Morongo Valley’s All-American Fuel and Food changes ownership after twenty-years of the family-run gas station, home to dog mayor Roxy

The popular family run Morongo Valley gas station All-American Fuel and Food will be selling the business after 20-years of service, and while it won’t be closing its doors, this marks the end of an era for Alison Nikyar, her brother Nicholas, and their dog Roxy, the former elected mayor of Morongo Valley (editor’s note: On Friday, August 8, Z1077 received word that Ziggy, the current chicken mayor of Morongo Valley, has passed away. Until the upcoming election in the fall, Roxy will be stepping back in to fulfill Ziggy’s role. Stay tuned for a full story on these developments).

Alison Nikyar says when her father started the business twenty-years ago, Morongo Valley was more rural with very little foot traffic, and while she’s loved seeing the small town grow since her and her bother took over in 2017, she says it’s been hard to keep up, especially with the gigantic new Circle K opening this year when gas prices are already unpredictable.

“As the town grows it’s a little hard to keep up with the changing town and the changing society because even like gas has always been so volatile but even now it’s even more volatile… There are ways to expand the store, like how the new Circle K has with their bigger pumps and bigger store but as it stands, we realized we can’t really compete with that.”

Alison says she plans on resuming her career in health care while she caretakes for her father, focusing on family rather than the business. Since her and her brother are still young in their 30s, she feels like there’s a lot more she can do. She said, “I’ve given my whole youth to this store, so I feel like it’s time to do something else.”

During the pandemic, which Alison says was the toughest part of the last eight years at the shop, she brought her dog Roxy into the shop to greet customers and for general comfort. Roxy quickly became the main attraction at the shop, then was elected town mayor in 2022, where she held office for two years. 

“I don’t even remember how I managed the store without a dog! I brought a dog to the store because it was a pandemic so there weren’t really a lot of people and she was just so good and people were just so accepting to having a dog there, especially Roxy’s personality and presence. And when she’s not here, they’re like ‘How’s the dog or where is the dog? Like they ask more for her than for my sake, which I don’t mind because she does have a presence.”

Alison says she’ll remain in the community to help out whenever she can, much like she did at All-American Fuel and Food; since everyone needs gas, she said she witnessed a lot of humanity.

“One thing about a gas station is that you deal with a lot of people and so there’s definitely some moments where we’ve had to help people, whether they’ve run out of gas or where they’re going through mental breakdown. You just see a lot of humanity and you feel all aspects of life of what people go through that I would not have known if I just had a different job, so I would say one thing I can reflect on in the 7-8 years I’ve been here is that I’ve definitely grown a lot more as a person and I’m more grateful for what I have. At the end of the day, we’re a family business and I have my family and that’s sort of why we are parting ways with this business because I have to take care of them and myself more than an entity.”

Conversely, Alison added that even though they were a small group running the store, they were only able to do because they were in such a small, tight-knit community in Morongo Valley. And when they needed help, there was always someone from the that tight-knit community who was willing to help them. “And that,” she says, “made us go a long way.”