Texas favorite Buc-ee's to open less than 2 hours from Calif. |
Customers exit the Buc-ee’s convenience store on June 12, 2024, in Luling, Texas.
Fans of the Texas gas station and convenience store chain Buc-ee’s love it for a lot of reasons. For starters, the chain’s selection of wall-to-wall snacks and its signature offerings like smoked brisket, Beaver Nuggets and sausage on a stick are road trip hits. Its toothy mascot, Bucky the Beaver, is beloved by adults and children alike, and merch that bears the beaver’s face is a subtle nod to ideas about Texas culture.
It also helps that every single location is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week — and many are absolutely massive. Its giant Luling, Texas, store covers more than 75,000 square feet, making it the largest convenience store in the world.
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And now, the cult favorite chain is heading closer to California than ever before. Having flirted with western expansion for years, the company — founded in 1982 — recently announced that it will launch locations in seven new states in 2026 and 2027: Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin. SFGATE reached out to Buc-ee’s for more information but did not receive a response before publication.
Employees prepare food inside the Buc-ee’s convenience store on June 12, 2024, in Luling, Texas.
It’s the Arizona location, its westernmost to date, that Californians will find most appealing: The Goodyear outpost is scheduled to open sometime in 2026 and is located right off the 10 freeway. The freeway-adjacent outpost is actually west of Phoenix, putting the store less than two hours from Blythe at the Golden State border. It’s a route that many Californians travel regularly on their way to Phoenix, Scottsdale and points due east. The area is also a popular travel destination due to its access to hunting and off-roading in the expansive desert.
Buc-ee’s, which currently has more than 50 locations, has been on an expansion tear across the southeast in recent years, although the first outpost outside of Texas didn’t debut until 2019. The privately held entity was named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in the dining category in 2024.
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It remains to be seen if, or when, Californians will be able to experience the chain’s sparkling clean bathrooms and rows and rows of gas pumps in the Golden State itself in the coming years. Until then, it may be worth the nearly six-hour drive from Los Angeles.
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