On this listing, the tendency seems to be more towards negativity than anything else (although there is 1 lone "superlative" review that might have been written by the owner's cousin). I tend to do my food shopping at the Shop Rite next door, and if I need to gas up, the Poplar St. Exxon is very convenient. I fill my tank, pull across the street, and park at the Shop Rite to do my shopping. Generally speaking, I tend to gas up either here or at the Somerset Hills Exxon closer to where I live. Here when I grocery shop and at the Somerset Hills Exxon when I'm coming home from work. It wasn't always that way. For awhile, I avoided this particular Exxon.
When I first moved to Basking Ridge, this was the place I came to. At that time, the Somerset Hills Exxon was closer, but they seemed to hire exclusively young female "gas jockeys," making it into a sort of ersatz "refined petroleum" version of Hooters. I wasn't exactly Alan Alda or Phil Donahue, but I had enough sensitivity to be uncomfortable with the set-up (which, let me hasten to add, was a long time ago, and hasn't existed as such in a long time).
Initially, I found the Poplar St. Exxon to have better-than-average prices, and the attendants were friendly and hard-working. I never had my car serviced here, and I've never bought anything at the tiny "Tiger Mart" they have set up, but for the main goal of getting gas, it couldn't be beat.
As some point...and let me state clearly at this point that it may well have been my lifelong tendency towards paranoia rather than objective reality...I noticed a guy standing out front as I pulled in who had such an authoritative "Il Duce" air about him that I took him to be a new owner. He was about my age (in other words, veering "kicking and screaming" into middle-age) and looked to be in less than perfect physical shape, but he gave me an intense eye-lock like I haven't encountered since high-school days. Back then, you either fast-fisted it out or exhibited a hopefully developing sense of maturity and walked away from the "alpha-male" idiocy of it. I wasn't exactly someone others held up as a shining example of level-headed maturity and probity, but I was thankfully beyond the days when I might feel compelled to "fast fist" it out with total strangers. I got my tank filled, paid (not to "Il Douche-e"), and drove away, thinking, "Ah, maybe I'm being paranoid about the whole thing. Gotta ease up on those pills and the booze..."
However, next time I went for gas, the same guy was standing in basically the same spot, and again I got the intense Manson-like stare down, indicating he either wanted to fight me or f*** me. This time, it was hard to think it was my imagination. I returned his stare for as long as I could without making myself look...at least in my own eyes...completely ridiculous, and then drove away. The "muscle memory" of my teenaged years...when I got into more than my fair share of fights (most of which, let me hasten to add, I lost) ... thrummed through me and I castigated myself for not walking up to him and saying, "What the f*** is your problem, pal?"
But I avoided this place for a while after that. My feeling was, "If that guy is the owner, and he's staring at me...a stranger and a customer...like that for no particular reason, then he is...at best...an unfriendly j*rkoff and a bad businessman in the bargain, and...at worst...a psycho. Life is hard enough these days without having to engage with a psycho I don't know from Adam. There are other gas stations."
And, for awhile, those were the ones I patronized. In time, though, I decided to give this place another go. The Manson-eyed, Mussolini-wanna-be was nowhere in sight, and the service was...once again...quick, efficient and friendly. I've been patronizing this place ever since (although, as I've mentioned, I tend to alternate between here and the Somerset Hills Exxon, which no longer hires Hooters waitresses as "gas jockeys" and hasn't in several decades).
There does seem to be a garage and a mechanic available, although if I have such issues with my car, I take it to the excellent Valley Auto down the street. If I need a half gallon of milk, or a package of Reese's Pieces or a can of Root Beer, I wait until I do my weekly shopping at the Shop Rite a stone's throw away across the street.
But for gassing up the car? The prices are reasonable (whatever that actually means in these days of migraine-inducing high prices for just about everything), and the attendant I've encountered (he's a middle-aged guy with what I believe is a Slavic accent) is very agreeable, friendly, and makes a difficult job look commendably easy (and I know it isn't, even though I've never worked as a "gas jockey"). And there are several easily accessible pumps available.
And that Manson-eyed guy I encountered way back when is either in prison, has started his own cult, or was a figment of my booze-and-pill addled imagination. Whatever. He's long gone.
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