Inside Buc-ee’s, the big, beloved convenience store opening its first Colorado location

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JOHNSTOWN — As a kid, Randy Pauly’s favorite barbecue in Texas was served out of a window. He’d order a brisket sandwich, step back and wait for a hand to slide a plate out in front of him. He never saw what he called “the action.” The chopping, slicing, saucing and slamming it all together.

When Pauly became the full-time pitmaster for Buc-ee’s, a Texas-based gas station known for its fresh-cut brisket sandwiches and buck-toothed beaver mascot, he wanted to turn the sandwich assembly into a show. 

“Freeeeeeeshhhh brisket on the board!!!” a man in a red polo shirt, denim apron and fake tattered cowboy hat yells out from the Buc-ee’s butcher block. “Fresh brisket on the board!” The other deli counter employees around him echo, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. 

Heeding the call, the gas station’s customers gather around and pull out their phones to film the chopping, slicing and saucing — then they post it on social media. Type “fresh brisket on the board” into the YouTube search bar and you can watch Buc-ee’s employees holler out from Athens, Alabama; Daytona Beach, Florida; Tennessee and all over Texas.

“First it was going to be a cowbell and a chant, but we decided to just start with the chant,” Pauly said. “We never thought it would become a thing, right?”

But of course it became a thing. Because everything at Buc-ee’s becomes a thing. 

Fresh brisket on the board videos can start pouring out of Johnstown on March 18, when Buc-ee’s opens its first Colorado location at the southwest corner of exit 252 off Interstate 25. It is the company’s 14th store to open outside of Texas and its largest — for now. The anticipation has been slowly building since June 2022 when Buc-ee’s officially broke ground on the site, and picked up momentum when the opening date was announced at the end of last year.

Two weeks ago one Facebook user posted on the Buc-ee’s Johnstown Facebook group that he was looking for 15 Buc-ee’s onesies for his extended family to wear to the grand opening. “Any idea where to get some?” he asked. Thirty-eight people responded. 

Others in the group posted photos of their Buc-ee’s branded blanket collections, cup collections, T-shirts, water bottles and stuffed beaver toys. People worried about traffic on opening day, hotly debated a new roundabout at the Buc-ee’s entrance and gave construction updates as opening date neared.

Buc-ee’s has the traditional signs of a fandom: Facebook groups, reddit subs, a dedicated community willing to debate the limits of their loyalty. Like with many avid followings, people’s behavior surrounding this cheerful beaver with an overbite is perplexing from the outside looking in. And with Buc-ee’s, it’s hard to parse what is an ironic attraction to the brand and what is genuine devotion — but maybe those two things aren’t mutually exclusive. 

Why a buck-toothed beaver has become such a beloved landmark of many Southern road trips remains a mystery, even to those who work for the company. Cultural fandoms emerge for all kinds of reasons: relatable characters, exciting plotlines, aesthetics — but rarely, if ever, do they emerge out of necessity.

And Buc-ee’s is not a necessity. 

“When you look at Johnson’s Corner, when you look at similar gas stations in that area, they are service-based businesses,” Sarah Crosthwaite, economic development manager for Johnstown, said of the truck stop two miles north of Buc-ee’s that is so reliably open there are allegedly no keys to the front door. “You get your gas. If you go inside, you use the restroom and maybe purchase a couple of items, right? That’s a service that they’re providing. It’s a needed service. But Buc-ees, for me, is more of a destination retailer.”

The company recognizes this. Which is why even though Buc-ee’s is a gas station, it barely focuses on gas (though you wouldn’t guess it just by looking down their infinity-mirror-like row of 116 gas pumps). And even though they’re convenience stores, they do little to create a sense of convenience. One oft-cited study showed that customers are willing to drive an average of 21 minutes out of their way to visit a Buc-ee’s. 

Instead, Buc-ee’s pours its energy into creating an unforgettable customer experience that hinges on good food, clean bathrooms and an insanely popular clothing line. Josh Smith, director of operations, told BizWest that about half of their revenue comes from selling food. 

The company also pumps out merchandise adorned with Buc-ee beaver — and while Kum & Go fanny packs and Casey’s T-shirts have had their moments, Buc-ee’s is probably the only gas station brand to land a feature in the New York Times’ Style section.

“What convenience stores do is they eliminate hassles and they solve simple, everyday problems,” said Jeff Lenard, spokesperson for the National Association of Convenience Stores. “Buc-ee’s doesn’t really address hassles. It’s the amusement park version of a convenience store.”

What is a Buc-ee’s? 

The Buc-ee’s origin story is about as hometown Texas as it gets. 

Arch “Beaver” Aplin III grew up visiting his grandparents in Harrisonburg, Texas, where they owned a small mercantile known for farm fresh produce and cured meats from animals his grandpa raised. In 1982, when Aplin was 23 years old, he bought a plot of land for $52,800 at a four-way intersection a few towns over in Lake Jackson. He built a small mercantile of his own and called it Buc-ee’s. The interior was adorned with brass ceiling fans and extra elbow room — 3,000 square feet compared with the industry standard of 2,400. 

