I watched the episode with Sturgis as I have been driving by that station for decades. It had a big name brand, Standard sounds right, and then it changed hands from time to time. The last one before Gas Monkey appeared to be a progressive small town shop that worked on cars and bikes. I only drove by, but their gas prices were competitive and they had an av gas pump. I paid attention to it as there was usually an interesting car in the customer car area.
Rawlins came in and said: $200K. He put in a lot of new equipment, but he always throws stuff away instead of selling or keeping good equipment. As soon as they say yes, he's ready to start tossing and buying. He commissioned a sculpture for the property and I thought that was an extravagant thing to do with borrowed money.
They don't listen, but I tell the people on TV dealing with Rawlins to slow down, whittle down the list of equipment, see if any can be rented, then go talk to your banker with a conservative estimated total from auctioning your old equipment. A mini convenience store is a good idea, but trinkets for tourist is not.
Maybe they had a fire, I'll pull in the next time through and take pictures.
