Oak Grove Mayor Theresa Jarvis stepped up to the speaker’s microphone at Tuesday’s Christian Fiscal Court meeting to tell county officials about some of the plans for growth in her community.
Then she dropped this nugget:
“I don’t know if anybody has heard but a Buc-ee’s is coming to Oak Grove — 145 gas pumps and 300 employees,” she said.
Oak Grove, which borders Interstate 24 and U.S. 41-A, apparently would be the third Buc-ee’s location in Kentucky. The Texas-based company, privately held by Arch Aplin III and Don Wasek, operates huge convenience stores with gas stations in the South.
There is a Buc-ee’s under construction at Richmond that’s expected to open by this summer, and another is planned at Smiths Grove near Bowling Green. The first Tennessee Buc-ee’s is under construction in Crossville.
A company spokesman declined to confirm Buc-ee’s plans to develop a site in Christian County. But Jeff Nadalo, general counsel for Buc-ee’s, said the company is looking at Kentucky sites in addition to the Richmond and Smiths Grove locations.
“Ordinarily we will not release any specific site information until we have completed all due diligence and secured all approvals,” Nadalo told Hoptown Chronicle in an email.
Featured in a Jan. 30 segment on “CBS Sunday Morning,” Buc-ee’s is known as a cultural phenomenon. The stores are larger than many grocery stores.
Customers can get homemade fudge, jerky and brisket prepared on site, and the stores feature a slew of clothing options emblazoned with the company’s buck-toothed beaver mascot.
The Buc-ee’s restrooms — which the owners brag are “spacious and private” — are also a draw.
The first Buc-ee’s, a typical-sized convenience store, opened near Houston in 1982. The company’s first large store opened in Luling, Texas in 2003.
The Buc-ee’s model is to be a “highway oases,” for long-distance travelers, Texas Monthly wrote in a 2019 cover story headlined “Buc-ee’s: The Path to World Domination.”
The company has not yet publicly announced plans for the Oak Grove store. The website lists 41 locations currently open in Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Texas.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
