Inside a phenomenon: The sights, sounds and snacks of the first Buc-ee’s in Missouri

On Dec. 10, the day I arrived in Springfield, I checked in on a Facebook group called “Fans of Buc-ee’s! Springfield, Missouri.” Somehow, a gas station in southwest Missouri had already amassed more than 16,000 followers — approximately one-tenth the population of Springfield.

It wasn’t even open yet.

The page had been particularly active the week ahead of Buc-ee’s Dec. 11 debut along Interstate 44, on the northeast edge of the city. One member shared multiple drone videos of the construction site set to peaceful piano music. Another posted an 18-stanza “Twas the Night Before Christmas”-inspired poem about Buc-ee’s, swapping in lines about beavers (the Buc-ee’s mascot) and Buc-ee’s snacks. A gentleman whose wife was scheduled for induced labor on the 11th said that he was considering naming the child Buc-ee.

“I cannot remember any greater excitement in this community regarding a new business coming into town,” Ken McClure, Springfield’s mayor, told me.

“It’s surely one of the most important events we’ve seen in Springfield this year,” said Matt Morrow, president of the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce.

Buc-ee’s is big. It builds massive convenience stores, keeps them meticulously clean and stocks them with delicious food that makes the stuff sold at 7-Eleven or Kum & Go seem like a prison meal. That is the brand. Since its 1982 founding in Clute, Texas, Buc-ee’s has mostly kept to its home state and the South. But much like a Texas armadillo, the gas station has lately been migrating to more northern climates.

The Springfield Buc-ee’s — 53,000 square feet, with 120 fuel pumps — was set to be its first Missouri outpost, and its 47th overall. Executives at the company have also recently hinted that a few more Missouri locations may be announced soon.

It seemed to call for a boots-on-the-ground appraisal of the Buc-ee’s phenomenon — a fact-finding mission to learn more about what we might be in store for, should Buc-ee’s brass bless our metropolis with one of its fine stores.

So what’s the big deal?

On the Facebook page, there had been chatter about camping outside the store so as to be among the very first customers when it opened at 6 a.m. Monday. On Sunday night, I drove 15 minutes from my hotel to Buc-ee’s — a trip I would make six more times over the next 36 hours — to meet the kind of people who would do a thing like that.

Buc-ee’s is on the outskirts of Springfield, off an exit that was previously called Mulroy Road. It is now the Beaver Road exit, a reference to the Buc-ee’s mascot and to its CEO, Arch Aplin III, who goes by the nickname Beaver. Between the exit and the store, you pass two new roundabouts built by Buc-ee’s; through sales taxes collected at the store, Springfield in the coming years will reimburse Buc-ee’s an estimated $9 million for this and other infrastructure improvements.

The Buc-ee’s project did face some opposition. A group called Dam Up Buc-ee’s argued that building a 120-pump gas station on top of the Fulbright Springs watershed, which supplies about 17% of Springfield’s drinking water, posed environmental risks. But city staff and the Springfield City Council, which eventually voted 7-2 in favor of the Buc-ee’s deal, were not moved by the protesters’ argument. Buc-ee’s rolled on, too big to fail.

The road into Buc-ee’s parking lot was closed Sunday night, which meant no camping out. It reopened around 3 a.m. for the Buc-ee’s faithful, many of whom were already clad in Buc-ee’s-branded clothing. They loitered, hooting and chanting, until a little before 6 a.m., when at last they were let loose inside the store.

Some had traveled significant lengths to attend. I met people who had driven in from Tulsa, Oklahoma (2.5 hours), Fayetteville, Arkansas (also 2.5 hours), and St. Charles, Missouri (3 hours). Jodi Whittlesey and Gigi Brumfield, coworkers at a hospice care company in Lebanon, woke up at 4:30 a.m. and made the 45-minute drive to Springfield before getting back in the car to make it to work.

Others were locals familiar with Buc-ee’s from Texas road trips. Russ Stephenson, who was wearing a tie-dye Buc-ee’s shirt he said he got at a Buc-ee’s in Georgia, and his girlfriend, Ellen Kerr, had decided around midnight to attend.

“We hadn’t done anything silly in a while,” Kerr said. “Plus, we’re old and we don’t have a life.”

That was about as successful as I got in my efforts to have someone articulate why they would attend the opening of a gas station. Most visitors I spoke to said some variation of “I saw it on the news” or “I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.” Which, to be fair, is why I was there too.

But I do think I now understand how Buc-ee’s became a brand that, as Texas Monthly put it, “inspires loyalty that goes well beyond rational consumer calculations.” It’s about three things:

1. Americans like really big things.

2. The food.

3. The beaver.

Beaver nuggets and brisket

The Kansas City QuikTrip closest to where I live, which I consider a fairly large gas station, is about 5,000 square feet, with 16 fuel pumps. A recently opened Buc-ee’s in Sevierville, Tennessee, is 74,000 square feet and has 100 fuel pumps. It is believed to be the largest gas station on planet Earth, though soon it will be supplanted by another Buc-ee’s that’s about to open in Texas.

In Springfield, the 120 fuel pumps sit beneath a canopy the length of a football field, bracketed by two-lane roads on both sides. In addition to the pumps, there are two lots for parking, each about as large as an average CVS parking lot. By noon on Monday, every spot was taken.

Inside, where Mayor McClure told me he expects annual revenues to total approximately $30 million, the amount of products frankly made me feel insane. Are you interested in purchasing a 45-quart Yeti cooler knockoff called a Yukon ($199)? How about an embossed cow skull ($349)? An “I Love Jesus … But I Drink a Little” throw pillow ($16)?

