Buc-ee's is a chain of convenience stores located in the Central, North, South, and Southeast regions of Texas, with two southern Alabama and a Florida location under construction. The company is owned by Arch "Beaver" Aplin III and Don Wasek and has its headquarters in Lake Jackson, Texas. The chain is known for its very large-format stores (relative to other convenience stores) and a logo depicting a beaver.
Video Buc-ee's
History
Co-Founders "Beaver" Aplin and Don Wasek opened the first store, which is still open as of 2017, in Lake Jackson, Texas in 1982. Aplin formed the name Buc-ee's by combining his childhood nickname and the name of his Labrador Retriever, Buck.
Buc-ee's expanded and opened their first travel center in Luling, Texas in 2001. Buc-ee's are large stores (no 18 wheelers allowed) with fuel pumps that range from 80-120 fueling positions for gas and diesel (some stores include Ethanol Free and DEF) and a huge selection of beef jerky, pastries, fresh sandwiches, tacos, Dippin' Dots and homemade fudge.
In 2012, Buc-ee's opened its largest travel center in New Braunfels, Texas on Interstate 35. The New Braunfels store is the largest convenience store in the world at 68,000 square feet. The store features 120 fueling positions, 83 toilets, 31 cash registers, 4 Icee machines, and 80 fountain dispensers. It also offers tubing and water gear for enjoying the nearby Guadalupe River.
The New Braunfels, Texas store was named the 2012 "Best Restroom in America" by Cintas.
The first Buc-ee's in North Texas Metroplex opened in Terrell, Texas on June 22, 2015. The travel center is located three miles west of Tanger Outlets on Interstate 20 (18 wheelers allowed).
The second Buc-ee's in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex area opened on May 23, 2016. The location is located in far northern Fort Worth, across the street from Texas Motor Speedway. The third DFW location is scheduled to open in Denton, Texas in 2018.
On March 8, 2016, Buc-ee's announced a possible first location outside of the state of Texas would be located in Baton Rouge, LA. The location was expected to open in early 2017, however, on October 4, 2016, Buc-ee's announced that the plans for the Baton Rouge location had been terminated.
On April 12, 2017, Buc-ee's announced that it will open their first convenience store/gas station outside of Texas in Daytona Beach, Florida. The travel center is scheduled to open in 2018 and will be located on the north side of LPGA Boulevard across from Tanger Outlets, just east of Interstate 95 and immediately west of Stonewood Grill & Tavern (formerly Vince Carter's). At 50,000 square feet with 120 fueling positions the Daytona Beach travel center will be the largest in Florida and the largest outside of Texas.
In January 2018, Buc-ee's broke ground on second out of Texas location in Baldwin County Alabama, At 50,000 square feet with 120 gas pumps, it will be the second Buc-ee's to be built outside of Texas and the first in Alabama. A few weeks after the Baldwin County location began construction, Buc-ee's announced that a second Southern Alabama location will be built in Mobile.
Buc-ee's broke ground on another North-Texas location in Melissa, Texas on Monday, February 5, 2018. The store is located off New Davis Road and U.S. Highway 75. The store is expected to open in February 2019.
Maps Buc-ee's
Products
Buc-ee's offers products found at most convenience stores such as fuel, cigarettes, tobacco, chips, drinks, and soft drinks at their smaller neighborhood stores. Travel centers include a deli, coffee shop, exterior tunnel car washes, Texas-themed specialty gifts and food, and products catering to hunters and river rafters. All Buc-ee's are open 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.
Buc-ee's offers private labeled beef jerky, novelty candy, trail mixes, granola, pralines, jarred vegetables, preserves, and salsa. Their #1 branded product is caramel and butter-glazed corn puffs known as 'Beaver Nuggets.'
Lawsuits
In recent years, during the company's rapidly growing success, Buc-ee's has filed numerous lawsuits against other convenience store chains, most of them based out of Texas, for alleged copyright infringement and trade dressing.
In 2014, Buc-ee's filed a lawsuit against Texas based convenience store chain "Frio Beaver. Frio Beaver, a company with a logo also depicting a beaver in a yellow circle with a black outline, was accused of copying the iconic Buc-ee's beaver head logo, which the company is widely known for in Texas.
In 2016, Buc-cee's sued "Choke Canyon BBQ", another Texas convenience store, for copyright infringement and trade dressing. Choke Canyon uses a logo of a grinning alligator in the middle of a yellow circle, which Buc-ee's claims is an attempt by the chain to resemble the Buc-ee's logo.
In 2017, Buc-cee's again filed a lawsuit for breaking an agreement, this time against a Nebraska-based convenience store chain known as "Bucky's". The two companies had agreed to remain in their respective states and expand only to states where the other did not operate.
There was also a non-logo related lawsuit filed in 2013 against "Chicks", a convenience store located in Bryan Texas, for trade dressing by allegedly copying Buc-ee's mega convenience store designs and layout. The case was settled out of court.
Buc-ee's also lost a Texas Employee Rentention Agreement Case on an appeal in 2017. A year after a trial court ordered a former employee pay Buc-ee's close to $100,000 in damages and attorney's fees for breaching an "Retention Agreement," a Texas court of appeals reversed the decision and ordered that Buc-ee's take nothing on its claims against the former employee. The court reasoned that the contract violated Texas' employment-at-will doctrine. It could only be valid if it met the requirements of an actual non-compete agreement, but as this did not meet Texas requirement for non-compete, the contract was not enforceable.
Advertising
Buc-ee's is known for posting billboards by Texas (and beginning in 2018, Florida and Alabama) interstate highways with simple and humorous slogans.
- "If It Harms Beavers, We're Against It!"
- "Clean Restrooms, We Guaranpee It"
- "No dancing the two-step in our restroom"
- "It's A Beaver!"
- "Restrooms So Clean, We Leave Mints on the Urinals"
- "Ice, Beer, Jerky: The 3 Food Groups"
- "The Top Two Reasons to Stop at Buc-ee's: #1 and #2"
- "A Bigger Kolache I Never Sausage a Thing"
- "Don't worry, P happy"
- "Epic Flush"
- "Don't stay thirsty my friends."
- "Worth the Wait"
- "The Eyes of Buc-ee's Are Upon You"
- "Buy a gift, leave a gift."
- "Don't pass our gas!"
- "My overbite is sexy."
References
External links
- Official website
- Buc-ee's Facebook page
- Buc-ee's in New Braunfels vying for best restrooms in America, KHOU.com, September 2, 2012.
- Miguel Bustillo, Roadside Stopper: Can Something Be Too Big in Texas?, Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2012.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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