Abandoned Gas: Sunfish Express, Ramsey, MN
Sunfish Express was a large gas station that was built in the late 1990's. It would feature a fast food restaurant (with drive up window) and both flavors of car washes. With brushes and without. Which was ambitious for it's time, being much larger than typical gas stations that were dotting the landscape. Located at the busy intersection of Highway 10 and Sunfish Lake Boulevard, in Ramsey, Minnesota, this would seem to add up to a successful business.
Most of these pictures were taken on November 5, 2017. My friend Trav and I were on our way to take the Saxon Motors photos, which I wrote about last year. Sunfish Express was another one of our planned stops that day.
Good thing we did, as the state of the building and shovel out front indicate that Sunfish Express had just weeks or even days before it too would be scraped from the surrounding mini-mall pavement. I don't know when this place closed, but I found a couple of pictures I took of it in September 2015.
And appeared to have been closed for a while at that point. All windows and entrances were covered by plywood. The pumps were still in place, although also boarded up. Landscaping was being kept up however, as my photo proves.
Oddly enough, Sunfish Express's earliest days actually have close ties to Northdale 66. (The cool kids know it as 99 Spillihp... Which you can read all about here and here. They're great reads if I do say so myself!)
Before Karen managed the store, it was being watched over by a guy named Dave. Karen was the Assistant Manager under Dave. As time went on, Dave was transferred from Northdale 66, to another corporate owned station in south St. Paul. Then eventually back to open the new Phillips on Round Lake Blvd. in Crapids.
In the late 1990's, Phillips merged with Conoco. The new ConocoPhillips management decided they only wanted to run corporate owned gas stations located near their own refineries. Most corporate own stations were eventually sold to local companies. Some of them were chains of existing Conoco branded stores. Most kept the 66 name.
Dave's wife ran the corporate run "training center" at their Mounds View station. I was trained at that building in April of 1993, and worked a few graveyard shifts there throughout those years. Phillips 66 sold that station after their merger with Conoco in the late 1990's. After a few years of rapid decline, the former Mounds View Phillips 66 was closed and quickly demolished.
Manager Dave decided to leave Phillips a short time after the Conoco merger. He was quickly picked up by the people behind the Sunfish Express project, and put in charge of opening their large convenience store, fast food restaurant and car washes.
I don't know how long Dave stayed with Sunfish Express, or when it closed. I was just happy to get some photos of the place before it was gone. Unfortunately the place was sealed up pretty good, so I didn't get any really great pictures. Trav parked his car behind the Sunfish Express, and I set out to photograph the place, walking counter-clockwise from our starting point, on the north (car wash) end.
Brushless wash on the left and brushful wash on the right. Pieces of ripped off canopy are out front, crushing the shrubbery...
Dual car washes were a big selling point of the Sunfish Express. With large light up letters advertising that feature to all who drove by it. All of those letters are smashed out now.
Living in Denver during it's opening and peak few years, I only became familiar with Sunfish Express in the Summer of 2004. My friend and former roommate was running a bar in Genola, MN. A tiny village of 88 people, located about 65 miles northwest of Crapids. A few times between June of 2004, and March of 2005, I drove up to Genola after closing the 99 Spillihp at 11pm. Stopping by Sunfish Express on either my way to, or back from. Or both!
Never mind the fact that I just left a gas station that I was working at. I needed a different, and much bigger gas station to buy snacks and beverages from right now!
Genola, MN, was my cheap weekend getaway vacation destination during the 99 Spillihp days of 2004-2005. (The direct to DVD sequel to the epic first go-round.) I'd drive up there and spend a couple of days, staying at the farmhouse my friend was renting. Hanging out and helping out at the bar he was running. Sometimes I washed dishes, sometimes I helped pick up supplies.
The other drawing card for Sunfish Express would be luring a chain fast food restaurant into placing a franchise in the station. Which would be equipped with it's own drive up window, on the south side of the building. In this case, that franchise would be Taco Pulco.
Back entrance to Taco Pulco, with a blackened window that wouldn't allow me to see inside. But it did have a plastic U from the sign laying on the ground.
The board covered drive up window had a very small gap at the top. I recognized it as just enough to jam the camera lens against, to see what it could see...
Rounding the corner, with some more canopy pieces laying in front of the separate Taco Pulco entrance.
Over the parking spaces I used nearly 15 years earlier when I bought gas, cigarettes, cheese cereal, bottles of carbonated drinks and whatever else I needed for a weekend in beautiful Genola, MN.
This was back in the day where you could pick up bottles of Ephedrine pills fairly cheap. I'd occasionally take one or two when I needed to stay awake, or was going to do any sort of heavy work. These pills helped me breathe clearer for longer periods of time. They were also outlawed around this time due to people abusing them. I could see how that could happen, judging from how I felt after taking them...
