‘He’s not coming here’: Curley explains why famous gas station Buc-ee’s is probably never coming to WA

KIRO Newsradio’s John Curley has a message for anyone in Washington state hoping to one day pull into a Buc-ee’s off the interstate: don’t hold your breath.

“Come to Washington,” Curley cracked sarcastically on “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio after hearing Buc-ee’s CEO Arch Aplin III explain his company’s expansion strategy at a grand opening in Benton, Arkansas, on Aug. 17.

Aplin, standing alongside Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Senator Tom Cotton, made it plain. He said the chain will seek out “conservative, business-friendly states” for future growth, according to USA Today.

“I’m starting to realize life’s too short to try to build in places that people don’t appreciate what you’re bringing versus a place like this, where people do appreciate what you’re building,” Aplin said in a video shared by Sanders on social media.

The company now operates 58 locations across 13 states, with six more planned by the end of 2027 in Louisiana, Kansas, Wisconsin, Indiana, Utah and Florida, USA Today reported. Not a single one is in the Pacific Northwest.

The $60 Buc-ee’s bathroom trick

Curley, who has clearly done his homework on the Buc-ee’s business model, walked listeners through the strategy that turned a Texas gas station into a road trip institution. It starts with the bathroom.

The company knows the driver wants to keep going, but the passenger wants a clean restroom. So Buc-ee’s built famously spotless facilities, and once you’re out of the car and inside, you’re walking through a retail operation the size of a small department store.

“The markup on everything in the store, at the lowest point, is 40%,” Curley said. “Their briskets, their jerky, all of that is packaged for them. They don’t buy from anybody else, directly from the vendors. The T-shirts, the hats, all that.”

The average customer who walks in just to use the restroom drops about $60, Curley said, and that’s before buying gas. With roughly 11,000 visitors per location per day, those numbers add up fast.

“That’s $4 million a year,” Curley said. “All together, if you take all their locations, 100 million people go through.”

KIRO Newsradio anchor Aaron Granillo backed up the hype from personal experience. He visited a Texas location on a road trip with friends from Houston.

“It’s massive,” Granillo said. “They had like 120 gas pumps. It was fascinating. It was beautiful, and great service too, and clean. Like a little mini mall.”

Curley asked what he spent.

“Like 10 bucks,” Granillo said. “On the sandwich.”

A beaver and a dog walk into a gas station

The Buc-ee’s origin story is pure Texas. Aplin grew up in Lake Jackson, where his father was a homebuilder. He graduated from Texas A&M in 1980 with a building construction degree and opened his first convenience store in 1982. It was about 3,000 square feet with two pumps near Lake Jackson.

The name came from a mashup of his childhood nickname “Beaver” and his Labrador retriever, Buck.

Today the company is privately held and doesn’t disclose revenue, but it is famously aggressive about protecting that beaver brand. Curley rattled off a string of trademark lawsuits the chain has filed: a cartoon dog named “Frio Beaver,” a chicken-rooster logo, and Bucky’s, a Nebraska-based convenience store chain whose name and beaver mascot hit a little too close.

“They don’t want anybody getting close to them on that stuff,” Curley said.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has urged the chain to drop a lawsuit against Beaver’s Mini Mart, a small local business near a new Buc-ee’s location, according to USA Today.

Curley pointed out the silver lining for local businesses here: “Don’t worry about it, because this guy says he’s not building in any other … he’s not coming here. He’s never going to see that.”

So what does this mean for Washington?

Washington Buc-ee’s fans are out of luck. Aplin’s vision of business-friendly governance “trickling down from the very leadership, from the very top at the governor’s office” is a direct signal that states led by progressive politicians are not on the list.

Every state on the upcoming expansion list leans red or has Republican governors, according to USA Today.

So while Washingtonians may keep running into Buc-ee’s on road trips through Texas, the Southeast and the Midwest, the chances of a 120-pump mega station appearing off a Washington highway are basically zero.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to John Curley weekday afternoons from 3 – 7 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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