Buc-ee's is an American chain of country stores, gas stations, and electric vehicle chargers created and owned by Arch "Beaver" Aplin III, headquartered in Lake Jackson, Texas.[3] The chain was founded in 1982 in Clute, Texas and began expansion with its first travel center in Luling, Texas in 2003. The company began expanding outside of Texas in 2018 with the opening of a location in Baldwin County, Alabama, and has since opened locations in Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Colorado, and Missouri, with new locations planned for North Carolina, Mississippi, Ohio, Virginia, Louisiana, and Arkansas.[4]
The chain is well known for the large size of its locations, alongside its product offerings of fuel, snacks (particularly beef jerky and candy), brisket, baked goods and commodities, tacos, fresh sandwiches, souvenirs, and travel items. It holds the record for the largest gas station in the world, as of June 2023 its Sevierville, Tennessee location.[5] The chain has also become well known for the cleanliness of its bathrooms and its mascot. Buc-ee's has never permitted 18-wheelers at its locations, saying that "the company’s parking lots and driveways aren't designed to accommodate truckers", a policy that has angered some truckers.[6][7]
The chain is popular compared to other gas stations due to its large customer base who have been shown to frequent the chain over a long period of time.[8][9][10] Its bathrooms have also gained significant acclaim, winning the Cintas award for "Best Restroom in America" in 2012.[11][12]
History
Founder Arch "Beaver" Aplin opened his first store as partners in Clute, Texas in 1982. Aplin formed the name Buc-ee's by combining his childhood nickname; the name of his Labrador Retriever, Buck; as well as the appeal of Ipana toothpaste's animated mascot, Bucky the beaver.[13][14] Aplin was born in Southeast Texas, with his father originating from, and grandparents residing in, Harrisonburg, Louisiana.[15] Buc-ee's expanded and opened its first travel center in Luling, Texas, in 2003.[15]
In 2012, Buc-ee's opened its largest travel center in New Braunfels, Texas, on Interstate 35. The New Braunfels location was the largest convenience store in the world at 68,000 square feet (6,300 m2),[16] but on June 26, 2023, the Sevierville, Tennessee Buc-ee's opened and became the world's largest convenience store at 74,707 square feet (6,940.5 m²). The New Braunfels, Texas store had the 2012 "Best Restroom in America" named by Cintas.[12]
After significant expansion in the Greater Houston area and Central Texas, the first Buc-ee's in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex opened in Terrell, Texas, on June 22, 2015. The travel center is located three miles west of The Shops at Terrell (a former Tanger Outlets center) on Interstate 20.
In September 2015, it was announced that at least part of Buc-ee's corporate operations would move to office space at Pearland Town Center. The "partial headquarters" would house the legal and human resources departments of the company. The space was ready by the early part of 2016.[17]
The second Buc-ee's in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the 32nd location in Texas, opened on May 23, 2016. The store is located in far northern Fort Worth, across the street from Texas Motor Speedway.[18] The third DFW location opened in Denton, Texas, on October 29, 2018.
Buc-ee's established another North Texas location in Melissa, Texas, on February 5, 2018. The store is located off New Davis Road and U.S. Highway 75. The store opened on April 29, 2019.[19][20]
Expansion outside Texas
On March 8, 2016, Buc-ee's announced a possible first location outside of the state of Texas would be located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.[21] The location was expected to open in early 2017; however, on October 4, 2016, Buc-ee's announced that the plans for the Baton Rouge location had been terminated.[22][23]
On April 12, 2017, Buc-ee's announced that it would open its first convenience store/gas station outside of Texas in Daytona Beach, Florida.[24] Construction began in summer 2018.[25] However, delays in the project pushed the construction date to sometime in 2021. Since the announcement of the Daytona Beach location, Buc-ee's also announced a new location to be built near St. Augustine, Florida.[26] The St. Augustine location opened first on February 23, 2021, and the Daytona location opened on March 22, 2021.[27]
Locations
Inside of a Buc-ee's, Terrell, TexasAs of December 2023, Buc-ee's has 48 active locations across Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Colorado, and Texas.[28] In January 2024, the company announced the opening of its first location in North Carolina.[29]
State Locations Texas 34 Alabama 4 Florida 2 Georgia 2 Tennessee 2 Kentucky 1 Missouri 1 South Carolina 1 Colorado 1 Buc-ee's in Alabama: Employee making Bar-B-Que SandwichProducts and services
Food
