Led by Buc-ees, Dolly Parton, America’s gas stations go mega-size

As the Fourth of July holiday approaches and Americans head to the beach, mountains, or someplace in between, they’ll more than likely see something that they wouldn’t have seen just a few years ago: the mega-gas station. 

Gas stations have been reinventing themselves for the past decade with food offerings that rival many established grub-only chains. But now they are doing something else: growing in physical size and attracting legions of fans along the way. 

Buc-ee’s is the heavyweight in the growing gas station phenomenon with over 50 locations in 13 states.

Sally McQuinn drove from her home near Roanoke, Virginia, to Dayton, Ohio, to celebrate the opening of the company’s first Ohio location. “I’m a super fan of Bucs for sure,” McQuinn said, using a nickname with the familiarity of an old friend. She added that she got her photo taken with the chain’s owner, who visited the Dayton opening. 

On a recent summer evening at the Dayton Buc-ee’s, almost all of the station’s 120 pumps were occupied, but the real action was happening in the store. There, employees chant “Brisket on the Booooard” every time fresh brisket moves into a carving station. And customers snap up sandwiches of brisket, three-meat sandwiches, and anything else. The largest Buc-ee’s, in Texas, is over 75,000 square feet. For comparison, gas stations like Sheetz and Wawa usually are around 7,000 square feet. A low-end Walmart comes in at around 150,000 square feet. 

“The traditional gas station is rapidly transforming from a transactional stop for fuel into a sprawling, multi-faceted retail and travel destination. This evolution is driven primarily by razor-thin profit margins on gasoline, forcing operators to leverage fuel as a loss leader to draw customers into high-margin convenience stores and food service,” said Sudip Mazumder, senior vice president, retail industry lead, North America at Publicis Sapient, a digital business transformation and marketing consultancy. 

Other factors fueling this growth include changing consumer expectations for cleaner, more experiential stops, the need to accommodate electric vehicles requiring longer charging times, and the long-standing need to cater extensively to professional truckers. 

Gas stations have been growing in size and morphing into all-in-one travel centers for some time. But the arrival of Buc-ee’s supercharged the trend and spawned imitators like Wally’s, which has three 50,000-square-foot locations in the Midwest, with plans for more. The stores, which have a Midwest vibe, have amenities like a popcorn bar and an assortment of jerky to rival Buc-ee’s.   

Whether intentional or not, these stores are tapping into the nostalgia associated with…