omelette station. That seemed to be where most folks stopped first.
On the lunch buffet, the fried chicken was cleared the fastest. I saw them hand-bread and fry those chicken pieces myself, so I was happy to dig into a crispy leg.
Unsurprisingly, most of the folks chowing down on the buffet were truck drivers.
The truckers I spoke to said that it’s easy to get obese working as professional drivers. Most truck stops only have fast food options.
That’s why Iowa 80 Kitchen means so much to them. It’s a warm, home-cooked meal, they said. I wondered if that sentiment would excuse the few things that arrived frozen.
The founder’s granddaughter gave me the behind-the-scenes tour of Iowa 80.
Lee Meier, granddaughter of the founders and the current marketing manager, took me on a tour of the massive truck stop. She explained that they wanted to include all these amenities — like 24 showers, a small gym, a laundry room, and a truck wash — so drivers wouldn’t have to do errands in the precious hours they have at home with their families.
You can request a movie to be played on the big screen.
When we poked our heads in around 2 p.m., there was no one in the 60-seat theatre. Disney’s “Cars” played to an empty room.
Seeing the movie selection gave me a jolt of excitement and nostalgia. It felt like I was a kid again, looking at that cool friend’s massive collection of DVDs. I wanted more than anything to stay and cozy up to a movie.
Iowa 80 also has a dentist, barber, and chiropractor.
It struck me that if a trucker has a toothache, they can’t pull their rig into a neighborhood dentist. Which is why a dentist at a truck stop could be so valuable.
I didn’t get a chance to talk to the chiropractor, but Lee told me that many drivers experience back pain from being seated for 10 hours a day.
This “chrome” shop has everything a trucker might need.
Truckers can get new headlights, fenders, hood ornaments, seats, electronics, and horns. Iowa 80 also has a Truck Service Center that can repair any semi.
And for drivers who might need inspiration for decorating their vehicle, there’s even a trucking museum on the property, featuring over 100 antique rigs on display.
I was shocked to learn that one of the most challenging aspects of trucking is finding a parking spot.
Drivers told me that just to get some sleep, they have to fight for a parking spot at the most common truck stops, like TA and Pilot, but after 7 p.m. or 8 p.m., it’s impossible to find one.
That’s why you’ll sometimes see rigs pulled over on the shoulder of a highway onramp to sleep, which can be unsafe if there’s heavy traffic.
Even with hundreds of trucks settled in by the time we left at 5 p.m., the lot was nowhere near full. I can see why this is an important feature for tired drivers.
Speaking to truckers, I found a new respect for what they endure on the road.
Trucking is one of the hardest businesses out there, with one of the worst turnover rates in the US. For every driver that enters the industry, one leaves or switches companies. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) told me that this is because wages are low, drivers can’t get paid overtime, and hours are long.
Lisa Otto has over 20 years, 48 states, and 3 million miles under her belt. Over seven days, she can easily clock in 70 hours of driving. She lives out of her truck, which she bought for $230,000, for weeks at a time. She doesn’t have a toilet or shower in her rig. But she does have her two weiner dogs, Clarice and Phoebe.
I was worried for Lisa being away from her family and home for weeks at a time. But she told me she enjoys traveling for a living, and she’s so introverted, she likes her alone time. She said she sleeps better in the foam mattress in her truck than at home. And she reminded me there’s FaceTime to talk to her grown children.
Out on the road, her dogs keep her company. She says she wouldn’t know how to survive without them. When she’s alone in her rig at night, she feels protected with them around.
Preston Smith is a new driver, and the story of how he ended up in the business had me in tears.
Smith used to be a merchandiser for The Coca-Cola Company. But in 2020, he was shot 10 times in the leg as an innocent bystander at a club. He died briefly on the way to the hospital. Doctors had to amputate his left leg to save his life. When he woke up, long-haul trucking was one of the few things he could do that wasn’t on his feet.
I was so moved by his story that I asked how he managed to stay motivated during such a tough time. He credited his family and his co-driver, Latoya “Blu” Howard. They run together, meaning they drive 12-hour shifts, all day and night. One sleeps while the other drives. They only stop for meals and emergency bathroom breaks. If it’s not an emergency, they pee in what looked to be an old plastic nut container.
Smith told me Howard gives him advice and helps keep his mind focused when he gets sad.
Latoya “Blu” Howard deals with her own demons on the road.
Howard lost her son nine years ago. He was accidentally shot by a friend when he was 17. She says she feels her son out on the road.
One day, when driving through a snowstorm in New Mexico, the headlights of a car shone on the trailer in front of her, and she swore she saw a side profile of her son in the lights. It was like he was watching over her. Howard keeps her son’s favorite plush toy in the truck cabin. She rubs its head when she misses him most.
It touched me that Howard and Smith can support each other because they’ve both lost so much.
Howard said that whenever things get too sad in the cab, she knows it’s time to pull over and walk around a mall or find a good truck stop.
I thought this story was going to be about a cool truck stop. But I left with a lot more respect for the folks who spend their careers and lives on the road.
On my road trip back home, I took a deep breath and thought twice about every truck I saw. I peered inside the cab, wondering what that person had sacrificed to get us our online shopping order or groceries.
And when I pulled into a gas station and saw a Hulk plushie, I gave it a pat.
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