All travel center locations include a bakery, brisket and fudge bar, snack aisle, soda, coffee, and Icee station. Locations also feature walls lined with various candy and beef jerky flavors to purchase, including a beef jerky bar. Product offerings include cookies, kolaches, and pastries in the bakery, BBQ brisket sandwiches, breakfast tacos/sandwiches at the brisket bar, along with cold-cut wraps and sandwiches. Packaged cups of fruit and vegetables can be purchased as well. Locations also house packaged general snack foods, ice cream and Dippin' Dots, water, soda, energy drinks, and alcohol. The company has produced many of its own original snack foods, the most notable of which is "Beaver Nuggets" (flavored corn puff snacks), the company's best-selling product.[30][31][32]
Souvenirs and general merchandise
Besides food and drink, the company also offers a variety of general and regional-based souvenirs, including apparel and artwork. The chain carries its own clothing brand, ranging from t-shirts to hats, pants, plushies, swimwear, and blankets. Stores also carry general kitchen goods, including cast iron skillets, food containers, mugs, glassware, cookbooks, coolers, and thermoses, among others. General travel products are sold as well, along with phone accessories. Various locations also sell hunting gear and equipment alongside outdoor products such as grills and firepits.[33]
Fuel
All Buc-ee's travel centers include 80 to 120 gas pumps, with fuel offerings ranging from unleaded to diesel. Some stores include ethanol-free fuel and diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) as well.[34]
Tesla Superchargers
In November 2021, CleanTechnica reported that Tesla would be opening Superchargers at 26 Buc-ee's locations in 7 states.[35] As of February 2023 , there were operational Superchargers at more than half of the planned locations, including in Alabama (Leeds, and Robertsdale); Florida (St. Augustine); South Carolina (Florence); Tennessee (Crossville); and Texas (Bastrop, Baytown, Ennis, Giddings, Katy, Madisonville, Melissa, New Braunfels, and Wharton).[36][37]
Car washes
As of March 2024, Buc-ee's has car washes available at seven of their locations, five within the state of Texas, one within Alabama, and one within Tennessee.[38] The longest of which, located in Katy, Texas, holds the record for the longest car wash in the world at 255 feet (78 metres) of conveyor.[39]
Litigation
In recent years, during the company's rapidly growing success, Buc-ee's has filed numerous lawsuits against other convenience store chains, most of them based in Texas, for trademark and trade dress infringement.
In 2014, Buc-ee's filed a lawsuit against Texas-based convenience store chain "Frio Beaver".[40] Frio Beaver, a company with a logo also depicting a beaver in a yellow circle with a black outline, was accused of copying the iconic Buc-ee's beaver head logo, which the company is widely known for in Texas. The case was settled out of court in December 2014; B&B Grocery Inc. agreed to stop using the "Frio Beaver" logo and mascot.[41]
In 2016, Buc-ee's sued "Choke Canyon BBQ", another Texas convenience store, for copyright infringement and trade dressing.[42] Choke Canyon uses a logo of a grinning alligator in the middle of a yellow circle, which Buc-ee's claims is an attempt by the chain to resemble the Buc-ee's logo. Choke Canyon is also calling their new stores "Bucky's".[43] Choke Canyon lost the federal lawsuit in May 2018 with Choke Canyon changing their logo to a cowboy inside of an orange circle.[44]
In 2017, Buc-ee's again filed a lawsuit for breaking an agreement, this time against a Nebraska-based convenience store chain known as "Bucky's".[45] The two companies had agreed to remain in their respective states and expand only to states where the other did not operate. The lawsuit was thrown out.[46]
There was also a non-logo related lawsuit filed in 2013 against "Chicks", a convenience store located in Bryan, Texas, for trade dressing by allegedly copying Buc-ee's mega convenience store designs and layout.[47] The case was settled out of court.[40]
Buc-ee's also lost a Texas Employee Retention Agreement case on an appeal in 2017. A year after a trial court ordered a former employee to pay Buc-ee's close to $100,000 in damages and attorney's fees for breaching a "Retention Agreement," a Texas court of appeals reversed the decision and ordered that Buc-ee's take nothing on its claims against the former employee. The court reasoned that the contract violated Texas' employment-at-will doctrine and did not meet the Texas non-compete agreement requirements, so it was not enforceable.[48]
In 2023, crossover artwork of the Buc-ee's beaver and Hatsune Miku was trending on Twitter. An Austin, Texas-based artist claimed responsibility for creating "Bucsune Miku". In response, Buc-ee's sent the artist a cease and desist letter regarding the stickers and use of the beaver logo. The artist subsequently announced they would no longer furnish the stickers via their shop, nor as a gift for supporting their work via tipping.[49]
References
Further reading
CNN
—A trip to the gas station usually warrants more of a hurried waddle to the bathroom than a commemorative TikTok. But most gas stations are not Buc-ee’s.
