The best things about Buc-ee's, from two obsessed British raccoons

Ok so, we have an unhealthy obsession with Buc-ee’s. Two British raccoons, roadtripping through America, trying to find our favourite beaver. Is there anything more beautiful on an American road trip than seeing the hilarious collection of Buc-ee’s ads & knowing you’re on your way!

We have now done this in Texas and in Florida, which is either thorough research or a problem, depending on who you ask. Here is the full list, including a few things that were not on our original one.

The billboards do half the work

You get the first one absolutely miles out. Then another. Then another, counting you down like an advent calendar made entirely of petrol and snacks. By the time you get to YOU MADE IT! you genuinely feel like you have accomplished something, which is a serious amount of emotional labour from a sign advertising a shop.

They are also very funny, and they know it. We were quoting them at each other for a good hundred miles before we ever got there.

Beaver Nuggets

The famous ones. Puffed corn coated in a sweet buttery caramel, like Sugar Puffs with a significantly bigger budget and no interest in your dental plan.

The bag says 13 oz. The bag also says twelve servings, and we would like to formally submit that twelve servings is a work of fiction. It is one serving. It is one serving and it is finished long before the next exit.

The cleanest bathrooms in any gas station in the world

Not a joke, and not even a close-run thing. We have been in a lot of service stations on both sides of the Atlantic and nothing else is playing the same sport.

Here is the bit that explains it. Buc-ee’s employs a Restroom Crew, capital R, capital C, and the hiring board out in the car park lists them starting at $21 an hour, which is more than the shop floor roles above them on the same board. They are paying over the odds specifically to keep the toilets immaculate, and you can tell the moment you walk in.

Top tip: this is the one to plan your driving day around. If you are working out where to stop and there is a Buc-ee’s within an hour of it, stop at the Buc-ee’s instead. Everything about the next two hours will be better.

Giant sodas, and what exactly is a creamer?

That cup up there is an X-Large. It says so down the side. It is roughly the size of a small kitchen bin and it makes every drink we have ever been sold at a UK motorway services look like a free sample.

Then there is the coffee, which comes with a wall of creamer. Hazelnut. French Vanilla. Caramel. Sweet Cream. And the question no American has yet answered to our satisfaction: what IS creamer? It is not milk. It is not cream. It sits on a shelf at room temperature, apparently forever, and everyone is completely relaxed about it. We put it in the coffee every single time and we still have no idea what we are drinking.

The meat, and how is it this good

There is a person carving brisket behind a glass counter. In a petrol station. At whatever hour you happen to wander in.

Brisket sandwich, three meat sandwich, turkey sandwich, all of it far better than anything sold under a heat lamp has any business being. We keep meaning to be sensible and get one thing between us. We have never once managed it.

The art is coming home with us

Buc-ee’s sells signs, and boards, and painted things, and a genuinely enormous amount of homeware with a beaver on it. One day a piece of it is making it back to the UK to take up its rightful forever home in Raccoon Bar. This is not a maybe. Suitcase allowance is the only thing standing between us and it.

The hiring board is the best read in the shop

We were not expecting the recruitment sandwich board in a damp car park to be a highlight, and yet.

Entry level, experience not necessary, starts at $18 an hour. Weekend shifts pay more on a sliding scale, an extra $2 an hour on a Friday, $3 on a Saturday, $4 on a Sunday. Three weeks paid time off. A 401k matched dollar for dollar up to 6%. And right at the bottom of the board, general manager, $175,000 to $250,000 and up.

A petrol station manager on a quarter of a million dollars. We stood there in the drizzle reading a sandwich board and quietly reassessing our entire careers.

Still on our list

Things we have walked past, twice, and are annoyed about:

• The wall of jerky, which is an entire wall, and which we have somehow never bought
• The fudge counter, where they cut it in front of you
• The car wash, which we are told is one of the longest in the world
• Kolaches, banana pudding, and roughly forty pecan-based items

Next trip. Definitely next trip.

Ok, the catch

We are not going to pretend it is cheap. It is expensive for a petrol station, and obviously the food is not as good as stopping at a real BBQ spot, so if there is a proper Texas barbecue place within reach then go there and do Buc-ee’s for the snacks on the way out. Both, ideally. We are not the people to ask about restraint.

We would love to tell you what a stop actually comes to. We genuinely cannot. You go in for petrol and the toilets, you come out with a bag of nuggets, a drink the size of a bin, something from the meat counter and a sign for a bar you have not built yet, and at no point does anybody look at the total. We are aware this is the one thing we are supposed to be good at.

It is also enormous and busy, and if you are the sort of person who finds a big shop overwhelming then a Buc-ee’s on a Saturday afternoon is going to be a lot.

Final verdict

Five out of five, no notes, would drive out of our way for it again and absolutely have. It is expensive and it is not real barbecue and we do not care even slightly, because what an absolute gem to have sitting there on the side of a highway.

So the only real question left is how we get one to the UK. Genuinely asking. Put one on the M6 somewhere around Stafford and nobody in this country would ever complain about a motorway journey again.

Go and find your own beaver. And let us know if you ever manage twelve servings out of one bag, because we have given it a proper go.

Prices are what we paid in April 2026. Things move, so check before you book.