On practically any other day, the acres of pavement would have had more than enough room for anyone needing a parking spot. Not on this one.
Hundreds of vehicles pulling off Interstate 10 last Monday morning circled the giant lot. Television crews had come from hours away. Some people had even camped out overnight, aiming to be the first customers when the doors were unlocked and the gas pumps went online at 6 a.m.
This wasn’t just any gas station and convenience store. A Buc-ee’s was opening in Mississippi.
“We fell in love!” said Diane S. Carter, who was celebrating her 35th wedding anniversary but was referring to her and her husband’s passion for Buc-ee’s, so strong that they had driven nearly three hours and secured a hotel room in Biloxi to be there for the opening.
The chain had long been a purely Texas phenomenon, and the cultish devotion it inspired could be explained, at least partially, by the Texan tendency to boisterously and unequivocally embrace things that are distinctly Texan. (Just ask a Texan about the H-E-B chain of grocery stores or Selena or wild bluebonnets — you will likely hear an earful.)
But lately, Buc-ee’s — rhymes with “luckies” — has been broadening its footprint to places where its Texas roots are not enough to forge fervid loyalty. And building enthusiasm has not been a problem.
Customers marvel at the size of the stores (bigger than a football field) and crave the sandwiches and snacks (barbecue; baked goods; the famous sweet, crunchy corn puffs known as “beaver nuggets”). They appreciate the chain’s sense of humor (“Eat Here, Get Gas,” one Buc-ee’s branded sign for sale said).
And they rave about the restrooms, which are core to Buc-ee’s lore. At least two employees, each earning $20 or more an hour, are always detailed to the facilities, where every toilet is ensconced in a little room of its own.
Still, the devotion to Buc-ee’s appears to be more than the sum of its offerings, inspiring memes, songs and even tattoos. “It’s virtually impossible to explain,” said Arch Aplin III, the company’s founder, who goes by Beaver and opened the first Buc-ee’s in 1982 in Lake Jackson, Texas.
Just go, some longtime customers say. You’ll get it.
“It’s the best of the best,” one such customer, G.R. Abbott, said on opening day in Pass Christian, Miss., precisely 17.3 miles from his house (he checked).
“Bring me three people that don’t like Buc-ee’s,” he said, betting a dinner of steak and lobster that it wouldn’t happen. “I’ll be here waiting on you.”
The stores, as some see them, rise along interstates like temples to a certain romantic idea of America, where the open road represents freedom. But in reality, with the focus on restrooms and a staggeringly expansive inventory, Buc-ee’s taps into parts of travel that are almost primal: the call of nature and the impulse to buy things you don’t necessarily need, whether it is salty, sweet, spicy or a $379 decorative cow skull.
The stores are typically well over 15 times the average size of an American convenience store. The one in Pass Christian takes up 74,000 square feet. It has 120 fuel pumps and 24 charging stations for electric vehicles. (And though the stores might look like truck stops, they technically aren’t; 18-wheelers are forbidden.)
Inside are toys, cowhide rugs, cast-iron skillets, a rack of T-shirts with wine-based puns and a locked glass cabinet with glimmering belt buckles. One shelf in Pass Christian had pickled quail eggs, pickled asparagus, pickled brussels sprouts, pickled okra, pickled green beans and pickled beets. The company’s mascot — a beaver with a red cap and big front teeth — was everywhere.
“It’s the Walmart of gas stations,” said Kali Husband, 35, who was introduced to Buc-ee’s on a road trip to Mexico when she was in high school and the bus conveniently broke down near one. “We were there for like four hours,” she recalled. “We were like, ‘What is this place?’ It was so cool!”
The stores are not without skeptics and detractors, particularly as the company reaches into new territory.
Critics cast it as emblematic of a car culture that has become unsustainable because of climate change. Some proposed sites have led to uproars from residents concerned about effects on traffic, property values and local environments.
Activists opposed to a planned location in North Carolina released a report arguing that the excitement surrounding Buc-ee’s did not account for the “health and economic consequences of putting such a large number of gasoline pumps in one place.” In Palmer Lake, Colo., opponents of a proposed Buc-ee’s protested at government meetings with signs declaring “Heave the Beave!” The town’s mayor resigned this month in connection with the battle.
Still, there is no shortage of open road in the United States, or, as the company has found, places hungry to accommodate a Buc-ee’s. The appeal is the tax revenue, the prospect of further commercial development and the jobs, which are often lucrative for service-industry work.
For its new store in Mississippi, where the minimum wage is $7.25, pay starts at $18 an hour and goes as high as $225,000 a year for general managers. Workers also get three weeks of paid time off, retirement plan contributions and health insurance. The company received more than 5,000 applications for nearly 300 jobs.
The Babylon Bee, a popular conservative Christian satire site, once reported that even heaven had sought out a Buc-ee’s.
Tami Curtis learned the Pass Christian store was coming when the pastor at First Baptist Church in nearby Bay St. Louis announced it from the pulpit. She gasped. She wasn’t the only one.
She was not just excited about being a customer. The walls leading into Buc-ee’s restrooms are lined with prints of paintings and other art for sale. Ms. Curtis, an artist who draws inspiration from the nature and culture of the Gulf Coast, had aspired to have her work displayed at a Buc-ee’s.
When the store opened in Pass Christian, several of her pieces were on the walls, including a painting of two herons for $259.98.
“A year and a half ago, I wrote it in my prayer journal — ‘I would like a Buc-ee’s contract,’” Ms. Curtis, 66, said. “I’ve never been so happy to have my artwork hanging in the corridor to a bathroom in my whole life.”
On opening day in Pass Christian, Ms. Carter, 60, sipped on a custom concoction mixing the red-colored options from the soda fountain. In her basket, she had pulled pork sandwiches, swim trunks and a wall hanging that called out to her. “God is still writing your story,” it said. “Quit trying to steal the pen.”
“I’m telling you, he’s the fanatic,” she said, pointing to her husband, Kevin A. Carter, who was holding the Buc-ee’s jersey he wanted.
He said that he adored Buc-ee’s but also recognized the value of a business like this investing in a state as impoverished as Mississippi. “We do need to be uplifted,” said Mr. Carter, 59, who recently retired after 33 years as a pastor with the United Methodist Church.
Mr. Abbott, who had come with his wife, Flora, loved the restrooms. He loved the pecan logs, and he loved the sandwiches and the price of the sandwiches. “I was just telling the wife, I just paid $8 for a sandwich, and it was a $12 sandwich,” he said, standing outside the store.
Before, the closest Buc-ee’s was in Alabama, 98 miles away. He and his wife would routinely go and make a day of it. Now, he anticipated visiting the new location even more.
Mr. Abbott, an 82-year-old retired auto worker who had moved south from Michigan, told his wife he had an idea. “I might get cremated,” he said, “and have my ashes distributed at one of these Buc-ee’s.”
But that was a quest for another time. He walked back into the store, seeing what else he wanted to buy before the 17.3-mile drive home.
Rick Rojas is the Atlanta bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the South.
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