- Sep 13, 2002
- 94,027
- 190,171
- 113
I know not everyone is a fan of Ms. Lenz (I myself often roll my eyes at her constant bleating about rampant misogyny based on, well, pretty much every thing anyone says or does) but this is a really well-written piece:
On May 8, 2019, at the beginning of the Iowa caucus season, Beto O’Rourke made a huge error. He ate the wrong pizza. O’Rourke’s campaign staff posted a video of him on Instagram eating a slice of pizza from the gas station chain Casey’s.
“We’re eating some breakfast pizza right now,” O’Rourke said.
In response, a blogger for Barstool Sports wrote a single outraged paragraph:
Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand posted an entire thread on breakfast pizza.
If you are confused, that’s understandable. Essentially, O’Rourke’s mistake was the equivalent of going to Philadelphia and calling a cheesesteak a tuna melt. O’Rourke’s mistake was a cultural gaffe in a part of the country that is more famous for being flown over than visited. A portion of America so misunderstood that being misunderstood is part of its regional identity. In fact, Midwesterners thrive on the lack of understanding; it’s the chip on the cultural shoulder, and without it, who would we be?
The Midwest is an area of the country that resists representation. You just don’t get it, we say to outsiders who come and write florid prose about the cornfields, confusing them with soy fields. Belonging is essential. And even insiders can be outsiders, as University of Iowa professor Stephen Bloom learned in his condescending 2011 essay for the Atlantic that described Iowa as “a schizophrenic, economically-depressed,” and “culturally-challenged.” He lives here, but he’s wrong. And you don’t have to be negative to get it wrong. Max Boot’s cloying opinion piece about kids who raise pigs instead of playing video games was infantilizing, and also wrong.
The Midwest is the middle child of the nation, pulled between the large population centers of the coasts, misunderstood, overlooked, and constantly whining about it. Sinclair Lewis once wrote, “A rebellious girl is the spirit of that bewildered empire called the American Middlewest.” And in that foot-stomping, infuriating, stubborn, no-one-understands-me kind of way, he is right. But understanding what the middle of America means is not just essential for the region, but essential for how we define our politics and our lives.
Which brings us back to O’Rourke and the breakfast pizza. What O’Rourke’s mistake unintentionally cracked open, was the cult of the Midwestern gas station.
Casey’s, home of the famous breakfast pizza, was founded in 1968 in Boone, Iowa, as a gas station and convenience store. In 2021, Casey’s was the fifth-largest pizza chain in America. And like its competitors, Kwik Trip and Kum and Go (yes, you read that right), has become more of a restaurant and cultural icon than a gas station.
After all, life in the Midwest is calculated in time and distance. We live far apart from the places we are going and there is a lack of effective public transportation systems. This means the divide between who drives and who doesn’t is a lot smaller than in larger cities. With so much open land, people spend a lot of time in their cars. Consequently, the places in between become essential not only to simple survival but as cultural hubs.
The farm crisis of the 1980s devastated America’s rural landscape. It wasn’t just farms. The closure of farms meant farm manufacturers went out of business and laid people off. Waterloo, Iowa, lost 14 percent of its population. Entire towns lost their grocery stores, churches, post offices, and schools. It’s a hard loss to quantify. But it drove farmers to death by suicide and to murder. These losses are still felt so deeply even now, and the grief is coupled with a sense of abandonment that drives the politics of white grievance.
And into this cleared landscape came Walmarts, Dollar Generals, and gas stations.
For many communities, the gas station is not just where you fuel your car, it’s the local restaurant and the grocery store, where you can buy milk, eggs, bread, and cheese without driving forty miles to the closest grocery store. As State Auditor Rob Sand, who is from Decorah, pointed out, “In some small towns and rural spaces, the gas station may be the only place you can buy breakfast. Not because you’re in a rush. Not because you want to eat out. Just, that’s it. The only spot.”
Recently, on a reporting trip to New Hartford, Iowa, I asked the local librarian where to get lunch. “Well,” she said, “the bar is closed, so where else you gonna go but Casey’s?”
Casey’s is largely in rural towns with populations of 5,000 or less, and it’s often the only place to get milk or take-out. Casey’s began serving pizza in the 1980s in the middle of the farm crisis.
Like Walmart and Dollar General, gas station chains thrive on the hollowed-out economies of rural desperation. But unlike Walmart and Dollar General, gas stations have a devoted following of fans. People love them. And they don’t just love them, they are obsessed with them.
