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Supercharger - South Hill, VA

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Restaurant closed on Memorial Day - no ICE'ing today!

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Coming from Hickory I love this stop. Definitely my favorite. Can make it here nonstop on a 100% charge from home. It's seconds from I-85, etc.

I prefer it to Burlington because of the quickness on and off the highway.
 
I stopped here on Wednesday evening on my way to Newton/Hickory NC. Great supercharger location!! I had skipped dinner at the previous stop (Glenn Allen/Chillis), so by the time I arrived here, I was starving. As I got off the exit, I was scoping restaurants -- looked like the only option was McDonalds at the truck stop. Crap. But when I got to the SC and saw the restaurant, I plugged in and went inside. The restaurant is great! Good, american food, a few steps up from "bar food", and good staff. I got a burger which was really good! As I got my dinner, they had a musician start to play some music and said "welcome to the only restaurant/bar in Virgina that has a Tesla charging station! And there's a Tesla out there right now charging!". It was pretty funny. While I was there another MS pulled up to charge, and when I left a big pickup truck ICEd one spot.

As a side note, my car was also really dirty, so I drove into town and found a "Quick Wash" touchless car wash for $8. I was really happy about that (turn right out of the restuarant -- go to the next light (a couple of miles), turn left on rt 47.. another mile or two you'll see the car wash on the right. Keep going in that same direction to return to the highway in about 1/4 mile. Very convenient. I will definitely stop here for a charge and meal on my return trip.
 
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The parking signs may be a real problem Here's a report (from the Scranton thread) of a traveller finding all spots at South Hill completely iced :

SuperCharger opening soon in Scranton PA

I had noted about this not too long after this site opened:

PSA:

This supercharger is in the parking lot of a popular area bar.

Arrived here at 10PM on Friday, found 4 of 6 spots ICEd... every other spot in the lot is taken, also, so only place to park is in front of the stalls....

Wouldn't be surprised to find all 6 ICEd on a Friday or Saturday night....

Just noting. I'll probably range change at Glen Allen instead of stopping here like I used to if I come through at this time again just in case.

At peak times for the restaurant/bar the parking lot gets quite full and Tesla spots get ICEd.
 
I nominate this Supercharger as the worst Supercharger at least on the east coast. On or way back from Santee after the eclipse, we stopped here. It was 101* with stifling humidity. I got out of the car to plug in and was hit with the smell of the dumpster and frier grease waste storage. The dumpster area was littered with rotting food, the grease was running down the box onto the blacktop, and all of it was running downhill in front of the chargers. The flies were everywhere. The restaurant employees were outside smoking huddling in the shade of the building. Unbelievably disgusting experience.

Tesla should enforce some maintenance standards if at all possible. The restaurant owners should move the dumpsters to the bottom of the hill and pressure wash the charger parking area since it's their mess covering the ground.
 

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You must have just hit it on a bad day. I've used this SC several times going to/from NC and FL. Never had a problem, and the food at the restaurant is pretty good! It's also super-A/C-cold inside I wish I had a jacket! It's one of my favorite stops, as I try to plan a lunch or dinner stop there every time I pass through. It's better than Chili's at Glen Allen.
 
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I actually like this stop.

I haven't used this stop in a long time, though... probably almost 2 years? Not since using I-81 has been viable with superchargers for my trips. No sense in me taking 85/95 if it can be avoided.

I recently managed to do my NC<->NJ trip using only Lexington, VA and Strasburg, VA chargers, starting the trip with 100% charge that is. So, yeah, probably not going to see South Hill, VA for a while longer, too.
 
You must have just hit it on a bad day. I've used this SC several times going to/from NC and FL. Never had a problem, and the food at the restaurant is pretty good! It's also super-A/C-cold inside I wish I had a jacket! It's one of my favorite stops, as I try to plan a lunch or dinner stop there every time I pass through. It's better than Chili's at Glen Allen.
Come on Hank... When is it not a bad day when the flies attack you when you get out to plug in the car? The restaurant owners don't have an ounce of respect for Tesla owners who charge in their filth.
 
Come on Hank... When is it not a bad day when the flies attack you when you get out to plug in the car? The restaurant owners don't have an ounce of respect for Tesla owners who charge in their filth.

What? Are you serious? I've spoken with the owner twice during my visits, and he's happy to have the chargers there and welcomes the Tesla owners. Like I said, you had to have been there on a bad day, because I've *never* experienced anything even close to what you describe. It's always been a pleasant and uneventful visit. Just because you had one bad visit doesn't make this "the worst supercharger ever".
 
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Yeah, I've also spoken with the owner there a couple of times. Was one of the best stops I used to use before I started using I-81 for my trips.

