Yes the question of just what is stuffer shack has come to a boiling point in our group. We rotate GM duties and depending on who's running Stuffer Shack either resembles a 7-11 (a 24 hour convenience store specializing in overpriced pseudo food, beer, soda, and magazines), sometimes with a gas pump or it Resembles a certain well known pseudo-burger joint with a pair of yellow arches (which is what I thought Nukit Burgers were). Somehow or other Starbucks survived in our games too which is just scary in and of itself (does anyone else think they are evil enough to be a subsidiary of Aztechnology?) Anyway what's everyones take on the Stuffer Shack, Convenience Store, Fast Food Joint, Regular Grocery, something else entirely?

It's like a Convenience Store/small Wal-Mart. McHugh's is the fast food killing zone.

you could see the stuffer shack as a mix between a (small)wallmart and a convenience store

I always thought of it as kindof a AM/PM market with a cook and no gas pumps.

well Lazarus, you beat me to it

White Hen.

~J

SR1 refered to it as a supermarket chain. Both SR1 and First Run use the analogy of "a half dozen chimpanzees going wild in your local supermarket."

However, the size of the stores indicated on both version of the map suggest something more along the lines of "large convenience store" or "neighborhood corner market" than a supermarket, I would say. To me, at least the terms "supermarket" and "small wal-mart" imply a bank of checkout lanes at the front of the store. Both Stuffer Shack maps had a single checkout counter in the corner by the door.

Oh, and for what it's worth, the scale on the map for the SR1 Stuffer Shack gives dimensions of 36 x 30 meters, and that's including the back room areas as well. That's a small Dollar General, or a decent sized 7-11.

The McHugh's in SR is like McDonalds except it has ungodly security complete with knockout gas and plastic tables that provide no cover. I think it was meant as a joke in SR1.

Of course the layout is sort of messed up for what they sell but in the SR1 and the First Run book they sell everything from food and radon kits to cheap furniture. So to me it has the feel of an oversized convenience store or a small Wal-mart with one check out. It’s basically local crappy chain store at its finest. The perfect place to destroy as a little side thing.

Ah the good old Stuffer Shack, it seems everytime i play a game; shit goes down in the Shack?

**Insert sarcasm here**why is this, some one tell me?

I've always seen Stuffer Shacks as a sort of generic small store. Most have food, some have other stuff. You could probably pick up a TV, and, with the right checks, a couple of automatic weapons.

Not quite as big as Walmart or Target, but much more selection than a Wawa or 7/11.

It doesn't have the selection of the bigger stores but it has more than the smaller ones. It is NOT a fast food joint.

Maybe SS is run by Aztechnology, too?

Well, in my game they are. As is Starbucks, and Wal-Mart, and every other place where I hate to love to waste my money. It's the retail equivalent of a skanky hooker. You do it because it's cheap and easy, but you desperately feel the need for a shower afterwards.

Oh, my description is basically a 7-11 clone.

Aztechnology seems to have a lock on consumer goods, so I'd be surprised if the owner trail _didn't_ eventually lead back to AZT.

7-11 with gas pumps. And I thought Stuffer Shacks were definitely owned by Aztechnology in canon. I have no sources, but it my be in the Spraw Survival Guide. I have the PDF, I'll check soon and repost.

Nope, not in SSG.

I just looked at it as a giant convienent store open 24/7.

Only it's the size of an A&P, allowing for frequent running gunfights in them.

I think Stuffer Shack doesn't exist physically, but as a symbol. A symbol of stagnant, chain-store America. One is unable to discern what exactly the store does because the chains have become so interchangeable in their repetition that it does not matter to the shopper anymore which chain he shops at, but whether or not he has shopped in a place he has shopped in a thousand times before, and will shop at a thousand times again out of sheer apathy.

So in other words, I have no idea.

Okay, so maybe "Stuffer Shack" is a generic street-name for any convenience store or variation thereof? Around here, we call 'em all Kwick-E Marts. The only place to rent Bollywood!

I still think it's an uncharacteristically absurdist fixture; its function and specifications keep changing as a symbolic comment on the nature of large chain stores and corporate consumerist America.

On a side note, I know people who've worked for Starbucks before, and whatever else you have to say about them (I've no love for them myself), they actually treat their employees quite well. Not very Azzie-like. Of course, there's no telling who might have bought it out by the 2050s, but it might still be around as an A or AA corp, rather than a AAA mega.

As for Stuffer Shack, I always envisioned a convenience store, myself, maybe with a bit more variety in product (but probably many made by susidiaries of Aztechnology, which owns the Stuffer Shack franchise).

But yes, it is also probably supposed to symbolize the death of the small, local, friendly businesses in the wake of megacorp-owned, uncaring, franchises with cheap, crappy products.

I don't drink coffee. What do people hate about Starbucks? And what do you mean "treat their employees well?" Do they pay them a lot?

They give them benefits, which is to say medical insurance, if they work a mere 23 hours per week. These days, when many corporations are slashing their full-time employees' pensions, offering your part-timers medical is pretty magnanimous. And apparently there's a lot of room for upward mobility, since new stores are constantly opening and thus require new managers, who are apparently recruited from among the baristas.

