Led by Buc-ee’s and new rival Dolly Parton, America’s gas station chains are in a mega-sizing era

In an aerial view, the Buc-ee's convenience store is seen on June 12, 2024 in Luling, Texas. The Texas-based convenience store and gas stop, Buc-ee's has become the world's largest convenience store with over 100 gas pumps and a 75,000 square feet store.

Brandon Bell | Getty Images

As the Fourth of July holiday approaches and Americans head to the beach, mountains, or someplace in between, they'll more than likely see something that they wouldn't have seen just a few years ago: the mega-gas station.

Gas stations have been reinventing themselves for the past decade with food offerings that rival many established grub-only chains. But now they are doing something else: growing in physical size and attracting legions of fans along the way.

Buc-ee's is the heavyweight in the growing gas station phenomenon with over 50 locations in 13 states.

Sally McQuinn drove from her home near Roanoke, Virginia, to Dayton, Ohio, to celebrate the opening of the company's first Ohio location. "I'm a super fan of Bucs for sure," McQuinn said, using a nickname with the familiarity of an old friend. She added that she got her photo taken with the chain's owner, who visited the Dayton opening.

On a recent summer evening at the Dayton Buc-ee's, almost all of the station's 120 pumps were occupied, but the real action was happening in the store. There, employees chant "Brisket on the Booooard" every time fresh brisket moves into a carving station. And customers snap up sandwiches of brisket, three-meat sandwiches, and anything else. The largest Buc-ee's, in Texas, is over 75,000 square feet. For comparison, gas stations like Sheetz and Wawa usually are around 7,000 square feet. A low-end Walmart comes in at around 150,000 square feet.

"The traditional gas station is rapidly transforming from a transactional stop for fuel into a sprawling, multi-faceted retail and travel destination. This evolution is driven primarily by razor-thin profit margins on gasoline, forcing operators to leverage fuel as a loss leader to draw customers into high-margin convenience stores and food service," said Sudip Mazumder, senior vice president, retail industry lead, North America at Publicis Sapient, a digital business transformation and marketing consultancy.

Other factors fueling this growth include changing consumer expectations for cleaner, more experiential stops, the need to accommodate electric vehicles requiring longer charging times, and the long-standing need to cater extensively to professional truckers.

Gas stations have been growing in size and morphing into all-in-one travel centers for some time. But the arrival of Buc-ee's supercharged the trend and spawned imitators like Wally's, which has three 50,000-square-foot locations in the Midwest, with plans for more. The stores, which have a Midwest vibe, have amenities like a popcorn bar and an assortment of jerky to rival Buc-ee's.

Whether intentional or not, these stores are tapping into the nostalgia associated with the traditional family road trip adventure by providing a stop that is more than just gas-and-go with questionable restrooms, says Tom Seng, professor of professional practice at Texas Christian University, and because millions of Americans still take vacations on the road, the interstate system is a perfect location for these.

"These stores have become destinations in themselves for some people," Seng said.

Locals, he noted, can also use them as a de facto grocery or a fuel stop. "Having been to a Buc-ee's many times myself, I know there will be many gas pumps, so I shouldn't have a long wait. The restrooms will be clean and there is a variety of food," Seng said, noting the BBQ and a variety of roasted nuts providing tempting aromas as soon as you enter.

For the corporations, there are much higher margins on food and gift sales than on gasoline.

"Buc-ee's doesn't advertise its gasoline prices like its competitors, but that is more of a service to draw customers inside," Seng said.

The grand opening of Dolly Parton's Dolly's Tennessean Travel Stop, an 18-acre development including a dog park, a theater, restaurant and bar, trucker showers, and lounge.

Dolly's Tennessean Travel Stop

And, now, there's Dolly's, where the gas seems almost an afterthought — only 16 pumps at the 25,000-square-foot, 18-acre behemoth, which includes a dog park, a theater, restaurant and bar, trucker showers, and lounge. But look for more — and bigger — Dolly's locations after the grand opening last week of the first Dolly's in Cornersville, Tennessee, which even brought out the establishment's namesake, who took a light-hearted jab at Buc-ee's as she cut the ribbon.

