Opinion Buc-ee's Is The Sickness At The Heart Of America - The gas guzzling junk food store is the epitome of American hubristic excess

By Bradley Brownell
Published Thursday 11:30AM


Image: Buc-ee’s

The United States may not have the kinds of pre-Christian mega-structure buildings that exist in nearly every other corner of the globe. No, we aren’t living amongst the gorgeous marble altars to a pantheon of gods, or the crumbling remains of towering temples or palaces. But what we lack in vintage we’re more than making up for lost time clearing space in our lives for modern day gods. We’ll absolutely clear a couple dozen acres of pristine natural land to plop down a giant fueling depot with hundreds of gas pumps, miles-long car washing robot tunnels, and a grocery store/barbecue restaurant/junk store packed with shit nobody needs. Buc-ee’s is our Parthenon, The Automobile is our Athena, and that chubby and cheerful wood-chewing rodent is her symbolic owl stand-in.

I am currently writing this post from the passenger seat of a road trip across this gloriously fucked up nation. In addition to the amber waves of grain and purple mountains majesty, the highways and byways of America are pockmarked by the occasional arrival of the bucktoothed bastard’s concrete haven. The large yellow sign rises above the landscape to request your presence. You must tithe to your god, little one. Bless me father, for I have sinned. It has been two years since my last fill up on pump 82.

“Come inside,” beckons the Buc. Whatever you desire, this miniature metroplex can conjure. No man is an island, and no road trip can go by without a pit stop for sugary drinkies, a cone of candied nuts, or a glob of molasses-sweet pig meat on a bun. Grab yourself some Beaver Nuggets, whatever the fuck that is. Don’t worry, it’s delicious. Never you mind what might be inside. Would you like a machete or a fish finder? Perhaps a t-shirt of your favorite sports team? A meat smoker?

This country is a seriously bizarre place to live, and Buc-ee’s is a microcosm of our American existence at present. This combination gas station-grocery store-way of life is a mirror we have erected to show us ourselves. It’s the highway equivalent of junk food. It almost certainly shouldn’t exist, and we are worse as a culture for having had it, but goddamn does it flip the right switches in our collective brain. It is truly junk that shouldn’t be great, but the rot at the core of America is what makes us who we are. Buc-ee’s, the Bass Pro Shops pyramid, and ordering shit we’ll throw away in a month from Temu, these are the new Gods of America, and they deserve their shrines.

Of course, being the trash bag normie all-American dork that I am, I fucking love the place. Buc-ee’s is the store we deserve. I am a beaver believer. There are cathedrals everywhere for those with the eyes to see.

Source (Archive)

 

[FlappyBat]

I'm supposed to be mad that a business provides a fair service, clean facilities, and good wages (six figures for some store managers) to the working class public? I thought the idea of the left was to advocate for the working class?

 

[Here to Gawk]

Never been to a Buc-ees. Are they just giant gas station convenience stores?

For the curious, there are tons of Youtube videos about Buc-ees if want to see what a typical one looks like.

 

[The Lawgiver]

It's the closest America has gotten to japanese convenience stores in terms of the trifecta of clean/fresh/safe

There's also wawa and (some) 7-11s but that last one is more RNG. Also 7-11 partly moved to japan and got really big there but that's common knowledge.

Speaking of wawa as much as I like them I hate the fact they closed down basically all the smaller "not gas station" ones. 7-11 didn't do that but as said clean 7-11s in the us are becoming scarce.
The size of buc-ees more reminds me of Trader Joes than it does convenience stores but it's a weird in-between I guess.

 

[Free the Pedos]

It's an experience.

Imagine stopping in for gas but you get a brisket sandwich, homemade potato chips, and a pound of beef jerky wrapped in butcher paper.

And you can also do your Christmas shopping, outfit your kitchen, and buy a new wardrobe.

