The door chimes open as the smell of fried food wafts out the door. This, however, is no ordinary restaurant. Olivette Station is a gas station where Nazia Afzal, manager and co-owner, sells Pakistani food.
In Pakistan, Afzal was a teacher, but when she tried teaching high school in the United States she found high school kids to be very different than she was used to. She quit and instead began running the station.
“I like it [at the station], because whatever I do, I am my own self,” Afzal said. “People like it, they come, they talk with me. I stay happy. That’s why, because I’m happy [and] we cannot do anything if we are not happy.”
Although they do not have much advertising, word of mouth goes far. This is the case for Camilla Chen (10), who first heard of it through her friend.
“[My first impression was that] I was surprised to see, even though it was small, there was a really sophisticated cooking section behind the cashier,” Chen said. “I was surprised by how many tools they had for cooking the food.”
Afzal and her brother, Qamar Zaman, bought the gas station in 2021 after moving to St. Louis from Louisiana. However, part of the gas station was once an auto shop, which they could no longer run.
“One day, my cashier was working here, and my mechanic, he took all the equipment and put it in the truck, and he went away,” Afzal said. “I had to close the auto shop because [the mechanic] stole all the equipment. I didn’t know anything about it, so I was just out of business.”
In addition, she also had difficulty obtaining a tobacco license. Tobacco products are an important source of income at a gas station. These two things combined led her to start selling food.
“I had only gas, that’s it,” Afzal said. “My mortgage was due, all the things were due. I was out of business. I thought, what should I do? I should do what I know how to do. I knew how to cook, so I just started.”
Afzal makes the food at Olivette station by hand. Her most popular food is the potato samosas.
“I boil potatoes here, I cut it, I make masala and then I put in the samosa,” Afzal said. “The chicken spring rolls are the same. [I] make it like the home cooks, just a simple food, salt, pepper. I don’t use any artificial masalas.”
Olivette Station is a convenient place where you can buy a meal and fill up your car.
“I would [recommend it],” Chen said. “It’s small, but I think it’s really nice and they have really good food.”
