By Brandi Makuski

There are eight locations of Kwik Trip in the Stevens Point/Plover area, but only one that’s named among the best in the nation for truckers.

The Plover Kwik Trip Travel Center — known as Store No. 202, located at 5339 Harding Ave. — has been named the 11th best overall truck stop in the country, and the 8th best independent truck stop in the nation from a pool of 8,000 truck stops across America.

The designation was awarded by Trucker Path, a popular Smartphone app used in the trucking industry. The app ranked the top 100 truck stops in America, utilizing user feedback and standards of cleanliness, safety and range of services offered.

Assistant Store Manager Katy Edwards (left) with Manager Michael Lubinski, stand by the awards in their store. (City Times photo)

At 8,000 square feet, it’s the largest Kwik Trip in the area, serving about 1500 vehicles daily — most of them truck drivers.

Store Manager Michael Lubinski said the store doesn’t feel or look like the average truck stop — and that’s intentional.

“We want to make sure everyone feels welcome here,” Lubinski said.

The store offers typical Kwik Trip fuel pumps in the front of the building, along with common convenience store fare including hot food, a full coffee bar and some grocery staples. But it also has space for about 70 semi-trucks to park in the rear, and offers both diesel and compressed natural gas fuel alternative pumps for semi-trucks.

“A lot of the fleet trucks use that fuel alternative, and all Kwik Trip trucks use that, so it’s a lot more environmentally friendly,” he said.

Past the grocery aisles, shoppers will find a lounge, with comfortable seating space and cable television, three private showers and laundry facilities. Lubinski said his store employs a full maintenance staff to take care of all the extras.

“The truck drivers can get their gas, take a shower, park and sleep; then they can get up in the morning, get their breakfast and get on their way.”

Lubinski said the La Crosse-based convenience store chain was also recognized by former First Lady Michelle Obama when it began offering healthy options to customers, such as fresh fruit.

“We were the only convenience store chain to jump on Michelle Obama’s initiative with the fresh food,” he added.

The store has seen as many as 550,000 customers walk through its doors annually since opening in 2014. The reasons behind the store’s success, Lubinski said, stems largely from the quality of its employees and how they are treated by the company.

The company offers an impressive 40 percent profit sharing program and vacation time for all employees, Lubinski said, along with vision, dental and catastrophic coverage, among other perks. Full-time employees are offered health insurance, sick pay and life insurance. All employees are offered free beverages and fresh fruit while they are working.

Kwik Trip also partners with the state to employ some workers with disabilities at most locations, he said, and the company owners — the Zietlow Family — visit often.

“It’s a great place to work, we’re pretty good at what we do,” said Lubinski, a SPASH graduate who’s been in the convenience store industry for over 20 years, but came to Kwik Trip only six years ago. “It’s a great family place to work — I wish I’d have come here a long time ago.”