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and his tactics are translating outside the state. Here to tell the story is Eric Benson, the man who wrote the definitive story for Texas Monthly about Buckies and its founder, Arch. Beaver Aplin. Let's take a listen. Hmm.
Buckies is a Texas phenomenon. It is a gas station. The kind of industry standard has been that a normal gas station convenience store is 2,400 square feet. The large Bucky's travel centers are getting close to 80,000. Square feet.
you walk into a Bucky's, it feels a little more like walking into a I'll list a Walmart. in terms of you walk in, you can't see the other end. Instead of Hot food that's sitting in, you know, under heat lamps that was prepared who knows when. They have a big kind of island in the middle of the store. Half of it is A team that's preparing barbecue and barbecue sandwiches.
In the morning they're preparing breakfast tacos. On the other side, they're roasting nuts. And making these things called beaver nuggets, which are almost a combination between a potato chip and a French fry. They have a full deli area with a very large kitchen. Instead of a little display of thief turkey They have walls of their own house brand of every kind of Flavor.
And Stripe, you could imagine. I know Beaver is a fan, who Beaver is the CEO of Bucky's. He turned me onto the bohemian garlic beef jerky.
So it's this sort of food emporium. The bathrooms are the size of bathrooms. They're actually larger than bathrooms at an NFL stadium. People are cleaning them 24 hours a day. The gas at fuckies.
Is cheap. It's the cheapest gas you'll find because they want you to stop and they want you to come in and they want you to spend money. In the store, it's a loss leader for them, as it is, I think, for most gas stations, but it really is for them. And people do spend a lot of money in the stores. Bucky's has everything.
It's a mall, it's a funeral home, it's a football stadium.
Soon as you walk in, have you ever smelt love being made? You know how that smells when you get into it and it's real passionate? And I forgot I came for gas, and I'm pretty sure I came to Buckets with my mama. If anybody sees a Find My Mama in there, please hit me up on Facebook because I'm sure she's in there. And I think that was having church service at one point inside a bucket.
Who owns Bucky? It's gotta be a conglomerate. Gotta be a record label. Sug Knight probably owns Buckets at this point. And the story of how that thing, these giant travel centers, came to exist.
is the story of a business that grew very, very slowly. He's a very interesting business story. Especially today. That I think we're familiar now, especially with sort of startup culture and Silicon Valley venture capital culture.
Someone coming in with an idea. getting a ton of money from Venture capitalists raising rounds of funding. Before Rounds of funding in which, of course, they're giving away equity in their businesses over time. And these things grow very, very fast, very, very quickly, become very, very big. And sometimes they really hit.
And they become Facebook, Meta. Google, and sometimes they flame out. First Bucky started in 1982. for the first 20 years of the store's history, they were almost entirely In Brazoria County, which is a county in southeast Texas on the Gulf Coast, which is where Beaver Applin, the founder of Buckies, is from. I grew up in a family.
My dad was an entrepreneur. He started out as a school teacher and then ended up started building houses and doing developments, residential and light commercial developments.
So, you know, I grew up in a family that was wired that way. And my mom did the books for the family business, and my dad ran the business. I worked in the business, and my brother worked in the business when we were young, you know, summer jobs kind of thing.
So we grew up like that. And so, um, Did not grow up in the convenience store business, though, grew up in the construction business, but did grow up in an entrepreneurial family.
So it was fun and. I don't know, it just kind of made sense for me to pursue my own thing.
So when I got out of college, I wanted to build tall buildings. I mean, I graduated with a degree from Texas AM University, a construction science building construction degree. And so I wanted to build tall buildings. And my first job that I got offered was contingent on the company getting the. the bid to build the engineering building on the Texas ADM campus.
And I put all my eggs in that basket. But what I didn't contemplate was they didn't get the bid. And so I found myself just graduating without a job. Which was a bit stressful for me, if you will.
So I worked a little while in my dad's business and I just got this hairbrain idea. I said, I'm going to build a convenience store. My grandpa had a the small town general store, if you will, in a little town in Louisiana. And I remember being a kid going in that. Little general store, and wishing I could run the register.
They never would let me, but I always wished I could.
So, you know, I found myself without a real job that I was wanting to do, without the career I had planned on. And I just kind of pivoted and decided I was going to build a convenience store.
So there you go. They grew the business. It was profitable. Beaver took on a partner. A guy named Don Wasick, and the two of them became 50-50 owners in the business, which they still are today.