Sunfish Express had a HUGE selection of this sort of "Trucker Speed", and I usually bought a bottle of 36 pills when driving to Genola. That would usually last me a couple of months.
During these vacations, I spent a lot of time writing in my notebook. Detailing the events and atmosphere taking place around me, in that small town bar, located miles from a town of more than 300 people. It was a perspective on life that I'd really never experienced on that level.
While there, I became a sideshow attraction. Looking as foreign to them as they seemed to me. I was the quiet guy from "the cities" who showed up occasionally. Sitting alone at the bar, drinking Whiskey Coke's, chain smoking Winston Light 100's BOX while writing in my notebook.
Those notes and stories were turned into Wasted Quarter issue 58: Crime Drama. Not that I wrote an actual crime novel... The issue was named for all the CSI shows that my friend's roommate watched every night while getting drunk at the farmhouse. Either way, it's one of my favorite things I've ever written. I may have to adapt it for this blog at some point.
As I was finishing up my Sunfish Express walk, I found another small gap in a boarded up window. This allowed a peek into what looked like a manager's office. At the very bottom of the photo, what appears to be an open safe door can be seen.
On the ground in front of that window, was a small pile of trash. Some beaten up shelf panels and some shattered letters from signs on the wall. The little I saw of the inside told me that it was being prepped for demolition. Which was looming close on the horizon.
I was rarely in it's area, but when I was, it served it's purpose. I'd heard the station went downhill in terms of cleanliness and quality in it's last few years. But I wasn't around so I sure don't know.
Access to it wasn't the easiest. Highway 10 is one of the busiest roads in the state, and Sunfish Lake Blvd. is a main artery into the residential areas of Ramsey. Yet you could only enter the station on the north edge, through the parking lot of the strip mall behind it. The access road causing difficulty for cross traffic to enter and exit, while going in the direction of their destination..
In the middle of the night, this wasn't a problem. During peak hours, I'm guessing that was a different story.
Local competition increased when both Holiday and Super America built large competing stations in the area. People are going to go with brands they know. And Taco Pulco just wasn't strong enough to convince the casual convenience store shopper to go with a brand they didn't know, versus one they do.
I drove past where Sunfish Express used to be, just last week. A building sized scar marked the lot, in the shape of Sunfish Express. Nothing new has grown from it's grave.
In reality, it lasted barely a decade.
Most of these pictures were taken on November 5, 2017. My friend Trav and I were on our way to take the Saxon Motors photos, which I wrote about last year. Sunfish Express was another one of our planned stops that day.
Good thing we did, as the state of the building and shovel out front indicate that Sunfish Express had just weeks or even days before it too would be scraped from the surrounding mini-mall pavement. I don't know when this place closed, but I found a couple of pictures I took of it in September 2015.
Yup... It was closed back then...
Still weed whacking an hour later...
Oddly enough, Sunfish Express's earliest days actually have close ties to Northdale 66. (The cool kids know it as 99 Spillihp... Which you can read all about here and here. They're great reads if I do say so myself!)
When I was hired by Phillips in 1993, that station was run by Karen.
Who was awesome.
Period.
Before Karen managed the store, it was being watched over by a guy named Dave. Karen was the Assistant Manager under Dave. As time went on, Dave was transferred from Northdale 66, to another corporate owned station in south St. Paul. Then eventually back to open the new Phillips on Round Lake Blvd. in Crapids.
In the late 1990's, Phillips merged with Conoco. The new ConocoPhillips management decided they only wanted to run corporate owned gas stations located near their own refineries. Most corporate own stations were eventually sold to local companies. Some of them were chains of existing Conoco branded stores. Most kept the 66 name.
Dave's wife ran the corporate run "training center" at their Mounds View station. I was trained at that building in April of 1993, and worked a few graveyard shifts there throughout those years. Phillips 66 sold that station after their merger with Conoco in the late 1990's. After a few years of rapid decline, the former Mounds View Phillips 66 was closed and quickly demolished.
An abandoned Walgreens was built in it's place.
Manager Dave decided to leave Phillips a short time after the Conoco merger. He was quickly picked up by the people behind the Sunfish Express project, and put in charge of opening their large convenience store, fast food restaurant and car washes.
I'm sure it had a video rental too...
I don't know how long Dave stayed with Sunfish Express, or when it closed. I was just happy to get some photos of the place before it was gone. Unfortunately the place was sealed up pretty good, so I didn't get any really great pictures. Trav parked his car behind the Sunfish Express, and I set out to photograph the place, walking counter-clockwise from our starting point, on the north (car wash) end.
The car wash exits...
Dual car washes were a big selling point of the Sunfish Express. With large light up letters advertising that feature to all who drove by it. All of those letters are smashed out now.