 

[mandatorylurk]

There are smaller Buc-ee's, having driven from Houston to Austin you come across not just the big ones but the ones in a regular gas station sq. footage. They might be limited in what they can cook on-site but they are consistently stocked twice a day from a nearby larger location an hour down the road on a different highway route.

 

[Gan Ying]

This writing style is just so obnoxious. It would have been quaint if Maddox published this article in 1999. It would have been old hat if it'd been posted on Cracked circa 2010. Now it's just embarrassing.
You don't need to pretend to be Hunter Thompson covering every gay little thing that happens in your life.

 

[Kingfisher9000]

This combination gas station-grocery store-way of life is a mirror we have erected to show us ourselves. It’s the highway equivalent of junk food. It almost certainly shouldn’t exist, and we are worse as a culture for having had it, but goddamn does it flip the right switches in our collective brain. It is truly junk that shouldn’t be great, but the rot at the core of America is what makes us who we are.

What a self righteous faggot. We don’t even have these stores in my state. Remember when Wal-Mart was the great American Satan? They were killing small businesses, so at least there was a reason to hate them. This is just pathetic.

 

[Standardized Profile]

The United States may not have the kinds of pre-Christian mega-structure buildings that exist in nearly every other corner of the globe.

The Americas are richly wooded, and the mound-builders built their habitable structures out of wood. But the mounds themselves are mega-structures of a sort. And some of them are older than the Egyptian pyramids. But they're in the parts of the country you fly over, and Indians aren't a fashionable race among the bien pensant of the left, so their achievements tend to get overlooked.

 

[ObeseScreamingBlackMan]

Bradley Brownell writes for Jalopnik because legacy auto media wouldn’t have him, has a Kermit the Frog ass Jordan Peterson voice, is universally loathed by every single person who’s ever worked with him (esp the women) and has admitted to being so autistic he’s literally face-blind.

Basically a millennial Jack Baruth but somehow even worse at writing.

The fact that he likes Bucc-ee’s is almost enough to make me never want to go there ever again.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

I'm pissed that they seem to be phasing out the order kiosks for just pre-wrapped stuff hot or cold but the restrooms are still reliably clean, which I definitely can't say for, say, Love's.

 

[Buttigieg2020]

My takeaway from this thread is that if you want to impress an American, show them a clean bathroom.

I was amazed when I found any Public Bathroom in the UK, let alone a nice one.

 

[pwnest injun]

I thought maybe the press had caught on that The Wrong Sort of Person likes Buck-ees, but it's just some faggot's blog. Oh well...

 

[LaxerBRO]

The only issue I have with Buc-ees is they don't sell ammo.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

My takeaway from this thread is that if you want to impress an American, show them a clean bathroom.

Our public bathrooms are pretty nasty. The bar is so low that a public bathroom not covered in needles, shit stains, piss, and out of order signs is a novelty.

 

[Snekposter]

Has this glorified blogger not seen the giant Bass Pro Shops pyramid of awesome?

In a land without inbred noblemen desperate to remind the peasants of their insignificance in life, the USA has businessmen who create massive edifices to their glory for you to pay your respects in, and walk out afterwards with a boon.

 

[Homegrown Homophobia]

Real chads get their gas and junk food at Maverik's instead.

 

[Wahgonga]

Cheap enough gas, clean bathrooms, decent road trip food. What's the big fucking problem other than no ammo?

 

[Coldgrip]

...and a pound of beef jerky wrapped in butcher paper.

Does Buc-ee's have it's own butcher shop?

 

[Male Idiot]

It looks lile what you need with a busy highway.

The US has a lot of long roads that are heavily travelled.

Selling food, items, gas makes sense there.

If you are in a mid 12 hour drive to visit Florida and forgot your anti-gator machete, do you really want to drive 6 hours back home?

 

[Billy Bob Dick]

...what kind of soy-eating pale pasty cuck faggot wrote this shit??

Jesus Christ almighty, if this is the kind of whinging we're going to have to put up with for the next four years then I vote we have the Boogaloo right now, just so we can shut these pussies the fuck up