And I actually haven't had been to a Starbucks since I started drinking coffee regularly, but there's a variety of reasons people don't like them, including an inherent distrust of anything that's deemed a "corporation" and given the near-immunity to legality that label implies. I personally just don't like that there's so frickin' many of the damned things, or that they seem to have been at the forefront of many moronic coffee-related trends ranging from the naming system to the pricing, but I don't really care that much. For other people it's a big deal, but I'm not a big coffee drinker in general, and I already have a regular place to get it when I am.

Yeah,

Stuffer shacks have always made me think of the 7-11 or Plaid Pantry down on the corner. Good place to get your 40 of Spud Beer & a bag of "Soy Rinds".

Now I always thought that Nukit Burger was more the Mc Doanld's of the Shadowrun world (Or quite possibly the White Castle or In & Out Burger).

One chain I brought in to my campaigns was from my days down in New Orleans - Takee Outee. These were hole in the wall shops where you could walk up & get Tempura or Asian BBQ shrimp/chicken on a skewer for a buck (of course that was back just a few years).

Nacho momma's the meal for your runner on the go.

There's one of those in Northern California (or Oregon or something). We have a menu from the place!

I've got a couple "Nacho Mamas" (slightly different spelling) in my hometown area.

Stuffer Shacks are the 7-11's of Shadowrun. Many vary in size, layout & stock. Compare a 'typical' 7-11 in a more suburban area to one in a major metropolitan center, where space is at a premium. Even today, sometimes I slip & call a 7-11 a Stuffer Shack.
McHugh's = McDonald's
Isn't there a fast-food rival to McHugh's? Like a Burger King?

Speaking of Nukit Burger, ever since a GM of mine had us make resistance rolls for not being addicted to the "special" sauce they use it has been a reacorring event in your campaigns. Kinda like MacDonald's, there is something that keep making you come back.
Anyone else do something similar?

As long as it isn't AmberGel, you should be ok.

All this talk about fast food reminds me of our group's trip to LA, and our encounter with the Turducken franchise.

We don't know the area, want to grab a bite, and feel like non-soy meat. So we come across this place claiming to serve real Turkey, Duck and Chicken, and figure, what the hell, we'll give it a try...

Inside, we're a little thrown off by the enormous female troll running the place (who, to my dwarven sam's barely concealed horror, acts flirtatious - I'm not sure to this day whether she did it to have a lilttle fun with the out of towner, or seriously...), and the surprisingly low prices, but we're tired, so we stick with it.

We attempt to order, and it comes out that the specialty of the place is turkey-stuffed-with-duck-stuffed-with-chicken... Our inquiries into where exactly they come by so much poultry are coyly evaded, and attempts on our part to backpedal on the "real meat" idea (done with the usual subtlety of a group of runners who just had a sudden outbreak of paranoia) met with something approaching panic (hard to tell with a troll... is she furious at you, or worried about her job?), so we get a couple of orders, are served nice portions of pretty good looking (and smelling) turkey-duck-chicken-loaf, mashed potatoes and veggies, and also get salads, fries and sodas to alleviate suspicion and round out the order...

Some members of the team are now firmly convinced that Turducken is Made From People! (though the more reasonable idea that they simply make really high-quality fake meat and aren't used to having their workings examined by a group of professional paranoids coming down from a run is floated too), and the dish is carefully inspected. God knows what the poor clerk is thinking, as we sit there, whispering words like "vehicle sensors" and "gas spectrometer", and using microscopic vision to examine the Turducken's cross-section...

We finally eat it after my dwarven sam feels sorry for the clerk (who is by this point wringing her hands and looking near to tears - and not very Sweeney Todd like), and figures it can't be so bad as to be a match for a dwarven constitution, and takes a bite - which turns out to be surprisingly good, but doesn't quite answer the lingering questions... We leave LA, somewhat relieved they don't have franchises in Chicago.

Not a football fan?

John Madden makes a Turducken every Thanksgiving, and as far as I know he is the originator.

I've never had one, but it sure looks good.

One a side note, they sell Turducken on the internet.

wikipedia source on Turducken
Though, I would NOT be surprised if it was made during the middle ages, some variation of it. They were known to have made layered meat dishes, especially for banquets.

Though, from the guiness book of world records I had as a kid, there was a dish on the records made for a banquet of some wealthy middle eastern royalty that was comprised of a camel stuffed with a sheep stuffed with a something else, and it went down to duck, chicken, something smaller, and it rounded out with an egg. That was a weird dish.

And according to Wiki, Madden did not originate Turducken. Take that for what you will.

What interests me about the wiki article is the two variants mentioned, one where you wrap a Turduken in ostrich, and the other where you stuff a Turducken with a cornish game hen, which is then stuffed with a pheasant, and finally stuffed with a quail. Why no one's tried to combine the two concepts into an Osturduckencorpheail, I don't know. Sooner or later though, someone's going to do it.

Well, RunnerPaul, now that you've finally answered the mystery of how it would be spelled, someone can go ahead and do it.

Yeah, I have always seen it as a 7-11 type store. Plus the fact that i have oodles of plans for those simple convience stores helps...

sweet, my memory was correct and I did read something in the guiness book of world records regarding a stuffed camel. lol.

However, eating camel flesh is not unknown especially in bedouin life.
see here and here.

I think that it is within the realm of possibility that they've tried it. Didn't say they did or not, but definitely within the realm of being possible.