"Initially, we are focusing on making the Cornersville flagship location the best it can be. The plan is to open up locations throughout the country, in a deliberate, measured fashion," said Gregory H. Sachs, partner of Dolly's Tennessean Travel Stop. Sachs said Parton and her team were involved in all aspects of creating the travel stop.

Elizabeth Lafontaine, director of research at Placer.ai, a location analytics firm, said that the latest mega-offerings are a natural progression in this segment, one that's outliving its own category name.

"The convenience store channel has, in many ways, evolved past its name to become a full-service one-stop shop for consumers," said Lafontaine. "As the lines blur between grocery stores, convenience stores (c-stores), and quick-service restaurants, convenience chains have effectively changed shoppers' perceptions, becoming must-visit destinations during a typical weekday or as a special stop on a vacation," Lafontaine said.

Placer.ai's data shows that shoppers spend more time in-store at chains that focus on prepared food or unique offerings, with Buc-ee's seeing the longest dwell time of any c-store chain, roughly double the time of the nearest competitor.

Average dwell time (in minutes) at convenience store chains

Buc-ee's: 20.8

Wawa: 11.7

Sheetz: 11.7

7-Eleven: 9.8

Circle K: 9.3

Casey's General Store: 8.7

Cumberland Farms: 8.5

Source: Placer.ai

Lafontaine said that the category definition has expanded as a variety of c-store formats emerge and become popular.

"Social media has played a key role in bringing regional offerings onto the national stage, which has in turn pushed all chains to take a closer look at what resonates with consumers," she said.

The growth does come with assorted growing pains.

As convenience store formats encroach on grocery and superstore territory in both size and assortment, chains need to consider how to maximize their popularity without creating excessive additional competition.

"Larger-format chains like Buc-ee's have successfully added general merchandise and private-label goods — accounting for close to 50% of the store floor — that are often just as popular as their prepared foods among shoppers. But this strategy may be limited by the c-store model and isn't necessarily indicative of how other chains plan to compete for consumer attention," Lafontaine said.

Buc-ee's is succeeding in getting customers to stay in its stores longer, something Dolly's and Wally's are trying to emulate. Dolly's entertainment options will especially increase the "stickiness" in stay. For instance, upcoming events feature a story time in the auditorium from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Marbue Brown, CEO and founder of the Customer Obsession Advantage, a customer-experience consulting firm, says success is more about the zeitgeist and less about the size. "They need to have that kind of Cabbage Patch appeal so people who stop feel like they have to have one. Those are the aspects of the Buc-ee's experience these competitors need to emulate, not the size," Brown said. "Buc-ee's has nailed it. ... people want to buy a T-shirt telling the world they were there," Brown said.

There is a limit to the square footage.

"While these stores can get remarkably large, physical expansion faces practical limits in land availability, zoning, and operational complexity, suggesting future growth might prioritize optimizing services and space over sheer square footage," Mazumder said.

The mega-size convenience store-gas station could, in fact, be approaching its upper limit.

Since these stores are designed to serve the interstate traveler, they don't locate in major urban areas, instead preferring more rural settings along the highway. "That benefits the small towns connected to our interstate system. Buc-ee's appears to be setting the standard for now, but I don't see the development of shops larger than what they currently have," Seng said.

Dolly's says it is focused on delivering a place that feels like home. "In general, bigger is not always better," Sachs said. "So, there will be some max size where the 'home' feeling is lost. We haven't figured out yet what that exact size is," he said.

In the end, all the brisket, fudge, beef jerky, and kitschy highway trinkets may not matter as much as one aspect of the experience all the chains need to execute on, according to Brown: "People love Buc-ee's for the one thing that gets people to stop more than anything else: clean bathrooms."

"The idea is that spotless facilities make people feel comfortable. If they are comfortable using the bathroom, they feel comfortable eating there and spending more money. If bathrooms aren't clean, we don't eat here," he said.