Buc-ee’s Ltd. opened its 46th convenience store on June 26 in Sevierville, Tennessee. The store’s 74,000-square-foot floor plan makes it the largest c-store in the world, the company said. It takes the title from Buc-ee’s own 68,000-square-foot New Braunfels, Texas, store, and it will remain the biggest until the company opens its 75,000-square-foot location in Luling, Texas, in February 2024.
- Buc-ee's is No. 153 on CSP’s 2023 Top 202 ranking of U.S. convenience-store chains by store count.
Along with its giant c-store, Buc-ee’s Sevierville has 120 gas fueling positions and a car wash, and it features the chain’s famous clean restrooms. The store offers Buc-ee’s favorites including Texas barbeque, homemade fudge, kolaches, Beaver Nuggets, jerky and fresh pastries.
The store is located at “The 407,” the gateway to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee; Dollywood; Gatlinburg, Tennessee; and Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Buc-ee’s built the Sevierville store in partnership with Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), which owns The 407: Gateway to Adventure, a destination featuring shops, restaurants and cabins. Kituwah, LLC purchased the 200-acre parcel for $13.5 million in 2019, and Buc-ee’s portion encompasses about 30 acres of that land, according to The One Feather.com.
Buc-ee’s Sevierville will bring at least 200 new full-time jobs to the area, the company said.
Meanwhile, Buc-ee’s broke ground on a 53,471-square-foot travel center in Smiths Grove, Kentucky, on June 5, the retailer’s second in Kentucky. The first, Buc-ee’s Richmond, opened in April 2022. Smiths Grove will be the smallest city in the country with a Buc-ee’s, said the company.
Founded in Texas in 1982, Lake Jackson, Texas-based Buc-ee’s operates 46 stores across Texas and the South. Since beginning its multi-state expansion in 2019, Buc-ee’s has opened travel centers in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee. Buc-ee’s is headed West with store groundbreakings in Colorado and Missouri.
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