And they got the idea over time that they wanted to get into, they wanted to build bigger stores. And so they built what's called a travel center. It's a big gas station, food. Restaurant option off of an interstate highway, often between two big cities.
So it's going to have a ton of traffic going through it. They built their first travel center in 2003. Oh dude. As I look back and think about the process, it was slow, it was methodical, it was gradual. Evolution, the first store I built was 3,000 square feet and it had two gas pumps.
At the time, 7-Elevens, which was the leader in the industry, was 2,400 feet.
So it was a little bigger, a little nicer. But very much the same business model. And over the next 20 years, I just kind of always tried to tweak it, improve it, make it a better experience.
So to me, the way to continue to improve and evolve Is just be the best provider in the market, is just run a better business. And still to this day, my mantra is: business is really simple. At Bucky's, let's be clean, let's be friendly, and let's begin stock. Subsequent, I'm not sure where it came from, but I had this idea. Yeah.
what you all see now, which is is this travel center and and the products. And that that was a slow evolution. Took me a long time. I designed it, thought about it, threw the plans in the trash, designed it again, threw them in the trash. And in two thousand and three, 21 years after the first Buckeys is when we opened the first travel center.
And then the last 20 years has been about those travel centers First. popping up over all of the key roadways of Texas. Between all of the big cities, San Antonio, Austin. Dallas, Houston. And then the story of the last five years.
is about that brand. It has A ton of brand loyalty. You've seen the kind of the beaver move out of Texas. and begin to conquer the southeast of the United States. and now they've moved into the Midwest.
And you've been listening to Eric Benson of Texas Monthly and the Buckies founder himself, Arch Beaver Applin, tell the story of how Buckies came to be. And what a story. What a slow, beautiful growth story, the opposite. of the Silicon Valley go-go culture. Where you grow fast or you go home, most companies get built this way.
The first Buckies opened in 1982. and stayed in Brazoria County in Texas for 20 years. And a slow evolution that changed, well, changed travel in Texas, then the South, and now the Midwest. Our family always gives ourselves 30 minutes when we go to Bucky's because we can't find each other when we land. The gas is never the point.
The point is always the store, the experience. When we come back, more of how Bucky's came to be. The story of a great and iconic American brand. Here on Our American Stories.
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And we continue with our American stories and the story of Buckies. The Travel Center Conquered Texas and has been spreading throughout the Southeast and even the Midwest. Let's pick up with the story. Here again is Texas Monthly's Eric Benson. Getting people, you know, people who really have a connection to Buckies the way they have to very few other corporations.
I think the only equivalents that I think of are things like Apple.
Now, Apple's kind of conquered the world. iPhones, everyone has to have an iPhone.
So I think there's less of a cultish thing as Apple has become themselves kind of to the nth degree. Costco, I think, is a company that has a real kind of brand affinity. But Bucky's even has something that those companies don't. I think there's still a little bit of. They're still so regionally associated with Texas.
The Texans are proud of it. And love it. That's one story about how we got to the point that there are 15 Buckies outside of Texas and I'm sure in another five years, there might be twice that many. Part of the appeal of Buckies is that they're overbuilt. Because even on the busiest days, It's pretty comfortable to be there.
I've been at Bucky's on July 4th weekend, which I think might be one of their very busiest weekends. And it's pretty crowded on July 4th, but it's totally manageable. And On a normal day. You're like you're you're never bumping into shoulders with anyone. You're never I've never seen a Bucky's parking lot full.
where you can't find a spot at all, there's always a spot for you. There's y almost always a gas pump ready there for you. And I think as a consumer, it probably makes you feel a little special. like you're wanted there. Not like you have to compete to get there.
It's interesting because I think there's in businesses that have kind of cult followings, a lot of places get that through scarcity. They make people line up for hours for an experience. And Bucky's really goes the other way. You know, they have these. Yeah, I mean bass drop travel center.
Which is, I think, a normal size travel center for them. Maybe even on the small side at this point. 96 gas pumps. 56,000 square feet. And I think there's an insight there that they had, which is.
Maybe someone will wait online for a special dinner out. But I don't think anyone wants to wait if they're driving from Austin to Dallas. No one wants to take more time. On their gas stop. I think that would that would be where it doesn't matter how special.
the travel center is. how cheap the gas is. How much better the brisket sandwich you're going to get there is than at another gas station. Nobody's going to wait 20 minutes waiting online for a gas pump to do that. Good to parking spots.
