If you pull into La Station Mansfield on any given day, you’ll hear the sounds you might hear at any gas station – attendants pumping, chatting with customers, maybe making a joke or two.
But at this gas station, you’ll also hear the sizzling sounds of a fully stocked kitchen, serving up homemade breakfast and lunch combos.
For some, gas station cuisine might call to mind pre-packaged muffins, slurpies or display racks full of beef jerky. But at La Station, it’s all homemade.
Julie Tourangeau is the master behind La Station’s menu, where she has been working for the past five years. On this particular day she’s been hard at work baking date squares and breads, prepping ingredients for pâté chinois, reuben sandwiches, and two different kinds of soup, and has already put together a few bulk orders for a few keen customers. And it’s only 11 a.m.
“It’s pretty much old-style cooking,” Tourangeau said of her technique. Growing up around her mother, who owned a restaurant in Portage-du-Fort, this kind of cooking was a family affair.
She lists some of the dishes she was taught to make from a young age. Italian wedding soup, shepherd’s pies, different kinds of bread.
But it’s not just the classics she makes.
“I made a thing out of chicken and gnocchi, and I had to explain to people what gnocchi is. The girls in front can’t say gnocchi, I told them if you can’t say it, you can’t have it,” she joked.
Tourangeau said all hell nearly broke loose when she brought up the idea of a reuben sandwich for the first time.
“People go, ‘What the hell is a reuben sandwich?’ Then you don’t want to tell them what’s in it because they won’t eat it,” she said, alluding to sauerkraut, the fermented cabbage product that is traditionally layered on top of the sandwich.
Over the years, she said people have come around to trying new things in her kitchen. Some of the items have even become staples because they have been so popular – including the reuben.
Cody Boone is one customer who’s come around. He operates his auto shop next door, and said her food is a good balance between classic crowd-pleasers as well as something a bit different.
“Her cream of potato and bacon soup is delicious, the lasagna soup melts in your mouth. I’m a picky eater and she’s been able to get me to try a lot of different things sometimes,” he said.
After she gets to the restaurant at 5:30 in the morning, she starts planning what her menu is going to look like.
“I pretty much wing it,” she said of her menus. “I get up at 3:30 in the morning, have my coffee, then I’m here around 5:30, and then I start planning what I have to do.”
Tourangeau said sometimes customers often make special large orders if they know she is going to make a specific soup that day. She said she’s also willing to make things to order, so long as she’s got the ingredients around. “If someone wants a BLT and it’s not on the menu, I’ll make one,” she said.
She said customers can even order an “off-menu” item – the Balloon special, named after a longtime customer who has gone by the nickname Balloon as far back as anyone can seem to remember.
“It’s a BLT with a fried egg on top,” Tourangeau said.
Owners Brenda Tallon and Patrick Bertrand said the food is a key part of the business’ offering. Tallon said after they bought the building in 2016, they started offering small food items like breakfast sandwiches, muffins, and hot dogs.
But over the years she said that has ballooned into a full-fledged lunch service that has become a community staple. She said a lot of the credit goes to Tourangeau for putting so much care into the food, and for also having the industry experience.
“It’s kind of like a blessing in disguise, because she knows what it takes to run a business because she grew up in it,” said Tallon, adding that she and Tourangeau will sit down to craft new menus together and buy the proper ingredients.
Bertrand said he often hears feedback from customers about how much they enjoy the food, especially the fact that it is all homemade, even the baked goods served out front.
“I think they enjoy the quality of the food that’s being served, the taste of it, how fast they can get it, they know that usually they won’t wait very long, and that it’s the best bang for your buck,” he said.
Tallon and Bertrand said their gas station is a key resting point for truckers passing through from the north. She said over the years they have added a few extra perks for those truckers who make the stop.
“We created the shower downstairs, and then I started to make lunch boxes for them so they could have pâté chinois, hamburger macaroni, things like that, because they’re away from home,” she said.
Whether they’re serving truckers or their neighbour down the street, Tallon said she enjoys serving something that’s a bit different to the community.
“I think there’s enough fried foods. People are trying to be healthier, and change is a good thing especially when everyone’s offering the same thing. This is just a little branch off the olive tree,” she said.
As a full service gas station, Tallon said her entire team is to thank for the business’ success, including attendants, cashiers and everyone else involved.
“Julie is amazing, but it’s also the other staff that makes or breaks the business. We own the ship, but [they’re] the ones that are steering it,” she said.