These days, the industry standard for travel stops and gas stations is 3,000 square feet, while the average Buc-ee’s is upward of 50,000. 

Last summer, Buc-ee’s opened a 74,707 square foot store in Sevierville, Tennessee, which stripped the “world’s largest convenience store” title from the Buc-ee’s in New Braunfels. When the Johnstown location opens, it will be tied for first — but only for six months, when the company’s Luling, Texas, location finishes a remodel that will nudge the store over the 75,000-square-foot mark. This means by summer, Buc-ee’s will have the first-, second-, third- and fourth-largest convenience stores in the world. But who’s counting? Buc-ee’s is.

Despite the massive footprint of its stores and oversized cultural presence, Buc-ee’s doesn’t even crack the top 100 in terms of number of stores in the U.S. The nation’s leader, 7-Eleven, has more than 12,000 stores. The Western-themed Maverick has about 400 stores nationally, the merch-heavy Kum & Go also nears 400, and Love’s Travel Stops, which shares a color scheme and emphasis on clean bathrooms with Buc-ee’s, operates more than 600 stores. Buc-ee’s, on the other hand, has 47 stores — soon to be 48. 

So, what is Buc-ee’s? “We’re a family travel center that’s gonna have something inside of our store for every person in your vehicle,” Smith, the director of operations, said in an interview with The Sun, then added: “It’s overwhelming.” And he meant it in a good way.

The most commonly cited features of the massive convenience store are the beef jerky wall, the beaver nuggets (a brown sugar coated corn puff) and the remarkably clean bathrooms. But the energetic center of every Buc-ee’s is the Texas Round Up, a circular deli counter where the fresh brisket hits the board and the sandwiches are dished out. This is Randy Pauly’s domain.

Randy Pauly the pitmaster 

Randy Pauly is a competitive barbecue champion who got a knock on his door seven years ago. That’s how he describes it, anyway, that Buc-ee’s came knocking on his door. 

The way Pauly got into competition barbecue is too cinematic not to tell, which he has surely done 20 times over. A young Pauly, born and raised in central Texas, loses his dad at age 15. His dad was “in the meat business,” Pauly said without elaboration, and was a passionate cook. A neighbor takes Pauly — “a jacked young guy,” in Pauly’s words, with a love of cooking and in need of distraction — to the county fair to compete in a barbecue competition. Pauly is hooked. “Girls, music, food,” he said. “What’s not to love?” 

The following year Pauly cast around for a barbecue team to take him in and ended up working with Regroup Cookers. One competition day, in 1994, the chief cook overslept. Pauly, then a dishwasher for the team, spiced, smoked and hustled a rack of ribs to the judges. The ribs made it to the finals, and Pauly hasn’t stopped competing since. 

But now he competes on the side of his full-time job as the official Buc-ee’s pitmaster. He still dons a big, black cowboy hat even when he’s inside working at the test kitchen, and still has the energy of a jacked 15-year-old central Texas boy who just wants to make good barbecue. 

More than once Pauly motions toward his heart when he’s talking about the people he works with at Buc-ee’s, especially when he gets to talking about training new hires for the Texas Round Up. Part of his job is to travel to new Buc-ee’s locations and teach the deli teams how to assemble the perfect brisket sandwich. 

“We get to walk into Colorado with a couple hundred employees and we’re gonna teach them a Texas barbecue skill set. On day one I’m gonna see a dozen, two dozen folks that don’t even know what a brisket is,” he said. “And then we’re gonna open a month later, and they’re gonna be champions on the knife. That’s what excites me.”

Kind of in the middle of nowhere

“Where is Johnstown? Is it kind of in the middle of nowhere?” asked Lenard of the National Association of Convenience Stores. It’s in northern Colorado, just south of Fort Collins, I told him, and waited for a reaction. Halfway between Denver and Cheyenne.  

“No disparagement toward the town, but that absolutely fits Buc-ee’s,” Lenard said. 

You won’t find a Buc-ee’s in downtown Denver, Lenard explained. Or even downtown Fort Collins. Where most convenience stores rely on a mix of highway travelers and repeat customers at in-town locations, Buc-ee’s strategically positions itself between major destinations. In doing so, it becomes its own destination.

“What they want to do is just create a feeling that you have to stop there, that you can’t miss this,” Lenard said. 

LEFT: Buc-ee’s employees and staff undergo training the week before the Johnstown grand opening. RIGHT: Dozens of gas pumps line the Buc-ee’s off I-25. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)

Over the past 10 years Johnstown, along with nearby I-25 corridor towns like Windsor, have seen — and pursued — aggressive population growth. The growth has been especially pronounced during the past three years, as Johnstown rapidly approved new residential permits, filling fields that flank the highway with uniform neighborhoods, the sky around them dotted with balloons signaling the next wave of housing developments. In 2021, Johnstown approved around 200 new residential permits, according to Crosthwaite, the economic development manager. In 2022 that number more than doubled to 420. Last year, the town approved another 440 permits. 

Accommodating a nearly 50% increase in population over the past decade also means greatly expanding service and retail needs, and Johnstown maintains a good reputation among business developers. 

