Another Buc-ee’s breaks ground in Georgia as locals roll out welcome mat

The new Middle Georgia store at Exit 181, about 17 miles northwest of downtown Macon, will be the Peach State’s fourth Buc-ee’s. When finished, likely in late summer 2027, it will be one of the two largest in Georgia, the same size as one that opened last summer along I-95 in Brunswick on Georgia’s coast. It is expected to employ more than 200 full-time workers.

The new Buc-ee’s will sit within a 25-minute drive of one already open in Warner Robins to the south. The company hopes to, in part, draw customers who might be traveling between northern Georgia and the Atlantic coast. Those motorists, who typically take I-16 between Macon and Savannah, would otherwise miss passing the farther-south Buc-ee’s on I-75 in Peach County.

The other existing Buc-ee’s in Georgia is along I-75 near Calhoun, north of Atlanta.

Buc-ee’s President Arch “Beaver” Aplin III said he hadn’t foreseen the potential for motoring America’s fascination with his namesake brand when he founded the company four decades ago.

“It’s evolved,” he told a reporter on Tuesday morning.

Aplin, who had on sunglasses, a highway-gray sports coat and a 10-gallon hat, said the broad appeal of Buc-ee’s grew from “trying to provide an exceptional experience.”

Credit: Katie Tucker

Credit: Katie Tucker

Later, at a groundbreaking ceremony, local officials beneath a white tent gushed over the commerce to come at the for-now-barren, 35-acre tract that abuts the interstate’s southbound off-ramp.

Joyce White, former executive director of the Development Authority of Monroe County, recalled the secrecy in the project’s early stages. She told of first hearing about an unnamed interstate-side business that would be “much more grand than a Buc-ee’s.”

White said it was then that she sensed subterfuge. Because, she told the gathering Tuesday, “there isn’t any gas station more grand than a Buc-ee’s.”

One elected official likened the Buc-ee’s bucktoothed beaver mascot’s recognizability to that of Ronald McDonald or Mickey Mouse. Another congratulated locals for the potential for “all that sales tax revenue that’s gonna be produced here lowering your property taxes.” A development authority board member said, “Buc-ee’s embodies what, I think, America stands for: Let’s go big or let’s go home.”

Credit: Joe Kovac

Credit: Joe Kovac

When it came time for Aplin to address the crowd of 150 or so, he made sure to laud what he described as the most integral component of building a mega travel center: cooperation of a state’s department of transportation.

And he said it wasn’t by happenstance that Buc-ee’s set its sights on Georgia.

“We gravitate toward business-friendly communities, where we can hire people with good work ethic. We need a lot of employees, a lot of people, a lot of associates,” Aplin said before delivering a crowd-pleasing punchline steeped in Southern pride. “And so it’s not a coincidence that we’re in Georgia and not in ... California.”

Seconds later, after a burst of applause, Aplin, a Texas A&M grad and proud Aggie, acknowledged an invitation someone in the crowd had extended to attend a football game at the University of Georgia.

“I love being in Georgia, but I’m not sure I’m excited about playing Georgia,” he said.

Just then, the wind kicked up. A dozen or so ceremonial shovels propped against a table for the groundbreaking blew over with a clang.

“OK,” Aplin joked, “that may be some kind of indication.”