The Texas-based (and Texas-supersized) gas and convenience store chain offers much more than a place to fuel up and grab a bag of chips. Its devoted fans make regular pilgrimages, sometimes driving hundreds of miles, to stock up on Beaver Nuggets and brisket and merch with its bucktoothed mascot’s smiling face. Even its restrooms are award-winning.
Dylan and Shelby Reese, a husband-and-wife TikTok team, have been loyal Buc-ee’s customers since the chain first arrived in Alabama in 2019, opening its first location outside of Texas. In a June video that’s been viewed more than 6.7 million times, Shelby filmed her delighted husband nearly skipping into Buc-ee’s, fawning over its famous brisket — “meat for days!” — and a beaver-branded leopard print swimsuit while juggling coffee and sandwiches in both hands.
“Florida has Disney World — we have Buc-ee’s,” Dylan said, with deep conviction, in the video. (Florida also has two Buc-ee’s locations.)
Less than 24 hours after their filmed visit, they returned to do it all over again.
There are other regional convenience chains that inspire similar fervor among fans: Wawa has its hoagie enthusiasts, Maverik its Western-inspired architecture and in-house restaurant. But Buc-ee’s is the biggest of them all — world-record-breakingly big — and it’s regularly named one of the cleanest, tastiest and overall best places to stop for gas in the country. And now, its fanbase is surging among non-Texans and young people who’ve discovered the spot on TikTok and document their first visits for hundreds of millions of viewers.
How does a gas station cultivate such a devoted following? Buc-ee’s spokesman and general counsel Jeff Nadalo said the brand keeps it simple: “Buc-ee’s has remained committed to providing award-winning clean restrooms, freshly prepared food, cheap gas, and outstanding customer service.”
It’s a simple-enough recipe for success, and yet Buc-ee’s is still one-of-a-kind among competitors. Here’s what experts, some of whom are Buc-ee’s regulars themselves, say sets the Texas chain apart and turned it into a phenomenon.
Buc-ee’s turns what would be a quick trip anywhere else into mid-road trip adventure, said Jeff Lenard, spokesperson for the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS).
Buc-ee’s provides those necessities — food, fuel, restrooms — in such overwhelming quantities that a trip might extend a drive by 30 minutes to an hour, Lenard said. Its biggest store in Sevierville, Tennessee, is also the world’s largest convenience store at 74,707 square feet — almost 30 times the size of the industry average of 2,500 square feet, per NACS. It advertises its pristine bathrooms for hundreds of miles along interstates and delivers, too — Buc-ee’s bathrooms have won awards for their otherworldly cleanliness. And its food selection is more comparable to a Trader Joe’s than a vending machine, with a bakery, an entire wall of bagged jerky of varying flavors and a brisket station manned by employees in straw hats who holler every time a new hot slab of beef is ready for chopping.
Buc-ee's brisket has earned the chain countless fans.
Courtesy Buc-ee's“That’s the great innovation of Buc-ee’s,” said Eric Benson, a journalist and Texas transplant who wrote about Buc-ee’s path to “world domination” for Texas Monthly in 2019. “It took this thing people have to do, which is stop on these 200-mile car trips between cities, and make it into just a little bit of an experience.”
The evolution of Buc-ee’s into a Texas-sized gas station superstore with a cult following started off slowly, Benson wrote. Arch “Beaver” Aplin opened the first Buc-ee’s in 1982, in the small town of Lake Jackson, Texas. That first store was only 3,000 square feet and offered a few gas pumps and a modest selection of snacks, though it was built with brass ceiling fans and cedar wall accents for a slightly more upscale feel on the inside, wrote Benson. It wasn’t until 2012, when Aplin opened a 56,000-square-foot Buc-ee’s in Bastrop, a small city 30-plus miles outside of Austin, that the chain became known for its massive highway stops.
And in the 11 years since, as it’s expanded beyond the largest state in the lower 48, Buc-ee’s has become a must-stop, one-stop-shop for road trippers who want to do their business and grab a meal with the promise of quality.
“Buc-ee’s is a place where you get to see a real cross-section of society,” Benson told CNN. “Everyone drives. And everyone who’s driving has to stop somewhere to fill up their gas, go to the bathroom and get something to eat. Buc-ee’s is kind of the best place to do it.”
Convenience stores across the country may tout their toilets’ cleanliness on billboards. But most of them don’t have dozens of stalls like Buc-ee’s does, nor do they advertise their facilities as “world famous.”
