Unique and Unusual Stores Across America

Aladdin feels less like a recreated historic attraction than a 19th-century mercantile that simply kept adapting to modern travelers.

Area 51 Alien Center turns a functioning highway service stop into a full extraterrestrial retail environment without losing the practical fuel, food and traveler services underneath it.

An Eastern Shore general store where visitors can fuel up, order deli food, shop for beer, wine, and liquor, and arrange landscaping services.

Cool Springs Park is less a single store type than a surviving roadside ecosystem: general store, restaurant, gas stop, gift shop and sprawling open-air machinery park.

Crane’s takes the old rural one-stop-shop idea literally, combining groceries and deli food with practical farm, hardware, clothing, footwear and outdoor departments.

Czech Stop combines an active Czech-Texan bakery and deli with a highway convenience store and Shell station at Exit 353 in West.

H.D. Gibbes & Sons remains a family-run country store while also serving lunch and steak dinners in an intentionally informal historic setting.

Iowa 80 Truckstop turns a highway fuel stop into an enormous retail, dining, service and entertainment complex where travelers can shop, eat, watch a movie, visit a museum, see a dentist, wash a dog and outfit an entire semi without leaving the property.

Lincoln's 50,000 Silver Dollar turned a 1952 bar-top gimmick into an entire Montana travel complex where the growing coin collection is surrounded by retail, food, fuel and lodging.

A long-running Southern Maryland country market combining homestyle deli food and stuffed ham with groceries, fuel, propane, spirits, live bait, and tackle.

Pops turns an everyday fuel stop into a specialty soda store, full restaurant and oversized Route 66 roadside landmark.

Saxapahaw General Store combines fuel and everyday provisions with local groceries, meat, beer, wine and a full restaurant whose kitchen keeps its own meal periods.