Buc-ee’s Travel Stop: American Overindulgence at its Finest
Buc-ee’s Travel Stop, somewhere south of Chattanooga, Tenn. Photos by Kevin Gibson
During a recent trip to Atlanta for a concert, my fiancee Cynthia and I made our first visit to a Buc-ee’s Travel Stop. We weren’t prepared.
From some 240 gas pumps to a near-Wal-Mart-sized shopping space, it was like (Warning: Nerd Reference Incoming) Love’s truck stop was Bruce Banner and somebody pissed it off. My first thought was, “What a disgusting exhibition of crass Americanism and overindulgent privilege. It’s beautiful!”
The second thought I had was that the signs instructing truckers not to park in the automobile parking area might be the best thing about Buc-ee’s – they were just plain, white signs with a clip-art rendering of a semi, with the word “NO” above it. Brilliant in its simplicity.
This first stop was on the way down to Atlanta, south of Chatannooga; we had pledged to check it out just based on the hype. We walked inside and were taken aback by the sheer size of the place. We walked around, dodging people left and right, used the ultra-clean bathrooms (one of Buc-ee’s’ taglines is “Potty like a rock star!”) and peered at the candy counter, the lunch counter, the beef jerky bar and the branded items, from salsas to snacks. (Pickled quail eggs! They have pickled quail eggs!)
You won’t leave Buc-ee’s hungry. Confused? Maybe. Overwhelmed? Most definitely. But if you haven’t been, GO.
And pretty soon, we were overwhelmed by it all – like, to the point that we needed to leave. We agreed we would return during the drive home to pick up the items we’d spotted that we wanted to take home with us.
Sure enough, on the way back, we made the stop. It was just as crowded at 9 a.m. as it was two days prior at around 5 p.m., with aimless faces scanning the shelves in awe and people so fascinated they couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to where they were walking coming at us like asteroids in a 1980s video game.
I picked up a couple of bottles of hot sauce and some seasoned olives (for a snack), plus a breakfast sandwich and another sandwich to pack in the cooler for lunch. Cynthia grabbed a breakfast sandwich, a salad for lunch, a fudge assortment pack and a couple of other items. We also each got a soft drink. The prices were as reasonable as the selection was huge.
But by the time we had cashed out, we were again overwhelmed, or “peopled out,” as we commonly phrase it. For us, being inside a Buc-ee’s for too long is just exhausting. Satisfying in its own way, but nevertheless exhausting. And yet, I find myself looking forward to visiting a Buc-ee’s location again.
A quick review of the food: Our breakfast sandwiches consisted of croissants with scrambled eggs, cheese and a meat (Cynthia got bacon, I got sausauge). For the meager price of around four bucks, they were huge. Not great road food, as scrambled eggs were falling all over the place – this wasn’t a pseudo-cake of eggs like at McDonald’s, it was actual scrambled eggs like you’d make at home. Tasty and satisfying.
Cynthia ate on her salad for two days, and my $7.99 roast beef sandwich ended up giving me two lunches, which is frankly a bargain. All I had to do was add spicy mustard, some chips and pickles. One of the hot sauces was a gift for a friend, but the Buc-ee’s 7 Pot Primo Pepper Sauce I got for myself was delicious, if not as hot as I had envisioned. Still, it will be a staple for me on chicken and fish dishes, and I suspect it won’t last long in my hot sauce collection.
Will I go back to a Buc-ee’s if and when the opportunity presents itself? Absolutely. Will I probably have to get out of there inside of 10 or 15 minutes to escape the hoardes? Yeah. But at least I know where not to park my semi.
