Jarod Opperman / The BulletinGreen chili stew and chorizo sliders at Expressway Corner Market and Deli.

Imagine a simple convenience store that serves gourmet, made-to-order burgers six ways; that has more than two dozen taps for beer, Kombucha and cider; that offers daily meal specials ranging from jambalaya to Thai curries to a spicy green-chili stew.

For residents of southeast Bend, this is no fantasy. The Expressway Corner Market & Deli, located on the new roundabout at Reed Market Road and 15th Street, offers all these things — and more.

Deli manager Phillip Trujillo is dedicated to making Expressway a filling station that takes care of empty stomachs as well as empty gasoline tanks. Early risers will find breakfast when the market opens at 5 in the morning. He’s there by around 2 a.m., already cooking bacon and sausage for breakfast sandwiches and chopping lettuce for lunchtime salads.

By the time Trujillo heads home in the early afternoon, there’s a good chance the daily special has already sold out. He and his capable staff have cooked dozens of burgers topped with cheddar, Swiss and pepper-jack cheeses, with bacon or grilled onions, with pineapples or chili peppers, and they’ve sent hungry dinners off with a smile.

Filling station

From the outside, Expressway doesn’t appear to be anything more than another east-side gas stop. It has fuel tanks in front, a car wash on the side, a drive-through espresso stand nearby. Neither does a quick peek in the front door, beneath its blue awning, reveal much.

But take five steps inside, glance to the left, and you’ll see its growler fill station with 15 taps for local and Northwest beers, another two for ciders. Right next to that are 10 more taps for flavored Kombucha. Tables with seating for as many as eight are close by.

Take 10 steps to the right, past racks of typical convenience-store fare such as Twinkies and Cheetos, is the deli counter. Diners who prefer their finger food to be deep fried won’t be disappointed: There are chicken strips and potato joes and crispy burritos to sate their appetites.

But in the morning, you’ll also find stacks of breakfast croissant sandwiches — eggs with ham, bacon or sausage — and freshly made burritos, short on potatoes but long on flavor, sharing the heat lamp beneath the counter. Behind you, at midday, a cooler displays newly wrapped sub sandwiches of roast beef, turkey and chicken, along with chef’s salads and other greens.

Best of all, there’s the grill. When Trujillo or another cook takes your order, he will ask how you’d like the meat cooked: Rare? Medium-well? That would not happen at your favorite fast-food restaurant, whatever it may be.

Specials and burgers

And then there are the specials — one each day until it sells out. Jambalaya was a treat, with chicken, sliced chorizo and an abundance of Spanish rice that made it more like a paella than a typically Cajun seafood dish. Texas-style chili, with more meat than beans, was delicious. I especially liked the chorizo slider served with spicy green-chili stew, a version of chile verde.

My favorites were the burgers. I found a happy medium between classic (topped with cheddar, lettuce, tomato, onions and pickles) and the XXX (with jalapeño peppers and a spicy chipotle special sauce) that didn’t involve pineapples or teriyaki (the Hawaiian): My Western burger was stacked with onion rings and spread with a tangy barbecue sauce.

Two friends enjoyed a mushroom Swiss burger (with grilled mushrooms and onions) and a bacon guac burger (with cheddar and guacamole). In each case, the meat was perfectly cooked to our medium or medium-rare orders. There’s no worry about shoe-leather texture here.

The salads and cold deli sandwiches may not have been as memorable as the hot food, but neither were they cookie-cutter. Trujillo uses chopped romaine along with iceberg in the chef’s salads, along with hard-boiled eggs, cherry tomatoes and ample turkey or ham. The sub sandwiches, in locally made hoagie rolls, don’t skimp on meat. The roast beef was excellent.

As for the fried food, the corn dog reminded my companion of her childhood.

We liked the breakfast sandwiches, but we preferred the breakfast burritos, which Trujillo had cooked and wrapped earlier the same morning. One of my frequent complaints about burritos is that they have too many potatoes rolled in the tortilla, at the expense of eggs and other fillings. At Expressway, the ratio is kept modest, so that diners like myself who prefer to start their days with a little more protein aren’t disappointed.

There’s no table service, of course, and you’ll pay for your meal at the convenience-store checkout counter. It’s possible you may find yourself tempted by those Twinkies or Cheetos as you stand and wait for your made-to-order burger. But show a little patience and you’ll be treated to a meal far better than other fast-food joints, and for no more bite on the pocket book.

— janderson@bendbulletin.com.