Entrance to the touchless tunnel wash. Letters also smashed out.
Walking around the back of the convenience store.
It amused me that each of the access doors were labeled with large Helvetica decals.
This one was just a room.
Here was the wash equipment.
Electrical...
And Re-Cycling. Don't think I've ever seen that word hyphenated...
You go Sunfish Express!
Living in Denver during it's opening and peak few years, I only became familiar with Sunfish Express in the Summer of 2004. My friend and former roommate was running a bar in Genola, MN. A tiny village of 88 people, located about 65 miles northwest of Crapids. A few times between June of 2004, and March of 2005, I drove up to Genola after closing the 99 Spillihp at 11pm. Stopping by Sunfish Express on either my way to, or back from. Or both!
Never mind the fact that I just left a gas station that I was working at. I needed a different, and much bigger gas station to buy snacks and beverages from right now!
Genola, MN, was my cheap weekend getaway vacation destination during the 99 Spillihp days of 2004-2005. (The direct to DVD sequel to the epic first go-round.) I'd drive up there and spend a couple of days, staying at the farmhouse my friend was renting. Hanging out and helping out at the bar he was running. Sometimes I washed dishes, sometimes I helped pick up supplies.
Which was named Griffy's Old Town Tavern.
But not named after this guy..
Not your high end Bell, but a lousy pun instead...
Back entrance to Taco Pulco, with a blackened window that wouldn't allow me to see inside. But it did have a plastic U from the sign laying on the ground.
Above the drive up window, Taco Pulco became Taco PU.
Which was endlessly amusing to me.
Allowing a slight peek inside of the Taco Pulco.
Kinda trashed...
I don't remember what this sign once said. It was already gone in 2015.
Looking north, down the sidewalk in front of Sunfish Express.
Over the parking spaces I used nearly 15 years earlier when I bought gas, cigarettes, cheese cereal, bottles of carbonated drinks and whatever else I needed for a weekend in beautiful Genola, MN.
This was back in the day where you could pick up bottles of Ephedrine pills fairly cheap. I'd occasionally take one or two when I needed to stay awake, or was going to do any sort of heavy work. These pills helped me breathe clearer for longer periods of time. They were also outlawed around this time due to people abusing them. I could see how that could happen, judging from how I felt after taking them...
Sunfish Express had a HUGE selection of this sort of "Trucker Speed", and I usually bought a bottle of 36 pills when driving to Genola. That would usually last me a couple of months.
During these vacations, I spent a lot of time writing in my notebook. Detailing the events and atmosphere taking place around me, in that small town bar, located miles from a town of more than 300 people. It was a perspective on life that I'd really never experienced on that level.
While there, I became a sideshow attraction. Looking as foreign to them as they seemed to me. I was the quiet guy from "the cities" who showed up occasionally. Sitting alone at the bar, drinking Whiskey Coke's, chain smoking Winston Light 100's BOX while writing in my notebook.
Really small letters...
Those notes and stories were turned into Wasted Quarter issue 58: Crime Drama. Not that I wrote an actual crime novel... The issue was named for all the CSI shows that my friend's roommate watched every night while getting drunk at the farmhouse. Either way, it's one of my favorite things I've ever written. I may have to adapt it for this blog at some point.
As I was finishing up my Sunfish Express walk, I found another small gap in a boarded up window. This allowed a peek into what looked like a manager's office. At the very bottom of the photo, what appears to be an open safe door can be seen.
On the ground in front of that window, was a small pile of trash. Some beaten up shelf panels and some shattered letters from signs on the wall. The little I saw of the inside told me that it was being prepped for demolition. Which was looming close on the horizon.
The row of gas pumps, canopy and underground fuel tanks had all been recently removed.
Leaving a nice mess on the ground.
And in the southeast corner of the property.
Across the street from Plants & Things!
There's not a lot else to say about Sunfish Express.
Access to it wasn't the easiest. Highway 10 is one of the busiest roads in the state, and Sunfish Lake Blvd. is a main artery into the residential areas of Ramsey. Yet you could only enter the station on the north edge, through the parking lot of the strip mall behind it. The access road causing difficulty for cross traffic to enter and exit, while going in the direction of their destination..
In the middle of the night, this wasn't a problem. During peak hours, I'm guessing that was a different story.
Local competition increased when both Holiday and Super America built large competing stations in the area. People are going to go with brands they know. And Taco Pulco just wasn't strong enough to convince the casual convenience store shopper to go with a brand they didn't know, versus one they do.
No matter how much Ephedrine they happen to carry...
******
I drove past where Sunfish Express used to be, just last week. A building sized scar marked the lot, in the shape of Sunfish Express. Nothing new has grown from it's grave.
At least you have plenty of other options around for petroleum...
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