Or maybe some beaver-themed merch is more to your liking — a cuddly Buc-ee’s phone holder, Buc-ee’s Christmas-themed gripper socks with a sheepskin-like lining, or a Buc-ee’s stocking cap with a little ball on top. Yes, I did buy all three of these products.

Why? I don’t know. But I suspect it has something to do with the beaver, a brown little buck-toothed creature wearing a red hat with a flipped-up bill, encircled in a yellow background. I had seen the logo before, but spotting the Buc-ee’s logo shining like a beacon on the side of the highway in Springfield unlocked something for me. I can’t explain it. But I now feel kinship with the beaver.

I am not alone. Buc-ee’s products are so popular that there exists a secondary market where savvy capitalists resell beaver pajamas and stainless steel tumblers to unfortunate souls who don’t live close enough to a Buc-ee’s to get this stuff themselves.

This includes snacks too. In addition to stocking its shelves with most of the usual snack brands, Buc-ee’s also produces white-label versions of several popular snacks, several of which I sampled while in Springfield. There are Buc-O’s, which are like Funyuns; Corn-ee’s, which are like Fritos; and Chees-ee Curls, which are like Cheetos.

The one everybody talks about, though, is Beaver Nuggets — a puffy, brown sugar-coated kettle corn-like snack, but without the hassle of the kernels. I almost didn’t buy them, but they’re so frequently cited by Buc-ee’s Nation that I felt I had to. I understand now. I ate the entire 13 ounce bag in less than a day — 1,680 calories, when it was all said and done. This product should be illegal.

The nucleus of the Buc-ee’s layout is a busy island at the center of the store divided into two sections. The “Sweets” counter is where you can purchase fudge, sugared nuts and other freshly made confections. The other side is called “Texas Round Up,” and that’s where the barbecue happens.

The man behind Buc-ee’s barbecue is named Randy Pauly. His job title is pitmaster. He was wearing wire-rimmed glasses, a black cowboy hat, cowboy boots, a Western shirt with his name and the Buc-ee’s logo stitched on it, and a leather belt on which was engraved “Brisket on the Board,” a phrase workers in the Texas Round Up exclaim every 15 minutes or so when a new brisket is ready to be sliced up.

For decades, Pauly has participated in barbecue competitions with his team, Holy Cow Cookers, which has won several championship titles in the U.S. and beyond. About eight years ago, Buc-ee’s approached him with an offer.

“They knocked on my door and said they wanted to bring competition barbecue to the consumer,” Pauly said. “They said, ‘Will you head up our barbecue program?’ I said absolutely.”

Every time a new Buc-ee’s opens, Pauly and a small team travel to the store a month ahead of time to get the new employees trained up in what he called “Brisket 101.”

The training sessions seem to be working. The number one selling item at Buc-ee’s, Pauly said, was the chopped brisket sandwich, which goes for $8.49. I had both the breakfast taco (egg and brisket; $4.99) and the Three Meat Sandwich (chopped brisket, sliced sausage, smoked turkey; tangy mustard; $12.99).

Thirteen bucks is a lot for a sandwich from a gas station. But it delivered. I would not wake up at 6 a.m. to go to a Buc-ee’s on opening day. But I would drive approximately 45 miles out of my way on a road trip to eat another Three Meat sandwich.

Buc-ee’s in Kansas City?

Buc-ee’s didn’t respond in time to my request for a variety of information. Of greatest interest to me was whether it has imminent plans to build a Buc-ee’s in the Kansas City area, and if so where. The St. Louis Business Journal reported earlier this year that Buc-ee’s was considering locations in both St. Louis and Kansas City. But the trail goes cold from there.

If Buc-ee’s does build in the KC metro, it will likely be along a major highway like Interstate 70 or 35.

“Their destination retail model really emphasizes traffic,” said Morrow, the Springfield chamber president. “Most retailers are focused on the number of rooftops in an area and the average income underneath those rooftops. But in Buc-ee’s retail calculus, that’s secondary to how busy the highways are outside a potential site.”

Whichever local municipality Buc-ee’s sees fit to build in should expect a public incentives ask along the lines of what the company requested in Springfield (and which it has sought in other cities where it has recently opened stores). Local officials will likely tout the jobs Buc-ee’s provides. In Springfield, Buc-ee’s said it planned to hire 250 to 300 employees prior to opening, and a manager I flagged down Monday night estimated that 100 people were working in the store at that moment.

Those hired can expect to work hard. Beaver — the CEO, not the mascot — is a strict taskmaster. The “if you have time to lean, you have time to clean” mindset is strong at Buc-ee’s. Employees are forbidden from being seen sitting or looking at their phone. They can’t have visible tattoos. I saw several employees sweeping completely spotless floors, and I can think of no other reason they would be doing that other than to satisfy a drill-sergeant manager or a surveillance camera.

But the pay is pretty good. A sign outside the Springfield entrance informed passersby that a Buc-ee’s general manager can expect to earn between $150,000 and $225,000 per year. The car wash manager makes $125,000. Department managers make between $25 and $33 per hour. The lowest-paid positions — cashiers, grocery stockers, maintenance workers — make $18 per hour.

I haven’t even mentioned the massive jerky wall, or the kolaches, or the immaculate bathrooms, with their closet-like toilets and urinal dividers that stretch to the ceiling. But you get the picture.

Actually, maybe you don’t. I didn’t really get it until I went to Springfield and bit into that brisket. You might consider doing the same.