Kwik Trip likely buying Watts Cookin’

Convenience store chain could build $5-million truck stop; plan may include hotel, restaurant Kwik Trip Inc. will likely buy Watts Cookin for an undisclosed price, although the deal isnt finalized Kwik Trip plans to build a $5-million, 6,000- to 7,000-square foot truck stop The two other Austin Kwik Trips will remain open, as will Watts Cookin during construction Kwik Trip could eventually lease space on the additional 5 acres to a sit-down restaurant and a hotel The truck stop will likely sell compressed natural gas, and could be one of only a score of Kwik Trips to sell it

A Kwik Trip official confirmed this week that the company will likely buy Watts Cookin in Austin.

Although the company is still in the early stages of planning, Kwik Trip Inc. would likely build a $5-million, 6,000- to 7,000-square-foot truck stop, and eventually lease space to a restaurant and a hotel, according to Hans Zietlow, director of real estate at Kwik Trip. Zietlow said the company would keep its two other Kwik Trips open in Austin, and Watts Cookin would remain open during construction, as the new truck stop would be in a different location on the property.

While Kwik Trip officials hope they hope they can finalize a deal soon, Zietlow said, it is still in negotiations.

Its not a done deal, but we are trying to buy it, he said.

The Kwik Trip would employ 30 to 40 workers, and sell compressed natural gas, or CNG, which the company sees as the fuel of the future, Zietlow said. While CNG can be used as an alternative to gasoline or diesel, only a small percentage of vehicles on the U.S. market run on CNG. The Austin truck stop would be one of only 19 Kwik Trips that sell CNG, according to its website, although that includes one in Rochester, Owatonna and Mankato, and a new Kwik Trip in Albert Lea will sell it this spring.

We plan to upgrade an old facility into the nicest facility on Interstate 90 going across Minnesota, Zietlow said.

The Watts truck stop and restaurant, which has 45 employees, would stay open during construction under owner Kermit Watts.

No one else could run the restaurant like Kermit, Zietlow said.

Kwik Trip, which would own about 5 additional acres, hopes to lease space to a sit-down restaurant and a hotel. A restaurant could occupy two acres and a hotel could take three acres, but, Its all kind of preliminary, Zietlow said.

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Kwik Trip likely buying Watts Cookin’