Free truck parking. Mobile fueling. Mobile truck wash. Numerous shopping and dining options. Sound like paradise? Well, that’s what proprietors behind the new Truckers Paradise truck stop hope you'll see in Gainesville, Texas. This new stop opened earlier this summer.
In a time when giant, sprawling truck stops are largely a relic of days gone by, Truckers Paradise CEO Dean Ash set out to buck that trend and took over the location of an old outlet mall with the idea of turning it into a destination for truck drivers. The current features:
- Mobile fueling dispatched to you when you park.
- Various dining options and what Ash called “five-star hotel-quality ... showers and restrooms.”
- Nearly 200 pull-through, spacious parking spots.
- An aim to give drivers back as much enjoyment of their off time as possible.
More, too, even in this initial stage of its open-for-business status. In the early stages of development, Dean Ash brought National Association of Truck Stop Operators Vice President Darren Schulte out to the property along I-35 near the Texas-Oklahoma border. Schulte had planned to try to talk him out of moving forward, according to Ash, but after seeing it in person, Schulte said that what he was building “would revolutionize the truck stop industry.”
Ash noted, however, that he’s “not set out to do that as much as I am just to serve the truckers and be the best in terms of hospitality.”
The idea to build Truckers Paradise began when a friend of Ash’s, a 25-year trucking veteran car hauler, came to live with Ash after an axle fire burned his truck to the ground and he lost everything. That friend lived on the road and didn’t own or rent a home, so Ash invited him to stay with him in Dallas until he got back on his feet.
While they had been friends for a decade, “you’re having long conversations that you would never have with him otherwise,” Ash said. “I got to learn how gritty of a lifestyle it is. It’s a grinding existence, and how much people try to take advantage. … He would be run off from every place, he runs out of hours” and other issues many truckers face.
When it came to truck stops, Ash’s friend told him after 25 years on the road, “there’s about four truck stops that I can name that I really enjoy going to.”
The car hauler was not suggesting anything, really, just telling it like it is, Ash said. "I’ve never had a CDL, never driven a truck, never even been in a truck that’s moving down the highway. But I can relate because these are people and, you know, I think too many people, at least in the industry, don’t treat truckers like a human being like they ought to.”
The conversations bore fruit, coupled with Ash’s passions for travel, transportation and hospitality, when he set out to give truckers “an experience that they never forget,” in his words.
A tiki hut greeting, dispatched fueling: Creating the experience
A convenience store, the Paradise Mart, offers plenty in the way of drinks, snacks and more.
When truck drivers pull into the Caribbean-themed truck stop, they pull up to a tiki hut to be greeted and, if it’s their first visit, “they get just a real quick rundown for what it is that we are," Ash noted. "It’s kind of an elevator pitch of what we are and what we aren’t, what we’ve got going on, and what is still under construction.”
Drivers will also let the attendant know if they’re interested in fueling or a truck wash, among other services.
As of now, there are no traditional fuel pumps on the property, though Ash noted it's in the works. Mobile fueling fills the gap -- driver tells the attendant they’re interested in fueling and a mobile unit gets dispatched. After the driver's truck is parked, fuel comes to them. “We come to them to fill them up,” Ash said. “Thirty-five gallons a minute, and they can just relax.
“This is designed to give truckers back their unproductive time from the standpoint of the mobile truck wash, the mobile fueling, where you go to them, they can park where they want. They’re not waiting for other people to clear the fuel island.”
Ash wants to keep mobile fuel as an option even once traditional pumps are available. If a driver does go to the fuel island, however, pumps will be manned, staff will fill the trucks for the drivers. “It’s designed to never have anybody wait more than what it just takes to fuel,” avoiding the longstanding issue of drivers taking 30 on the island or just taking too long in the restrooms or store.
Truckers Paradise is also dedicated to free parking, Ash said. “For the guys that are doing their short reset or their 34, they’re welcome here, and we will never have a financial requirement for them.”
[Related: NIMBY, other concerns limit state access to land for public truck parking]
Part of the reasoning: There's is a welcome-center-type rest area one mile from Truckers Paradise that has just 23 parking spaces. “That gets filled up all the time, and then they start parking illegally,” he noted. Ash has worked with the Texas Department of Transportation and has been given permission to go to the welcome center to let drivers know there’s more free parking just a mile down the road.
“That’s kind of the bigger picture of where this has evolved, is that we want to work with TxDOT and even federal DOT to really take a stab at the truck parking issue,” Ash added.
So far, there are 186 pull-through diagonal truck parking spaces on the property, “and they all have six feet on each side,” Ash noted.
There’s areas for overflow, too, “so we could easily accommodate up to 300” trucks, he said. Adjacent properties Ash is planning to acquire in the future once the location is fully built out.
Truckers can reserve a parking space for free by clicking the “Free Parking Reservation” link on the website. At this point, there's usually plenty parking available, but once the property gets more active, they'll man a reserved section for those who plan ahead.
With Truckers Paradise being located at a former outlet mall, the truck stop is using the existing food court with the capacity for up to eight restaurants.
There are currently five restaurants operating at the location, with offerings ranging from pizza to Mexican to Indian and more.
The property features “five-star hotel-quality type of showers and restrooms,” Ash said, “with multiple jets that can massage your midsection. And it’s a marble finish.”
A store with chrome and other truck accessories, a cigar shop and lounge, and other amenities populate the site. A group of four massage therapists is also contracted to work at the location, along with a DOT physical and chiropractic group.
[Related: Trucker Path reveals top truck stops of 2025]
Building out for future paradise
While there's already plenty on offer, Ash has big plans for the future.
He’s looking at partnering with a big-name chrome shop to expand the existing offering in the way of truck accessories, as well as a truck repair shop and a 30,000-square-foot entertainment complex with “batting cage, virtual golf, pickleball, pool tables and even some poker,” Ash added.
Beyond the Gainesville, Texas, location, once a proof of concept is built out at that location, Ash wants to expand the brand to “as many as 25 other locations in the country,” he said. Ideally, future locations would be similar to the first in that the property infrastructure would already be built out and just not being utilized for something similar.
The long-term goal: "a frictionless environment where [truckers] just don’t have to think," Ash said, where "they can just, when they go off the clock … they’re really in a completely separate world. It’s really like a five-star resort kind of thing where things are done for them, they don’t have to think. They can just be a real person.”
[Related: Get in where you fit in: Hotels4Truckers.com revamped for parking-friendly, discounted bookings]