“That’s something we’re really proud of,” Crosthwaite said. “It’s not to say that we’re bending the rules for anybody in particular. What we’re doing is saying: Here is the process and here are the rules for getting approved. As long as you’re meeting that process, checking off those boxes, you know exactly when you’re gonna be able to put a shovel on the ground.”

Buc-ee’s has been shopping around outside of the Lone Star state since shortly before 2019, when they opened their first non-Texas location in Alabama. The company invited Johnstown to the table just over two years ago. To secure the company as their first Colorado location, Johnstown offered Buc-ee’s a competitive incentive package that included a mix of tax rebates, performance incentives and a four-week review policy, meaning that comments had to be addressed within four weeks of submission from either side. 

“The purpose of that (four-week policy) was ensuring that we both stayed on track with this project, because we know that this is going to have a huge economic impact on the community and we wanted to make sure that they open the doors as quickly as possible,” Crosthwaite said. “Time is money.”

Among those estimated economic impacts are close to 300 jobs and 1.5% in sales tax revenue. Johnstown has a 3.5% sales tax rate, with 0.5% earmarked for roads and infrastructure. That gave the city 3% in revenue leverage with Buc-ee’s — they settled on a 50-50 split. Buc-ee’s keeps 1.5% of their sales tax share through rebates, while Johnstown receives the other 1.5%.

“Our owner always says, ‘Life’s too short to do business with people who don’t want to do business with you,’” Smith said. “So finding a location that is going to be suitable first for the company and for the town, it really requires a relationship.”

And not everybody wants to do business with Buc-ee’s.

In 2014, city leaders in Corinth, Texas, shot down a proposal from Buc-ee’s to build a 60,000-square-foot facility, citing traffic and light pollution concerns from residents. Similar worries plagued residents of Denton, Texas, who organized a 200-person protest of a new Buc-ee’s the following year (the Buc-ee’s opened anyway). 

LEFT: Applicants are screened for open Buc-ee’s job positions in January at Embassy Suites by Hilton in Loveland. The mass hiring event spanned five days and screened over 1,500 individuals for positions in cashier and food service, janitorial maintenance, grocery stocking and merchandise. RIGHT: Newly hired Buc-ee’s job candidates wait to be onboarded. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)

In 2021, residents in Efland, North Carolina, fought the beaver’s arrival and won, after their city council asked Buc-ee’s to shrink the size of its project — an offensive blow to a brand that promises “the largest convenience store in the world” to nearly every community it expands into. 

But Johnstown is ready for Buc-ee’s. During a weeklong hiring fair in January more than 1,500 people interviewed for 250 advertised jobs. And as for the other gas stations in the area — Buc-ee’s sits across the street from a Loaf n’ Jug, and about two miles from Johnson’s Corner, a travel stop famous for its plate-sized cinnamon rolls — Lenard, of the National Association of Convenience Stores, said they have nothing to worry about.

“An experience is what people buying gas at Buc-ee’s are looking for. They’re looking for something different than the person stopping for gas two exits later and expects to be on the road in 10 minutes,” Lenard said. “So there is competition, but it’s a different kind of competition. And I would imagine you’d go out of business if you tried to out-Buc-ee’s a Buc-ee’s.” 

Another roadside attraction

When Buc-ee’s started meeting with the town of Johnstown, company representatives wasted little breath trying to describe Buc-ee’s. 

“All they said was, ‘you gotta come see it,’” Crosthwaite said. “We were kind of wary, like, ‘all right, I guess we’ll come see what it’s about.’ You imagine a gas station and you think, well, how grand can a gas station really be? But Buc-ee’s is so much more than that.”

Smith thinks that part of the business’s success comes from keeping their employees happy. Their starting wages are advertised between $17-$21, significantly higher than the national average for gas station attendants of $14.73, and three weeks paid vacation. That said, on Glassdoor, a site where employees anonymously submit reviews of their employers, Buc-ee’s has a 2.9 out of 5 star rating. But close to one-third of those reviews do mention the good pay.

What makes Buc-ee’s Buc-ee’s can’t be traced to one specific element — its size, its strategic geography, the goofy grinning beaver or the brisket sandwiches. It’s a lucky mixture of them all and, most importantly, a very dedicated fan base. 

LEFT: New employees prepare chopped brisket sandwiches at the Johnstown Buc-ee’s. RIGHT: A bumper sticker commemorating one of the Georgia Buc-ee’s locations adorns a car outside the Johnstown store. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)

“What Buc-ee’s has done better than anybody is they’ve taken the things that people really don’t like to do — use the bathroom, buy gas, pick up food — and made it into things that people absolutely want to do,” Lenard said. “And that’s really, really hard to do. But you don’t see anybody walking into a Buc-ee’s in a bad mood, and you don’t really see anybody leaving a Buc-ee’s in a bad mood.”

After visiting Buc-ee’s at the company’s insistence, Crosthwaite had to concede: “It is really cool, though.

“I can’t describe it except to say that you gotta come check it out,” she laughed, realizing that she’d borrowed the company’s own line from their early meetings. “You just have to come see it. You become a believer.”

Type of Story: News

Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.