Buc-ee’s arrival in North Carolina slated for early 2027

If all goes according to plan, North Carolina will get its first Buc-ee’s mega-travel center in the spring of 2027. The compound will occupy 32 acres of land off Interstate 40/85 at Mebane in Alamance County.

The construction project, now underway, is developing as a major news story, as North Carolina anticipates joining the Buc-ee’s empire of about 60 jumbo-sized convenience stores. Each facility features 120 gas pumps and about the same number of flushing toilets.

Buc-ee’s ultra-clean restrooms have around-the-clock attendants who keep things extra tidy…and the entry areas are an art gallery. 

Each painting is available for purchase.

Specifically, the 74,000-square-foot Buc-ee’s store in Mebane will be located off Exit 152 at 1425 Trollingwood-Hawfields Road, on the south side of the interstate highway. To get there, motorists will pass by the existing Pilot Travel Center/Flying J.

Buc-ee’s has a “cult-like following” of patrons who willingly drive miles and miles out of their way just to shop and stock up on their favorite Buc-ee’s vittles, including the signature chopped beef brisket sandwiches with special sauce that are prepared at the “Texas Round Up” barbecue counter.

Charlyne Mattox, food editor at Country Living magazine, offers a tip: “For the freshest sandwich, wait around until you hear the choppers who are wearing denim aprons yell out: ‘Fresh, hot brisket on the board!’” Then, you pounce.

Buc-ee’s “special” brisket sauce is made from tomato puree, sugar, vinegar, spices, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, liquid smoke, molasses, salt, garlic powder and onion powder. 

The first Buc-ee’s opened in 1982, as a mere 3,000-square-foot convenience store in Brazoria County, Texas, between Houston and the Gulf of Mexico.

The company was founded by Arch Hartwell Aplin III of Lake Jackson, Texas, now age 67, a 1980 graduate of Texas A&M University in College Station. He earned a bachelor’s degree in construction science.

As a student, Arch III spent his summers pumping gas at a general mercantile and filling station in Harrisonburg, La., owned by his grandparents, Arch and Mae Aplin. They dubbed their operation as the “Biggest Little Store in Catahoula Parish.”

It was here that Arch III “inherited the family entrepreneurial streak and convenience store bug,” according to the Buc-ee’s archivist.

“When Arch III spied an empty lot in Clute, a city next door to Lake Jackson, he knew just what he wanted to do with it,” opening his first store in 1982. “Inspired by his longtime nickname, ‘Beaver’…and his beloved Labrador Retriever pet named ‘Buck,’ Arch III named the store ‘Buc-ee’s’…with a cartoon-like beaver character as its mascot.”

The beaver’s image is patterned after “Bucky Beaver,” who Arch III remembered from his youth, growing up in Lake Jackson in the 1960s. Bucky was the animated mascot for Ipana, a popular wintergreen-flavored toothpaste produced by Bristol-Myers.

Disney Commercial Studios created the original Bucky character in the 1950s, and a playful Ipana advertising campaign featured the voice by Jimmie Dodd, who played the role as the elder “head Mouseketeer” on Disney’s “The Mickey Mouse Club” television show for its first four seasons (1955-59).

Dodd popularized Ipana’s classic “Brusha, brusha, brusha” jingle. Bristol-Myers discontinued many of its personal hygiene and health care products in the 1970s in order to focus on pharmaceuticals.

Hence, Bucky Beaver faded away for a time…until being transformed by Buc-ee’s.

Ironically, Charlyne Mattox tells Country Living readers: “Buc-ee’s is essentially the Disney World of travel centers…which is taking over the country like convenience store kudzu.”

That statement certainly conjures up a mixed-message image, but Buc-ee’s has branched out from its home base in Texas (36 stores) to extend operations into 10 other states – Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

In addition to North Carolina, targeted states for expansion include Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma and Wisconsin.

Right now, the closest Buc-ee’s to Morehead City, N.C., is about 200 miles away in Florence, S.C. We need to visit.