But the bathrooms at Buc-ee’s are the real deal, fans say. The Reeses told CNN that from the outside, it’s easy to assume based on the line of dozens of cars waiting for their chance to explore Buc-ee’s, one might expect the wait for a bathroom stall to be interminable. But one would be wrong, they said — “there are almost more stalls than gas pumps!”
Bathrooms are the “most important” component of the convenience store experience to nail if a business wants repeat customers, Lenard said. They’re often a customer’s first stop, and if the restroom is filthy, that customer is more likely to run back to the comfort of their car than wander the store for a few minutes afterwards. But if they’re pristine, like Buc-ee’s claims its bathrooms are, then that impressed patron’s curiosity is piqued, and they might spend more time perusing.
“They are so clean you could eat a sliced brisket sandwich off of them,” the Reeses told CNN, though they wouldn’t exactly recommend noshing on brisket in the bathroom.
At the biggest Buc-ee’s stores, there are countless aisles for customers to get lost in. There’s seasonal merchandise that dresses the Buc-ee’s beaver in a Santa costume or throws his gaping maw on a tie-dye T-shirt, along with far more expensive fare — Lenard said he’s spotted a gas grill worth more than $1,400 on sale at Buc-ee’s.
The Buc-ee's beaver can be found in nearly every corner of the store, often as a stuffed animal.
Courtesy Buc-ee's“It starts with the bathroom,” Lenard said. “Stellar bathrooms can sell an awful lot of product.”
Buc-ee’s lures drivers in over hundreds of miles before they even make it to a location, buying billboards with puns about taking care of business in its bathrooms. Much of the time, those billboards don’t even need to use the word “Buc-ee’s” — the smiling beaver with a red cap does the talking.
“I think there’s probably a little magic in that logo,” Lenard said of Buc-ee’s toothy mascot. “You can’t not smile looking at that guy.”
He’s so beloved that he’s been immortalized at many locations as a statue, greeting patrons like Mickey Mouse in front of Cinderella’s castle at Walt Disney World. First-time Buc-ee’s visitors often start their trip by dangling off the beaver statue and filming themselves in those sparkling restrooms.
“When you stop at a convenience store off the highway, you’re looking for fuel, the bathroom and to eat,” Lenard said. “What Buc-ee’s does is add a social media post.”
Another Buc-ee's delicacy: Beaver nuggets, corn snacks in sweet and savory flavors.
Courtesy Buc-ee'sAnd it’s a brand that its fanatics can take home, too, in the form of sugary corn puff Beaver Nuggets or picnic blankets or a beaver stuffed animal the height of a small child. Buc-ee’s regulars even resell the store’s products online so fans the world over can rock its merch and dine on its jerky without making it to Texas (though the brisket is usually reserved for in-store customers only).
For the Reeses, the brisket alone is worth a trip.
“It doesn’t matter what time of day or if we just ate — we are stopping for the brisket,” the couple said. “It’s life changing!”
Hungry drivers across the South will soon get the chance to taste for themselves. Buc-ee’s is expanding purposefully to smaller towns and cities across the region with ample acreage between major cities, Benson said. So far, there are are 58 Buc-ee’s locations nationwide compared to 13,000 7-Elevens in the US. Benson compared it to In-N-Out Burger, another beloved regional chain (this time based in Southern California) that thrives on scarcity and a following hungry for its one-of-a-kind offerings (animal-style fries, anyone?).
“They both manage to thread this needle — they’ve grown and maintained quality, it seems,” Benson said of Buc-ee’s and In-N-Out.
Everything's bigger at Buc-ee's — this location in Robertsdale, Alabama, was the first to open outside of Texas.
Art Wager/iStock Unreleased/Getty ImagesBut Texas will always be integral to the Buc-ee’s brand, said Raji Srinivasan, a marketing professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Texans have “considerable pride in their state,” and Buc-ee’s is a literal interpretation of “everything’s bigger in Texas,” she said.
Buc-ee’s was exclusive to the Lone Star State for most of its history, built along the highway exits between the Texas Triangle, the area where the major cities of Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio are concentrated. And its devout customers are often Texans, who feel a strong sense of brand loyalty to the chain that’s still true to its roots even when it’s transplanted to Florida, Georgia or Tennessee.
The chain is steadily growing its fanbase, some of whom found the brand on TikTok, where young people share their disbelief at the countless number of tchotchkes that can be branded with a beaver, or stumbled in during a road trip and fell in love with its iced tea. Whether it could find the same success in the Northeast or another area of the country where land is less readily available for a supersized gas station is unclear as of yet, Srinivasan said.
But as she pointed out: “What is not to like in cheap gas, lots of gas pumps and clean restrooms?”