In themselves, they are bigger. You're never gonna go into a Bucky's parking spot and have to kind of wedge yourself out of the door because someone parks a little too close to you. They're parking spots that are designed for big trucks. And even if you have a big truck, you're going to be comfortable opening the door pretty wide and hopping out. And then there's this, there's the Disney World element of Bucky's.
Which is The employees there There are strict Dress and personal presentation codes about how you can be at a Bucky's. There's no visible tattoos, you gotta be clean-cut. When you walk in there, everyone is supposed to clearly say, Welcome to Bucky's. They're very nice on the way out, too. And they sell a lot of things that are, it's not toys, but I mean, they sell tons of these plushie beavers, they sell all these kinds of.
Texas art, Tchotchkis. And so you can go. It's a big gift shop, too. And it's clean. And I think the wrap on.
Gas station. Convenience stores is that they often are not clean. And who hasn't been to a gas station convenience store bathroom where? The door kind of doesn't close. It's one of these metal doors, the lock isn't on there.
The toilet is unflushed. And that's, you know, Bucky's offers. an experience and a promise that you're not going to face that. that you're going to get your little You know, your your little bit of Gas station Disney World when you stop there. Clean restrooms, what a basic concept, you know, for people traveling to have a clean, not only the restrooms, but a clean store, a clean environment, a well-lit environment, a safe environment.
So, yeah, the restrooms, we became a little bit famous for our restrooms, which is, you know, to me, just kind of such a basic need. But we continue to try to. Maintain sparkling, clean wrist rooms. I Got the opportunity to spend some time with Beaver Applin, who's the CEO of Buck, he's co-CEO, founder. And the guy who kind of gave Bucky Bucky says.
famous for its beaver logo. And Beaver, the CEO, is you ma is his Beaver is his nickname, as you might imagine, not his given name, but it comes from him. He's Beaver. I had a Labrador retriever named Buck. And my nickname was Beaver.
So I named the store Bucky's. I made my logo a Beaver, and that was my business plan. You know, my mom nicknamed me Beaver when I was born. My real name is Arch. I'm the third.
My dad went by Arch. I still go by beaver. I guess I'm never going to outgrow that.
So it just kind of made sense, and here we are. I wanted to go to a store with him and sort of see what this place was like through his eyes. And yeah, we walked in and he You know, I think the first thing you say, well, you know, I don't want to, we can do this as long as you don't make it seem like I'm bragging. He's a downhome Texas guy. Christianity is definitely part of his life and I think he wants to, and maintaining humility is important to him.
Beaver has clear political views if you look at his donations. But he's not someone who's trying to, and the stores are not trying to ram his kind of politics and religion down your throat for sure. He he wa he wants Buckies to be a space for everyone. And it does feel that way. One thing that's clear about that store There's nothing that's there by accident.
There are these islands, refrigerated islands, where they have. what they call protein packs. And it's A hard-boiled egg and some half-inch by half-inch tubes of cheese, that kind of thing. Those have become designed and tested.
Someone didn't just throw that in or buy it from a third-party vendor. They thought there was a customer interest in it, and they tried to kind of optimize it and taste test it to be. The best that it could be. And yeah, I think in walking around too, we interacted with some employees. And he was very one, Beaver is not a big person.
I think he's 5'7 and he's kind of slight. He does dress beautifully. I think he was wearing a fedora and a sport coat when he walked in. But he's the CEO of this company and the people working there They got what's like a pretty good job for working at a gas station. They pay well at Bucky's and they have good benefits.
But these people don't interact with the CEO of the company, they're so many levels down. And so we went to, I think, a woman making nuts, and Beaver kind of interacted with her and asked her what she was doing. And she said she loved her job. And I think it seemed genuine. It seemed like a really genuine moment.
And Beaver said, I love that you love what you're doing. And yeah, I don't think she knew who he was. She didn't give that I didn't see anything in her eye that said, oh, this is a setup. They told all the employees Beaver is coming in today, but act cool. It seemed like a genuine moment.
Because then we did interact with some employees who did know who Beaver was.
Some people who were a little higher up in the managerial chain who also really loved it. And you've been listening to Eric Benson and Arch Beaver Applin tell the story of Bucky's, and what a story indeed. Part of the appeal was just its overbuiltness. It's just big, and it always feels like there's plenty of space, even on the biggest days. And then those bathrooms, spotless.
