Not so long ago we were all going happily about our lives, blissfully unaware that a certain chain of Texas gas stations was on a quest for global domination. It wasn’t even 10 years ago that the first Buc-ee’s outside of Texas opened its doors. Since 2016 the brand has developed 11 locations and counting outside their home state. That doesn’t sound like a lot. Buc-ee’s are strategically located on the way to major destinations like Disney, the Florida beaches and the Gulf Coast. The Beaver has been able to punch above its weight in brand recognition along America’s highways.
Buc-ee’s is certainly unique. If you have pulled into one you’re sure to remember it. In the age of social media the folks back home can have their curiosity piqued instantly with an Instagram photo or a Tik Tok post. The next time they’re driving through the South they’re bound to see the billboards and think “Oh yeah, that’s that place I’ve been hearing about. Might as well check it out.” Then they post their own photos and the cycle continues.
Having visited several Buc-ee’s locations throughout the South the novelty of the place has worn off for me. I find the oversized pit stop to underwhelming.
Where’s the Money? This site may contain affiliate links. Many travel sites include such links to earn a commission at no cost to readers.
Every Trip to Buc-ee’s is a Traffic Jam
All of Buc-ee’s locations are near the interstate. There’s invariably a large volume of cars coming and going from the store on the service road in addition to local traffic passing the interstate. Each location covers many acres of land but there are typically only two or three entrances, with just one being the most obvious choice for travelers.
When traffic stops at the light on the main road it backs up very quickly into the parking lot. The parking lanes themselves are then choked with drivers waiting to get out to the road. If you want to park near the store it takes several minutes to get through the lot and find an open space. If you park near the edge of the lot you have a long walk through a lot crowded with grumpy tourists. Every other gas station and travel plaza in America is easy to zip in and out of quickly.
Playing the Gas Guessing Game
Gas is gas. It doesn’t matter at all where you buy it. It all makes the car go vroom. Notice that the large Buc-ee’s sign visible from the highway does not include gas prices. Unless you’re able to use GasBuddy out on the road there is no way to know the price of Buc-ee’s gas before you pull up to the pump.
It’s anyone’s guess whether Buc-ee’s gas prices will match the prevailing rate in the local area. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they are even lower than the truck stop right across the street. But sometimes they’re considerably higher. Drivers have no way of knowing if pricing policy is dictated by corporate HQ or at the discretion of store managers. It isn’t even known if a pricing strategy exists at all.
What we do know is that the principle of induced demand applies here. It doesn’t matter if each location has 200 gas pumps. They are still crowded. If you’re filling up during the day or evening for weekend travel you may have to wait, or at least crane your neck looking for an open pump as you drive along at 2 mph.
Buc-ee’s Food: Surprisingly Few Options
Some customers might disagree with the contention that there isn’t much food at Buc-ee’s. There is literally tons of food in the store. But most of it is of the snack food variety. If you want a square meal you have fewer options than you would at an interchange with various restaurant options. A single Golden Corral easily outdoes Buc-ee’s in terms of both variety of options and volume of food available to diners.
Coming through Buc-ee’s in the morning is particularly disappointing. All that’s on offer is plain old gas station coffee. For a chain trying to stand out on quality this is a missed opportunity. Lord knows they have the square footage. They could be offering a dedicated coffee counter with full service baristas in each store and serving coffee that at least rivals Starbucks. Just calling it “House Blend” and leaving it on a heater without a timer is not good enough.
The breakfast options don’t beat typical fast food offerings. Buc-ee’s does stand out by offering kolaches. If you want a kolache it means waiting in a long line at a counter. As a vegetarian I haven’t tried their trademark brisket but look at it: it’s sitting there under a heat lamp for who knows how long? You could just go to Arby’s.
But most of all there aren’t any tables at Buc-ee’s. Buying food here means you have to either eat in your car or find a nice rest stop with picnic facilities.
Snacks: More is Not Better
When it comes to snacks there isn’t much at Buc-ee’s you can’t get in a normal gas station. They do have the hot nuts and a lot of pecan products, but these are pretty expensive for a quick snack. They might have 15 different kinds of jerky, but is that really any better than 3 kinds of jerky? How many packs of jerky do you want to buy, anyway?
Most of the snacks in Buc-ee’s are just an exercise in branding. You can buy a bunch of different snacks that all have the beaver on them but they are the exact same products you would get elsewhere, just with different logos on the front. If you want a bag of cheddar popcorn it hardly matters if the shelf is stocked with 6 bags of cheddar popcorn or 300. You just need one. The sheer volume is nothing more than razzle dazzle.
The salsas, hot sauces and various culinary products are mildly interesting, but these products and more can be found at some of your larger truck stops throughout the South. Personally I prefer the truck stop and the element of never knowing what you might find over the same branded products at every location.
Buc-ee’s Famous Restrooms
Okay, I can’t knock the bathrooms at Buc-ee’s. They are really good. This is the only thing the brand actually does do better than the competition. Each stall is its own water closet with floor-to-ceiling walls and doors. The bathrooms are enormous. I’d estimate there are above 50 toilets and sinks at a typical location. They’re cleaned and restocked constantly.
Unfortunately they are as crowded as the rest of the store. The reality of a visit to Buc-ee’s is that you can’t even turn around without a carload of mouth breathers on their way to Branson bumping into you. Lines are long to get food and even longer to check out. If you come into Buc-ee’s with a family to fill up on gas, use the restroom, get something to eat and browse the merchandise it is entirely possible that you’ll spend nearly two hours from the time you get off the interstate until the time you hit the on-ramp. That is a huge amount of time to spend when traveling through several states.
The Crappy Merchandise… At Least There’s No MAGA
The first time you see a Buc-ee’s in person there is a lot of novelty in exploring the unexpected. The problem is that virtually everything in the store is just that: a novelty. There’s a limit to how many beaver items a normal person can own and that limit is, at most, one. I can only imagine this stuff moves for no other reason than people are on vacation and in the mood to spend money anyway.
These are the same people who were putting Joe Biden stickers on gas pumps in 2022. They’ll scream about gas prices and then pull into a gas station with no prices posted and spend good money on beaver crap. When your store stocks shirts that say ‘Jesus loves you and I’m tryin” it attracts the sort of people who wear those shirts- who actually think that is pretty funny! The Venn diagram of Buc-ee’s loyalists and people who have attended a Trump rally is basically a circle. If a guy is buying a grill or a deer feeder at the gas station I do kinda wonder where he was on January 6.
Michael Jordan famously said “Republicans buy sneakers too.” It seems that the owners of Buc-ee’s operate on the principle that ‘Democrats buy gas too.’ They have given hundreds of thousands to top GOP officials in Texas for no other reason than they just felt like it.
After the novelty wears off in Beaver Land you might get the distinct impression that everyone here is living a very different lifestyle and that this place is not really for you. If you are Black or college educated or live in a city,; if you voted for the Democrats, you are correct. Buc-ee’s was not made for you.
