Beyond frozen burritos: Food at gas stations gets fresh

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Got a hankering for homemade barbecue? How about a BLT? Savory Indian samosas? You can get all of these within a few miles of my Los Angeles house -- inside various gas stations.

With the profit margin from selling gasoline increasingly slim (a little over 1% after accounting for taxes, fees and operating expenses), many station owners are starting up little restaurants on the premises.

They’ve had to clean the stations up -- they know no one would eat in the gas stations of yore -- and they also know that if the food isn’t good, customers won’t come back. But many in the industry are banking on food as their saving grace.

-- Sharon Bernstein