And it makes common sense, but making it an important part of the experience, well, Bucky's gets that down, including how the employees treat people and how the employees are treated. They're well paid, we learned. And Bucky's founder has his own views. He's a Christian, and his political views are well known in the area, but he does not impose those views on his customers. He wants everyone to feel welcome at Bucky's.
When we come back, More of the story, the rest of the story, of Buckeye's, an American institution. Here on OwlAmerican Stories.
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This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture Eastas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Los Culturalists with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. Hey, Bowen, it's gift season. Oh, stressing me out. Why are all the people I love so hard to shop for?
Like me? Exactly. Honey, I'm easy. But you're right. Holiday gifting is stressful.
And all the gift guides out there are boring and uninspired. Wait, what about the guide we made? A partnership with Marshalls, where premium gifts mean incredible value? It's giving gifts! A series of guides filled with premium gifts at great value for everyone on your list.
Yeah, because if I see one more for the dad who likes golf list, I'm out. Right? How about something for the people who actually surprise you? With categories like best gifts for the mom whose idea of a sensible walking shoe is a stiletto, ps, she wants a pair of stilettos. Or best gifts for me that were so thoughtful, I really shouldn't have.
Dying to see what those are. And you won't believe their prices. Just wait till you see what else is in there. It's basically a one-stop shop for everyone you know. I started bookmarking half the list for myself, honestly.
This is the guide for the 2025 holiday gifting season. Check out the guide on marshalls.com. It's giving gifts. Gift the good stuff at Marshalls. And we continue with our American stories and the story of Buckies.
Let's pick up where we last left off. with Texas Monthly writer Eric Benson. Look. I don't think everyone loves working at Bucky's. I know how you know If you look online, there are people who do not like the fact that it's so strict in terms of presentation and personal code and standing all the time and not being on your phone.
And it's really. I don't think it's the easiest place to work in the world because they want this experience and they want their employees to be representatives of the company in a way that most jobs like that don't care that much.
So it's something that kind of has to click for people, but I think when when it does, people really, really get into it. And Beaver really liked that because, at the end of the day, it's what they love is his vision for it, whether they know it or not. I have been extremely blessed. and the Buckeyes family has been extremely blessed. And so I find myself really enjoying giving back to the community, whether it's a local community where we have a store or whether it's statewide.
I mean, the involvement that I've chosen to make in volunteer you know aspects It really does the heart good. I enjoy it. You know, you got to manage your time because we have a business to run and you got to manage the volunteer things that you can do, but I've enjoyed it. I just finished up at the board of Association of Former Students at Texas AM, so that was fun. And now I have a new project to build at AM.
We're doing a School of Hospitality building a new building, an entire new four-year curriculum on the Texas AM campus. And I've been asked. To lead that charge, and so I'm going to look forward to that. That's my next volunteer duty: to create and work towards. uh this new school hospitality.
I think that when I was there five years ago, and I'm sure this is more now. You know, it was $14 an hour. At some point, you got into a 401k program, there was paid vacation, and that's for an entry-level job at Bucky's. That certainly is not. the pay structure.
at an average run-of-the-mail gas station convenience store. you have to be a representative of the brand. in a way that you do in a corporate job? but often not in an entry-level service job. I think much like you would as a Disney World employee.
No colored hair, no visible tattoos, you have to wear nice shoes, you can't look at your cell phone, you have to be standing the whole time. And so there's a kind of brand representation and professionalism that. is drummed into you. And I think if you can't... do it or you don't want to do it, you get drummed out of there pretty quickly.
But the reward of it is that it is a place I think that really values its own culture and promotes from within. A lot of the people who run Bucky stores come up through Bucky stores. They can be jobs with real growth potential. They're not dead-end jobs. That's unique.
It's a little bit of a different. you're working for a pretty large corporation. And a closely held, privately run corporation that really values its own culture. It's just one of the things that we take the most pride in. I mean, we're 8,500 strong that actually work for the company.
I'm not talking about vendors, manufacturers, producers. And we just take great pride. My partner Don and I take great pride. in having providing a A business, a career, a livable wage for 8,500 people. I mean, that's Uh, you know, sometimes I have to pinch myself and think about that.
So, we focus on the store, the cleanliness, what we provide for the customer, for the experience. But there's a whole lot to be said for the pride and ownership for the careers. of those 8,500 people that work with us. to bring our brand and our product to the public.
