The crème of convenience cuisine

But more than that, they love a good convenience store. We can't drive past one without this weird Pavlovian response to the prepackaged-food paradise.

"Oh! Can we stop?! Pleeeeeease! Can we stop?! Can we STOP?!"

OK, so maybe that's not so much weird as just annoying.

And the begging is amplified if the store happens to be a QT, QuikTrip, which they consider the crème de la crème of convenience chains. So when a new one was built on one of our frequent routes at River and Craycroft roads, the kids were beside themselves. When I told them we'd eat there, well, that day was anticipated like Christmas. No joke.

All those parents who made their own organic baby food and plan to keep their kids away from refined sugar until they leave for college are now frowning. Hey, don't judge me - convenience stores aren't all neon-colored slushes and compressed meat sticks (although QT does have a wall devoted to Slim Jims and beef jerky).

There's a big movement in the convenience store world to offer healthier food options. Last year, 7-Eleven introduced a line of fresh foods with a goal of upping its sales of healthy options in U.S. and Canadian stores from about 10 percent now to 20 percent by 2015, according to The New York Times.

The sprawling QT - it's 5,700 square feet - has ... well, everything. You'll find lots of healthier options: fresh fruit, yogurt parfaits, individual cheese sticks, even squeezable apple sauce that's popular with the Pampers set (and even those out of diapers). It offers salads, sandwiches, wraps, even flatbread pizzas packaged under its QT Kitchens line. Food is delivered daily from the QT Kitchens in Tolleson, said spokesman Mike Thornbrugh.

Plus, there are all the usual convenience store trappings like beer, wine and bottled drinks, along with several different stations for tea, hot drinks, frozen drinks, ice cream and froyo. Naturally (perhaps it would be better to say unnaturally), there's a tube-shaped foods area featuring a bank of hot dogs, taquitos and meat smooshed to look like hot dogs, all spinning slowly on metal rollers.

Guess what the kids chose?

While the hot dog ($2 for two or $1.39 each) was praised as tasting like a ballpark wienie, a major compliment, the Cheeseburger Roller ($2 for two or $1.39 each) came off like a dog treat. Studded with teeny orange squares, the dried-out Roller didn't taste beefy or even like meat.

On the other hand, the QT Kitchens chicken salad croissant ($3.99) was piled with lots of creamy chicken salad spiked with sweet, dried cranberries and crunchy pecans. Fresh leaf lettuce added some green, and the hearty croissant held together while still being appropriately buttery and flaky.

The highlight of the QT dining experience was no doubt ordering pretzels and ice cream from touch-screen computers, which requires actual parental supervision by someone not easily distracted by the spinning tube-meat section. Not paying attention equals extra orders of ice cream. Found that out the hard way.

The pretzels ($2.49) are comparable to the soft, slightly sweet ones you can get at the mall. The classic, buttered pretzel - lightly sprinkled with salt and slightly warmed - sent one kid into a full-on Guy Fieri reverie: "This is out of bounds! It's the real deal."

Equally good were the fancy-dancy versions: a sweet one fully blanketed in a thick layer of crunchy cinnamon-sugar, and a Parmesan-herb that, dunked into a thick, sweet marinara, was reminiscent of pizza.

We counted 22 flavors of frozen drinks, but if the super-sugary variety isn't your thing, the same station that dispenses hot pretzels and soft-serve ice cream also makes actual fruit smoothies ($2.99) that can be blended with or without yogurt. The berry smoothie tasted like real fruit and wasn't overly sweet. The taste of the strawberry-banana one, though, was overshadowed by the strong flavor of orange juice.

The soft-serve ice cream and frozen yogurt (starting at 79 cents) weren't particularly noteworthy on their own, but tricked out with mini-M&Ms and crushed Oreos, they hit the sweet spot.

QuikTrip sports a few metal tables with umbrellas outside, and while some might snicker at dining outside a convenience store, the view of the Catalinas rivals that found at fancier, pricier spots - and was well worth the lingering taste of Cheeseburger Roller.

QuikTrip

3636 N. Craycroft Road at River Road, 529-5643.

Open 24 hours every day.

Did you know?

QuikTrip is a privately held company based in Tulsa, Okla. Started in 1958, QT owns and operates 641 stores, with 16 in Tucson.