There are WAY worse chargers, for sure. Dumpsters seem to be a common thing with some of them since the Tesla chargers are often placed away from "prime" parking..... which also happens to be where dumpsters are placed a lot of the time.

I particularly like South Hill's proximity to the interstate. It's basically right there. It's even more convenient than say, Newark, DE, in my opinion, and that's at a service center in the middle of the interstate.... but you have to navigate a maze of turns, avoid tons of pedestrians, people who don't know how to look when parking/unparking etc to get to the stalls, and it's worse if you're headed northbound since the stalls are on the southbound side. Then you have chargers like Woodbridge, VA... which one time I went to use it took me 40 minutes round trip to/from the interstate just to get to/from the stalls, not counting charge time. Then Wytheville, VA (which, thankfully, I've been able to avoid usually) is ~25 miles out of the way on my 77N->81N or 81S->77S trip. It takes less time to do a full 100% charge in Lexington, VA or at home in order to skip and drive more slowly than it does to stop there.

Then you have Columbia, SC, which is almost guaranteed to be completely ICEd if there's an event or anything going on at the hotel due to severely limited parking. Then sites like Savannah, GA where you have to enter an airport parking structure to charge, and if you don't want to pay for parking you have to walk a half-mile to get your ticket validated and hope someone is at the desk to do it when you get there... oh, and it's also easily 10 minutes round trip to/from the highway to get there to charge.

My main complaint about many superchargers is definitely lack of convenient access from the highway. I dislike having to drive 10+ minutes out of my way to use the charger that's already adding significant time to my trip in the first place (vs an ICE vehicle).

So, yeah... there are definitely a lot of supercharger locations to complain about, but South Hill isn't one of them. Great location that's super easy to get to from the highway (less than 1 minute travel from the interstate, which is as good or better than a gas station stop in an ICE), decent restaurant with a good and involved owner. The only issue I've seen with South Hill was some ICEing during peak Friday/Saturday night bar times, which the property owner promptly took steps to address and prevent. Probably one of the few superchargers I don't have some complaint about, honestly... although most simply just can't compare to South Hill's highway proximity and ease of accessibility.
 
Add me to the list of people who think this is a great supercharger. I've never experienced the bad smells and one Saturday night when I rolled in and all the spots were iced, someone came running out of the place to move their car. They told me that they try to keep one or two spots covered with employee cars so they can make room if a Tesla shows up in prime time (which is apparently rare).
 
For what it's worth, I was there Tuesday evening and had no problem with bugs or smells, although the enclosure containing the dumpsters was open. I had a pretty good burger there while I charged.

Also, @wk057, I agree Newark DE can be a pain, but the stalls are now in a much more convenient location for northbound travelers (though, yes, still technically on the southbound side). Sounds like you're remembering it from when it was just 4 stalls (it's now 12 and closer to the gas station), which makes sense since you've been avoiding I-95, and I certainly can't blame you for that. :)
 
I nominate this Supercharger as the worst Supercharger at least on the east coast. On or way back from Santee after the eclipse, we stopped here. It was 101* with stifling humidity. I got out of the car to plug in and was hit with the smell of the dumpster and frier grease waste storage. The dumpster area was littered with rotting food, the grease was running down the box onto the blacktop, and all of it was running downhill in front of the chargers. The flies were everywhere. The restaurant employees were outside smoking huddling in the shade of the building. Unbelievably disgusting experience.

Tesla should enforce some maintenance standards if at all possible. The restaurant owners should move the dumpsters to the bottom of the hill and pressure wash the charger parking area since it's their mess covering the ground.

Was there last week. Got there in time for a bar fight that spilled outside into the car park. Classy.
 
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We stopped by for the first time this evening on our way back to Raleigh from Virginia. There was only one stall in use. I gotta say, the restaurant didn't look like much from the outside but I'm glad to see positive reviews of the food. Our Model S delivers in December so we had to gas up our ICE car at the service station, but hopefully the next time we stop here we'll check out the restaurant while we charge up.
 
Not much has changed in 3 years. Just stopped by and saw a M3 charging but then left shortly after I plugged in. There is now a Mexican restaurant next door that you could walk to. Kahill's restaurant was only doing takeout due to Covid but the place looks like it has some good food from the Yelp reviews but I didn't get any. Charging speeds seemed normal for a V2 and my 90D (Maxed about 85 kW @ 60% SOC). I wish our older cars could still get the 110+ rates listed in the previous posts from 3 years go. :(

I could see the suggestion to move the dumpster being valid and there appeared to be quite the pile a cigarettes butts out back of the restaurant and the chargers could be potentially downwind but I didn't experience any repercussions from either since it was a cool rainy afternoon when I was there.

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