We’re getting a Buc-ee’s in Benton, Arkansas in the not too distant future. It’ll be to the west of me and too close to stop when I’m going on a long trip and a little too out of the way when I just need to fill up. It’ll be a long, long while before I stop there.
The employees are in the turnovers! whatda you expect? Beaver meat? It’s people!
Oh yes! Please say its true!
I’ve only been to the one outside of Luling, TX, and that was kind of enough. The inside was a madhouse and they didn’t have any kind of windshield cleaning supplies at the gas pumps (sorely needed on a very buggy day). I will say they had more dried meat products than any place I’d ever seen.
I remember as a kid, in the mid-1970s, my family drove down to Orlando from Connecticut. And we saw those billboards for a very long time, so of course we stopped there.
Nice joke but I do seriously appreciate their employee pay policy.
Everybody starts with 3 weeks paid time off, healthcare, and 401k match up to 6% (though at even the $18/hr min they start with, it’s tough to set anything aside). It’s tough work but they have a long history of trying to treat their employees right.
ETA: Didn’t even realize a hiring board had been posted upthread. Oh well
Unless they wanted to attract long haul truckers.
But they don’t. So back to a bit silly.
I don’t understand the business model but I can’t argue with success.
Days like these I feel I’ve slipped into a parallel universe. I’ve never heard of these…things…before. And I’m of Czech heritage!
And yet, everyone seems to know of them, everyone seems to find nothing odd that they are regularly sold in gas stations. Tell me, do you still have sushi in gas stations in this universe?
At least they have more than gas, and jerky, and …kolaches. 
It is actually a fun stop.
And speaking of I10, don’t forget THE THING? which has probably a hundred billboards in AZ alone. What is they mystery of THE THING? You’ll have to stop in to find out!
From what I’ve been told, there was a large influx of Czech in the late 19th/early 20th century into central Texas, and a lot of them were from the same region which had this sort of pastry. There are apparently similar pastries in part of Czechia but with the regional variations you’d expect plus the century-plus of time that’s passed. My college roommate was from a town that has an annual kolache festival/contest and his grandmother apparently mostly spoke Czech her entire life.
If you head to some parts of Hill Country, due to a similar influx of Germans around the same time, you’ll also find some places that do a mean sausage, red cabbage, and sauerkraut. Heck, you can get some pretty good sausage and jerky from Buc-ee’s too.
If you haven’t been recently, they did a major upgrade to the old funky “museum” in 2018. They re-imagined their exhibit with a “Aliens throughout history” theme, complete with a pretty cool aliens vs dinosaurs story line. The Thing itself hasn’t changed though, they just have it displayed in a nicer digs, so to speak.
If you’re a fan of roadside attractions, it’s definitely worth a stop.
One just opened by me in Northern Colorado. I haven’t been there but my wife made a trip to go there so I can’t comment on the “hype”. (We’re in the Front Plains/Eastern Slope and not a lot happens here so things like this are exciting?)
My wife loves the Beaver Nuggets (I think that’s what they’re called.) but was surprised a place this size doesn’t have file ports for rigs.
I had to look up Beaver Nuggets so I will save you all some time if you were in the dark like I was.
They are kind of like kettle corn and come in different flavors.
Ah thanks.
I didn’t like them as they were too sweet but the family
Loves them.
And Haj is right. Kettle corn but without the crap that gets stuck in your teeth.
It’s something of a tradition in the West.
The Thing is heavily advertised via billboards that dot the interstate. A popular, albeit untrue, legend states that the billboards stretch from New Orleans to Los Angeles. Mike Bowlin, the owner of the site in 1993, noted that the billboards realistically “start around El Paso to the east and somewhere on I-10 between Phoenix and Tucson to the west.”[2]
See also: Wall Drug
Ninja’d by hajario and others
and me.
For those who can’t make it to Arizona or don’t want to pay the $5 entrance fee, here is The Thing?
There is a YT channel called JOLLY – it’s about two Brits who sample different foods, et al. Here’s the episode where they visit a Buc-ee’s during a tour of the States. It’s a hoot; they’re a hoot.
The last time my wife and I went to the Outer Banks in 2021, we stopped at at the grand opening of a Buc-ee’s in South Carolina. Didn’t take long to get in and out of the massive gas pump plaza, but we were put off by the huge crowds and left after buying a couple of Cokes.
Three days later, we both tested positive for Covid. I’m sure these events are connected.
Yeah, choosing that location was a serious misjudgment on their part; that I-95 exit (into St. Augustine) has always been a PITA, they should have gone 5 or 10 miles farther south.
Is this where Palmer exclaims, “You gotta be fuckin’ kidding”?
I didn’t know that. I’ve traveled a lot in Texas but always in the eastern part of the state; I’ve never been west of San Antonio. I had always assumed Buc-ee’s were as common in west Texas as they were in east Texas. I never knew that the one in Luling (which I’ve been to) was the westernmost one in the state.