So, if you drive down the highways of Texas. you're gonna know about Buckies in two ways. Way number one is you might see you might see bumper stickers of the Bucky Beaver. And you say, oh, what's that? Way number two is that If you are driving on an interstate highway in Texas, you're very likely to see a billboard.
Of buckies. And the billboard will usually Be a short sentence with some light pun about. Go into the bathroom. About Food, something like that, and it'll then probably tell you how many miles until the next buckies. And this was a deliberate effort on the part of Buckies.
They hired a Houston advertising firm. that sort of started this boulder rolling. And now I think actually they get a lot of these. There's almost a contest of employees where they will submit ideas for the billboards, for the wording of the billboards, and the best ones will. that you know we'll rise whoever's in charge of that if Bucky's And I would not be surprised if Beaver personally approves them before they go out there.
they will kind of rise to the top. It's the gas station convenience store as destination, almost like a roadside attraction. In the days when there still are some, of course, there used to be many more, but this idea of, you know. A hundred miles down the road, there's there are these caves. You know, that you might wanna explore, and we have a little or, you know, there's a snake farm 60 miles down the road.
Just go, and you'll, as you get, you know, 30 miles down the road, 10 miles down the road, and Bucky's. You're only a hundred miles away from Mobucky's. Don't stop now. Don't stop for gas now. Wait a hundred miles.
A hundred miles, of course, is a long way. But they really start I I think they do start about a hundred miles away. Telling you How long until the next Buckies? And when you are on that Highway. and you see the the Bucky's logo.
and a big pole sticking up. It's like this beacon. Ah, I've reached the promised land. I'm going to get off and go into Bucky's. Of course, everybody knows about, you know, we have 120 fueling stations at our big store.
So we've already, in a big way, taken care of the automo, the gasoline, diesel automobiles. But we're installing the electric. And we think we have a pretty good environment for the people to Walk around and shop because it does take a little longer to charge electric vehicles, and so we're installing them as we go and plan on being ready to take care of that market.
So one thing that Bucky's has always had is that they do not allow 18 wheelers. There are two big reasons. One is it's easier to drive around and find gas pumps and find parking when you're not. dodging these, you know, huge tractor trailers and the way that they can turn and take up a ton of room.
So it makes getting into and out of Buckies easier. And then two is they want Most of the traffic to be car travelers. It's not a commercial truck stop. And a lot of big travel centers, I think, cater to. Commercial truck stops, and part of what Bucky's is trying to do to set itself apart is say, we are not a commercial truck stop.
This is not a place where Guys who have been driving for 12 hours need to stop for a shower and a hot meal. what their ideal customer is the Family of four or five stopping on the way to go to the lake for the weekend. And so anything they can do. To get more of those people in, make it more comfortable for them, and take away any reason they wouldn't want to stop there, I think that's what they're trying to do. We're enjoying the expansion and we're still having we're just having a good time.
And as long as our fans appreciate what we bring to them and bring to their travel experience, we're going to keep doing it. I don't think this is a vision that Beaver Applin had in 1982 when he opened his first gas station in Lake Jackson, Texas. But it's a story about someone building a business very slowly over a long period of time and Conquering the world over the course of 40 years instead of trying to conquer it over. Three. I just want to thank everybody from the bottom of my heart for loving Texas.
for uh being a Buckies fan. for appreciating what we do and what we bring to the market. Uh And I just can't say enough. As my fifth grade teacher told me, Mrs. Bankson, one day, and I didn't understand it then, I understand it now, she said, her cup runneth over.
and my cup runneth over. Thank y'all and God bless Texas. Yeah. And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler. And a special thanks to Eric Benson of the Texas Monthly.
And a special thanks to Arch Beaver Applin, not only for giving us Buckies. But for telling the story of this iconic brand that he built and that was in his head. but that he took his time building. Stories like this we simply adore. Without this entrepreneur, we don't have this institution.
People make a difference in this country. One idea, one person, resilience and perseverance to make it happen. And the treatment of those customers and the employees, reminiscent of what Truitt Cathy did at Chick-fil-A, and both Christian men letting their Christian values and how they treat people. With generosity, abundance, and love. A classic American story and the best case in the world for free enterprise.
Treat your people well, the people treat their customers well, deliver a fabulous service at a fabulous price. Only the free enterprise system can deliver that. The story of Buckies, the story of the American dream manifested. And the story of the free enterprise system at work in all of its glory. Here.
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Mm-hmm.
