Godfather’s Pizza and Chester’s eatery to be inside Love’s Travel Stop coming to area

A popular oasis for travelers seeking to fill up their gas tanks, grab a bite to eat and stretch their legs is coming to Smiths Station, Ala., just north of Phenix City and Columbus.

Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores will be constructing a location at the intersection of U.S. Hwy. 280/431 and Lee Road 248, otherwise known as Summerville Road, the City of Smiths Station said Wednesday after its council voted Tuesday evening to work with the Oklahoma City-based company on the commercial project.

The business, which will include an 8,600-square-foot country store, also will feature a Godfather’s Pizza restaurant and a 24-hour Chester’s chicken restaurant inside for hungry motorists and over-the-road truck drivers frequenting it. Both Omaha, Neb.-based Godfather’s and Birmingham, Ala.-based Chester’s are large chains with no presence in the area.

Love’s is locating on just under 17 acres of property at the northeast corner of U.S. 280 and Summerville Road, which is adjacent to an existing Crossroads Pharmacy Coffee and Gifts business that has been open about five months. A Marathon gas station and Dollar General store also are at the intersection, which serves as the main corridor to Smiths Station proper.

“This is a huge milestone for our city. In addition to creating jobs and bringing revenues, it will also help to promote future economic and commercial development,” Smiths Station Mayor F. L. Bubba Copeland said in a statement from the city.

Construction on the Love’s Travel Stop and Country Store is expected to begin in January, the company said Wednesday in a statement issued through communications manager Laura Noland.

“The store is scheduled to open in the fall of 2019,” the company said. “This travel stop location will include a Chester’s restaurant and a Godfather’s Pizza restaurant. There will be 51 truck parking spaces and an RV dump planned for this site. We look forward to becoming part of the Smiths Station area and serving customers in a new part of the state.”

When it opens, the travel stop is expected to employ 40 people full-time and generate taxable sales of more than $3 million, the city said, which would be a significant boost to the community’s financial coffers.

The intersection at which Love’s is locating will have a major renovation of more than $3 million, with the company widening the general area to accommodate additional traffic, Copeland said Wednesday. There will be longer acceleration and deceleration lanes, with a short section of Summerville Road possibly being expanded to four lanes to handle additional motor vehicle and truck traffic.

“It will alleviate all of the traffic issues that are there now,” he said. “When you want to do business, you have to do upgrades. It just had to be approved by the Alabama DOT and the (Lee) county highway department and the city highway department. So they have got all those approvals done.”

Copeland said the Godfather’s Pizza outlet is expected to serve lunch and dinner, while Chester’s chicken will be open around the clock, offering breakfast, lunch and dinner.

“It’s just exciting news, because this is more restaurants, new restaurants in Smiths Station. The only national restaurant we have is Subway,” the mayor said of the community, which was incorporated in 2001 and has a population within its city limits of just under 5,400 people, according to a 2016 U.S. Census estimate. However, a broader area was designated a “census-designated place” in 2000, with a population of nearly 22,000.

Copeland said negotiations with Love’s Travel Stop had been going on more than a year, with the company seeking a site along the heavily trafficked U.S. 280/431, somewhere between Phenix City and Opelika, Ala., which connects to Interstate 85. The existing signalized intersection and readily available land in Smiths Station helped cinch it, he said. The company itself requires a traffic signal in front of its properties, which makes entering and exiting easier and safer.

Looking ahead, Copeland said landing Love’s Travel Stop & Country Stores should help set the stage for additional commercial development in his city. In particular, the company will be putting infrastructure in place that should attract more prospects. For example, he said, a hotel in the area would be great for weary travelers, including long-haul truckers required to rest off the road regularly due to federal requirements.

“Love’s is paying to run sewage (line) to their site and that was one thing that we were lacking was sewage on 280/431,” the mayor said. “So now, by having the first company to invest and bring the huge gas main and the huge sewage and the huge water main to the site, that will be the fuse that lights economic growth in that area.”

Pharmacist Ann Deaton Redding, who opened Crossroads Pharmacy Coffee and Gifts with husband Dickey Redding less than six months ago, adjacent to the future Love’s Travel Stop property, said Wednesday she is happy to see the development, even if there likely will be some roadwork pain before the grand opening in late 2019.

“We’re real excited about it. We’re glad it will be coming to the area because it will bring more traffic. It will make this little intersection more of a destination stop,” she said, noting that traffic in the area already is very hectic in early mornings and late afternoons. She also views Love’s Travel Stop facilities as clean and safe places for families to stop and take a break from the road.

“I think it can do nothing but help us,” Deaton Redding said. “When we looked around for property, this area just kind of opened up for us. We kind of had this feeling we were on the cusp of something because (Highway) 280 is very busy and once you leave Columbus-Phenix City there is no stop between there and Opelika. So as much as this area has grown, something had to give.”

Founded in 1964 in Watonga, Okla., privately owned Love’s has grown through the years to 460 retail locations in 41 states. It has 22,000 employees on its payroll.

This story was originally published August 29, 2018 at 5:32 PM.