Love's Ramps Up Activity This Summer
OKLAHOMA CITY — While its customers have been hitting the roads for summer vacation, Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores has been working to fill their needs.
By last count, the Oklahoma City-based travel center operator has opened eight locations since mid-July, including its latest in western Tennessee on Aug. 11. The 10,000-square-foot Love's Travel Stops in Dyersburg, the company's 12th in the state, features Godfather's Pizza and Chester's Chicken restaurants and offers 89 truck parking spots, five showers, and a Love's Truck Tire Care Center.
In early August, the retailer opened locations in Hawthorne, Fla., and Blytheville, Ark. — which features Love's second IHOP Express.
"The opening of these two travel stops adds more than 160 truck-parking spaces along busy highways and interstates where parking demands are high," said Greg Love, co-CEO of Love's. "We're also happy to bring more dining options to drivers with the opening of our second IHOP Express restaurant, this time in in Blytheville, Ark."
The Blytheville location also features Chester's Chicken and Godfather's Pizza restaurants, 94 truck-parking spaces, seven showers and a Love's Truck Tire Care facility. The Hawthorne travel stop offers five showers, 71 truck-parking spaces and a McDonald's restaurant.
In addition, Love's hit a triple to close out July. New locations opened their doors in Quanah, Texas, and in Bridgeton and Harrisonville, Mo. In all, the three travel stops added 234 truck parking spaces.
The Love's in Quanah includes Chester's Chicken and Godfather's Pizza restaurants and 52 truck-parking spaces. The Bridgeton Love's includes the first Wendy's location in the St. Louis area to offer breakfast. It also offers 94 truck-parking spaces, a Love's Truck Tire Care center and a Subway restaurant. A 411-unit Love's Self Storage facility will open adjacent to the travel stop this fall.
The Harrisonville store includes McDonald's and Subway restaurants, a Love's Truck Tire Care center, as well as 88 truck-parking spaces.
Love's also boosted its presence in Van, Texas, its second travel stop across the street from its existing location.
"Opening our second location in Van is monumental because we now have the capacity to serve more drivers in a concentrated area," Love said. "With the strong local economic activity as well as the well-traveled Interstate 20, our customers will enjoy additional parking, dining options and other driver services."
The 12,000-square-foot facility is open 24 hours per day and features three dining options: Arby's, Godfather's Pizza and Chester's restaurants. The location also has 74 truck-parking spaces in addition to the 40 truck-parking spaces at the other Love's in Van, seven showers, RFID cardless fueling and CAT scales.
A 74-room Fairfield Inn will open adjacent to the travel stop early next year.
Love's also welcomed customers back to its Roseburg, Ore., location, which closed in March after a fire, according to the company. While closed, the retailer made some improvements to the Love's Travel Stop by adding a new roller grill and coffee bar. The site's Arby's restaurant has also reopened.
NEW CNG STATIONS COMING
In addition to cutting ribbons on new locations, Love's Trillium CNG finalized an agreement to bring 29 new compressed natural gas (CNG) fuel stations to Pennsylvania.
Earlier this year, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) selected Trillium for a contract under which the company will design, build and maintain the CNG facilities, as CSNews Online previously reported.
"This is an unprecedented project that will supply CNG to more than 1,600 buses at transit agencies across Pennsylvania," said Bill Cashmareck, general manager of natural gas for Love's. "PennDOT has led the way in proving how valuable public-private partnerships can be. We hope other states use this model so Trillium can help lower the cost of other transit facilities nationwide. With Trillium's deep expertise in constructing and maintaining facilities, we can assure customers they will receive continued reliable service."
According to the company, seven of the 29 facilities will be open to the public with the option to add additional sites in the future. The public stations are also open to the motoring public as well as light-, medium- and heavy-duty trucks.
The fueling stations will be strategically placed throughout the state. The agreement also includes CNG-related updates to existing transit maintenance and storage facilities.
Construction on the first three facilities will begin later this year and are expected to open early next year. All locations will be constructed over the next five years.
Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores is a family-owned and –operated company with more than 390 locations in 40 states.