If you’ve never experienced Buc-ee’s, you don’t know what you’re missing. But it’s getting closer.
Imagine a freeway service station with about 11,000 gas pumps and an equal number of toilets, all operating at the speed of an international airport with the cleanliness of a space shuttle assembly line.
OK, that’s an exaggeration, but not by much.
I’m not exaggerating at all when I say the mammoth convenience store has walls and shelves full of just about every kind of jerky, dried fruit, and sugary snack known to man, along with huge stocks of clothing, coolers packed with more drinks than you can count, car toys, travel necessities and a food counter with tasty breakfast and barbecue beef sandwiches — and fudge, lots of different types of fudge.
And just in case you find yourself on vacation, and forgot to bring your grill or barbecue smoker, they’ll sell you one. Which isn’t as strange as it sounds, because the Ford F-150 pickup crowd is a big part of the clientele.
Meanwhile, a suited-up mascot of the Buc-ee’s beaver wanders the aisles, posing for pictures with the kiddies — and the adults.
The biggest concentration of these temples of roadside consumerism is in Texas where it all began, but they’ve been spreading to other states in recent years.
Just this week, Oklahoma City authorized a major freeway interchange reconstruction to accommodate Buc-ee’s, off I-40 across the street from Tinker Air Force Base.
At present, the closest one to us is in Springfield, Mo., about four hours away.
They’re building one in Kansas City, Kan., which when finished next year will cut our travel time to about three hours. The Oklahoma City location, opening date not yet established, will shave a half-hour off that.
Which is just about perfect.
Buc-ee’s is not the kind of place where you want to go all the time, unless you’re weird.
It’s more of road-trip treat sort of experience, where you can process through the carefully designed high-traffic-flow restrooms, stock up on snacks you don’t usually eat and pick up a quick meal you can consume in your car as you motor down the freeway, because for all that Buc-ee’s has, it doesn’t have seating inside or outside the store.
As popular as Buc-ee’s is, it’s not universally loved.
The company has drawn national headlines for suing small convenience stores and gas stations for alleged trademark infringements on its name and its beaver logo — including a widely ridiculed lawsuit against the tiny Beaver’s Mini Mart — so named because it’s in Beavercreek, Ore.
Just two weeks ago, Buc-ee’s settled a long-running legal battle with the Ohio-based Mickey’s convenience store chain, filed apparently because Mickey’s sort of rhymes with Buc-ee’s and both companies have cartoon animal mascots, in Mickey’s case, a moose.
