{"id":310510,"date":"2026-06-17T15:08:56","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T15:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/310510\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T15:08:56","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T15:08:56","slug":"how-did-buc-ees-get-its-name-you-might-be-surprised","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/310510\/","title":{"rendered":"How did Buc-ee\u2019s get its name? You might be surprised"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 Despite its Texan upbringing, Buc-ee\u2019s<\/a> has been a smash hit for many Florida residents since its debut in St. Augustine<\/a> years ago.<\/p>\n

Since then, the mega-gas station chain has expanded to Daytona Beach<\/a>, with plans to soon bring the beaver to St. Lucie County<\/a> and a \u201cTexas-sized\u201d location to Marion County<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In all, there are 48 different Buc-ee\u2019s locations in the U.S., and the chain touts the world\u2019s largest convenience store<\/a> and longest car wash<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The store offers numerous gas pumps, clean bathrooms<\/a>, Beaver Nuggets (caramel popcorn), Texas-style brisket sandwiches, fresh jerky, T-shirts, hats, blankets, mugs and more.<\/p>\n

But how did the iconic chain get its name?<\/p>\n

According to The Washington Post<\/a>, there are two main sources.<\/p>\n

The chain\u2019s founder, Arch Aplin III, built his first gas station and convenience store in the Texas town of Lake Jackson back in 1982.<\/p>\n

Aplin reportedly dubbed the company after his Labrador retriever named \u201cBuck\u201d and his own childhood nickname \u2014 \u201cBucky Beaver\u201d \u2014 which also happened to be the name of a cartoon beaver in a toothpaste ad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By combining his pet\u2019s nickname with his own, Aplin came up with the iconic moniker: Buc-ee\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Buc-ee\u2019s wouldn\u2019t leave the Lone Star State until 2019, which is when it opened up in Alabama\u2019s Baldwin County, right by the border to Florida\u2019s Panhandle.<\/p>\n

While the largest store is found in Tennessee, an even larger store is planned to be built near I-75 in the Ocala area by next year. That Buc-ee\u2019s gas station is expected to sit at a whopping 80,000 square feet.<\/p>\n

In addition, a fourth Florida Buc-ee\u2019s is in the works along Florida\u2019s Treasure Coast in St. Lucie County. That gas station is expected to feature over 100 gas pumps and nearly 800 parking spaces.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2024 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 Despite its Texan upbringing, Buc-ee\u2019s has been a smash hit for many Florida residents since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1287,3160,104,6919,28,3833,2649,139,141,140,2663,10195,5537,2261],"class_list":["post-310510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-buc-ees","tag-daytona-beach","tag-entertainment","tag-features","tag-florida","tag-marion-county","tag-ocala","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-st-augustine","tag-tennessee","tag-texas","tag-volusia-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}