The Cult of Casey's: How Gas Stations Became Essential to American Culture
Who we are as Midwesterners is defined by our gas stations
On May 8, 2019, at the beginning of the Iowa caucus season, Beto O’Rourke made a huge error. He ate the wrong pizza. O’Rourke’s campaign staff posted a video of him on Instagram eating a slice of pizza from the gas station chain Casey’s.
“We’re eating some breakfast pizza right now,” O’Rourke said.
In response, a blogger for Barstool Sports wrote a single outraged paragraph:
Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst joined in on the breakfast pizza dunking, noting that canonically a true breakfast pizza does not have marinara, but has eggs and bacon.
Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand posted an entire thread on breakfast pizza.
If you are confused, that’s understandable. Essentially, O’Rourke’s mistake was the equivalent of going to Philadelphia and calling a cheesesteak a tuna melt. O’Rourke’s mistake was a cultural gaffe in a part of the country that is more famous for being flown over than visited. A portion of America so misunderstood that being misunderstood is part of its regional identity. In fact, Midwesterners thrive on the lack of understanding; it’s the chip on the cultural shoulder, and without it, who would we be?
The Midwest is an area of the country that resists representation. You just don’t get it, we say to outsiders who come and write florid prose about the cornfields, confusing them with soy fields. Belonging is essential. And even insiders can be outsiders, as University of Iowa professor Stephen Bloom learned in his condescending 2011 essay for the Atlantic that described Iowa as “a schizophrenic, economically-depressed,” and “culturally-challenged.” He lives here, but he’s wrong. And you don’t have to be negative to get it wrong. Max Boot’s cloying opinion piece about kids who raise pigs instead of playing video games was infantilizing, and also wrong.
The Midwest is the middle child of the nation, pulled between the large population centers of the coasts, misunderstood, overlooked, and constantly whining about it. Sinclair Lewis once wrote, “A rebellious girl is the spirit of that bewildered empire called the American Middlewest.” And in that foot-stomping, infuriating, stubborn, no-one-understands-me kind of way, he is right. But understanding what the middle of America means is not just essential for the region, but essential for how we define our politics and our lives.
Which brings us back to O’Rourke and the breakfast pizza. What O’Rourke’s mistake unintentionally cracked open, was the cult of the Midwestern gas station.
Casey’s, home of the famous breakfast pizza, was founded in 1968 in Boone, Iowa, as a gas station and convenience store. In 2021, Casey’s was the fifth-largest pizza chain in America. And like its competitors, Kwik Trip and Kum and Go (yes, you read that right), has become more of a restaurant and cultural icon than a gas station.
After all, life in the Midwest is calculated in time and distance. We live far apart from the places we are going and there is a lack of effective public transportation systems. This means the divide between who drives and who doesn’t is a lot smaller than in larger cities. With so much open land, people spend a lot of time in their cars. Consequently, the places in between become essential not only to simple survival but as cultural hubs.
The farm crisis of the 1980s devastated America’s rural landscape. It wasn’t just farms. The closure of farms meant farm manufacturers went out of business and laid people off. Waterloo, Iowa, lost 14 percent of its population. Entire towns lost their grocery stores, churches, post offices, and schools. It’s a hard loss to quantify. But it drove farmers to death by suicide and to murder. These losses are still felt so deeply even now, and the grief is coupled with a sense of abandonment that drives the politics of white grievance.
And into this cleared landscape came Walmarts, Dollar Generals, and gas stations.
For many communities, the gas station is not just where you fuel your car, it’s the local restaurant and the grocery store, where you can buy milk, eggs, bread, and cheese without driving forty miles to the closest grocery store. As State Auditor Rob Sand, who is from Decorah, pointed out, “In some small towns and rural spaces, the gas station may be the only place you can buy breakfast. Not because you’re in a rush. Not because you want to eat out. Just, that’s it. The only spot.”
Recently, on a reporting trip to New Hartford, Iowa, I asked the local librarian where to get lunch. “Well,” she said, “the bar is closed, so where else you gonna go but Casey’s?”
Casey’s is largely in rural towns with populations of 5,000 or less, and it’s often the only place to get milk or take-out. Casey’s began serving pizza in the 1980s in the middle of the farm crisis.
Like Walmart and Dollar General, gas station chains thrive on the hollowed-out economies of rural desperation. But unlike Walmart and Dollar General, gas stations have a devoted following of fans. People love them. And they don’t just love them, they are obsessed with them.
