Buc-ee’s Is the Hottest, Craziest Rest Stop Chain in America

Paula Orange with a Buc-ee mascot in Calhoun, Ga. (Courtesy Paula Orange)

Our nation is deeply divided today in so many ways. Perhaps no demarcation is greater, though, than between those of us who know of, go to, and love Buc-ee’s, versus those who don’t. And if you don’t live in, or travel to, the South, or are in the retail business, you probably fall into the latter camp.

Buc-ee’s, for the uninitiated, is a fast-growing chain of massive, zany highway rest stops with 54 locations, for now almost all below the Mason-Dixon Line. Based in Lake Jackson, Texas (about an hour south of Houston), Buc-ee’s caters to travelers with cars—no 18-wheelers allowed. Think Texas-size convenience store meets Las Vegas.

Besides having between 80 to 100 gas pumps, each Buc-ee’s carries a vast cornucopia of mostly comfort food, including its famous barbecue brisket, homemade fudge, an Icee station, a beef jerky wall, and scores of its own original snack foods including Beaver chips (potato chips made on site) and Beaver nuggets (flavored corn puff snacks), the company’s best-selling product.

There’s endless racks of Buc-ee’s merch to buy (well beyond T-shirts: slip-ons, bathing suits, and cabanas), a wealth of relentless cheery personnel (“Welcome to Buc-ee’s!”), a roving, toothy beaver mascot for photo ops, and—very important—what the company claims are world’s cleanest bathrooms. And speaking of superlatives, Buc-ee’s takes that Texas obsession to a whole other level, boasting the world’s largest convenience store (in Luling, Texas, at 75,593 square feet) and the world’s longest carwash (255 feet at its Katy, Texas, store. Check out the purple suds!).

“Buc-ee’s is my love language,” says Paula Orange, a music business consultant living in Nashville who became a Buc-ee’s obsessive after stopping at an Auburn, Ala., store for gas a few years ago. “It was at night and the place was well lit. I saw the endless pumps. And I thought I’d just go in and grab a couple of snacks. I was there so long, I thought, ‘What just happened?’ I lost an hour, but it was the most fun hour I think I’ve ever had. Patrons were dressed in beaver outfits. It was a lot going on at one time. I was like, ‘I can’t process this.’ It’s like Home Goods, Walmart, and Bass Pro Shops combined.”

Orange now stops at Buc-ee’s as often as she can when she’s motoring across the South for fun and business. (“The banana pudding!,” she says.) Her Shih Tzu/Yorkshire terrier mix, Tuxi, is known to rock a Buc-ee’s dog T-shirt.

Don’t let the fun gloss over the serious commerce. Stores are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And Buc-ee’s is hiring. Associates start at up to $21 an hour. General managers make up to $225k a year.

Co-founded by Arch “Beaver” Aplin III in 1982, Buc-ee’s is privately owned and declined a request to make Aplin, the CEO, available. (It also declined to disclose its total revenue or revenue per store.) Buc-ee’s has hit at least one high-profile roadblock recently, butting heads with antisprawl locals in Colorado allied with billionaire John Malone.

In an interview, Bucee’s general counsel Jeff Nadalo noted that the company likes to locate its stores outside major metropolitan areas. “[Travelers] want to stop well into their journey,” he says. “Having locations that are a reasonable distance between where they’re headed and where they’ve come from makes sense.”

Chris and Ken Scigulinsky with a Buc-ee mascot in St. Augustine, Fla. Photo: Courtesy Ken Scigulinsky

That seems to resonate with customers like Ken and Chris Scigulinsky—a retired financial-services exec and real estate broker, respectively—who went “a little out of our way” to stop at the St. Augustine, Fla., store on the seven-hour-plus drive back to their home in Fort Myers from Savannah, Ga. “The way I look at it is that Buc-ee’s is a destination between your destinations,” Ken says.

The company doesn’t sell its items online, but you can find them on third-party resellers sites, like this one. (Buc-ee’s pickled quail eggs or Buc-ee’s prickly pear cactus jam or Buc-ee’s apple maple bacon jam, anyone?) Best-selling items include this Buc-ee’s beaver suit/onesie (worn by those patrons Orange saw). And Buc-ee’s now even offers a children’s book, written by Katherine Aplin, Arch’s daughter.)

New stores opened recently in Virginia (where Gov. Glenn Youngkin cut the ribbon and some customers slept out overnight in line), Mississippi, and Georgia—with stores in Ohio, Louisiana, and Arizona reportedly being planned or being built. And the internet is alive with rumors of even more stores in uncharted towns and states.

One more thing customers seem to find appealing about Buc-ee’s: “Prices for gas and food are low,” says Orange.

You could make the case that Buc-ee’s is akin to a parallel universe Whole Foods, or is just about quirky marketing. But maybe it’s better to consider Buc-ee’s operation as crazy like a fox. Or as a beaver.

Write to Andy Serwer at andy.serwer@barrons.com