Buc-ee’s (Smiths Grove)
4001 Smiths Grove-Scottsville RoadBuckle up. This is going to be a long one.
There was no way we were going to make an eight hour drive from Kalamazoo to Nashville without a couple of stops.
We actually had a pretty good plan. We knew the first stop was going to be in Kokomo, IN at a 7 Brew. We actually skipped our usual Dunkin’ stop on the way out of town and made it the whole two and a half hours to Kokomo before we stopped for gas, bathrooms and to get drinks.
The second stop would come at a rest stop in southern Indiana. You can only make it so far without a bathroom after getting those big drinks from 7 Brew.
The third stop was another planned one. It was another we had all been looking forward to. It was also my first time stopping at a Buc-ee’s.
The Buc-ee’s in Smiths Grove, KY is right off I-65 at Smiths Grove-Scottsville Road. The massive 53,000 square foot, 120 pump mega gas station opened about two years ago in the small town near the Kentucky border with Tennessee. It is the 2nd location in Kentucky (the other is in Richmond south of Lexington). The store feel intimidating from the moment you pull off the highway. It’s a gas station but on a scale that’s hard to wrap your head around. There is a roundabout leading in to the parking lot and it helps to pick the right lane. The right lane takes you in to the pump area while the left lane lets you bypass that and head in to the parking area for the convenience store part of the property.
The last couple year’s I’ve wrote blog posts about a similar style gas station called Wally’s with locations in Pontiac, Illinois and Fenton, Missouri. I kind of alluded to them being Buc-ee’s knockoffs or “Temu Buc-ee’s” as my son called it. Not going to lie, it was a little bit eerie when I walked in to see just how familiar Buc-ee’s felt even though I’ve never been in one before. But those Wally’s experiences were much close to Buc-ee’s than I could have imagined.
I laughed as soon as we walked in the door and J grabbed a cart. A full on shopping cart like you were walking in to a grocery store. She said it was just easier as we were going to have a bunch of stuff and several drinks. Turns out, she was right. They also had baskets to carry if you didn’t need as much room as the four of us.
You quickly notice the massiveness of the store when you walk in. We parked on the retail side of the building and you are instantly bombarded with merchandise and a sea of people. It has a very department store like feel to it. Wide aisles merchandise on display’s in the middle.
Everything is Buc-ee’s branded. There are so many options for t-shirts, sweatshirts, swim shorts, sweat pants, etc. You name, they probably have it with a Buc-ee’s logo on it.
The rest of my family has done multiple Buc-ee’s trips between this one last year and stops at the ones near Dallas when they went there without me last summer. They already have quite a bit of Buc-ee’s branded merch but B grew out of his t-shirt from last year so we did grab him a new one.
And of course, there are plushies everywhere. We already have several different Buc-ee’s plushies at home so we didn’t have to buy any new ones this time.
I was really hungry by the time we got to southern Kentucky so I kind of blew by all of this and headed straight for the food. You know how much I eat gas station food if you read this blog regularly so I was really excited to dig in to what the ultimate gas station food stop was going to have.
The back wall has such an interesting combination of options. The first big display you come across is for jerky. This is also where the bakery is and there are other hot food options in between.
I’ve never been a huge jerky fan but if you are, they have a lot of.
Further down we get in to one of the hot food sections. It looks like a lot of other gas station grab and go stations. There are foil wrapped sandwiches, bowls of sides, and boxes of chicken tenders and fries ready to pick up.
Just past that, you get in to the bakery. There are cookies, muffins, and all sorts of other sweets. I didn’t even give this spot much of a look and if it wasn’t for taking a picture, I’d barely remember it. We weren’t there for baked goods.
There is a huge island in the middle of the store where the famous BBQ is put together. Buc-ee’s has become pretty well known for their brisket and every time a fresh brisket is pulled out, you’ll hear someone yell “Fresh brisket on the board.”
The sandwiches come a couple of different ways and are wrapped up in foil before putting under displays with heat lamps. They’re pretty well known for brisket but there is also pulled pork which seems like kind of an afterthought for a Texas based company.
The backside of this island has more sweets. There is a large display of fresh made fudge. But we’re from Michigan and known Mackinac Island is the only place to get fudge.
There is also a refrigerator with little cups of edible cookie dough. L had been raving about this. It was the thing she couldn’t wait to grab as soon as we walked in the store.
The last section of the store felt like a traditional gas station…just five times the size. There are drink coolers wrapped around the outside of the section and in the middle it’s filled with the usual packaged snacks and candy.
There’s a large wall near the front of the building with candy, nuts, dried fruits and other pre-packaged snacks. J went straight for this section when were done with the hot food.
The kids really like Buc-ee’s because of the frozen drink selection. They have a huge Icee section with a dozen different flavors.
The fountain drink section was just as big. In addition to the usual mega sodas, they have a huge selection of proprietary pops. I started looking for the Pepsi section but though that was stupid and just ended up getting a Buc-ee’s cola. Cola all tastes pretty much the same..it’s just the sweetness level that changes. The Buc-ee’s cola did have more of an RC Cola taste to it than a Pepsi but it was still tasty enough that I got one on our way home too.
If hot food doesn’t work for you, there is also a large cold grab and go cooler. There are sandwiches, salads, and snack cups to choose from. We offered B a ham sandwich sub but he said no. L grabbed a cup of cheese cubes but also passed on the salad or sandwiches. I probably should grabbed one or two of these for the hotel.
J was right about needing the cart. We had quite a bit of stuff by the time we were ready to go. Everyone had food, drinks and snacks to not only last the rest of the way (it was only an hour and a half to our hotel by this point) but snacks to last the weekend as well. When we were all done checking out, the damage came to around $85.
Alright, now let’s get in to the food. There’s no place to sit and eat so we had to sit in the car and eat before getting back on the road.
I grabbed a box of the chicken strips and fries mostly because I wanted the fries but also because I was hopeful B would eat some of the chicken. There were two long chicken tenders in the box. B ate one and I ate one. They were fine. Not a lot of flavor and definitely needed to be dipped in something.
The fries were battered French fries. These weren’t bad and there were a lot in the box. They suffer from sitting in the warmer as they lose their crispiness. This box is a pretty good value though as there is a lot of food and it was fairly cheap. I ended up not eating all the fries because I just got way too much food.
J was really excited for the pulled pork sandwich. It was a pretty traditional southern smoked pulled pork sandwich with large tender pieces of pork on a white bun. There was a thin layer of sauce but J said she wishes she would have grabbed some extra sauce with it as she likes a really sweet, sticky pulled pork of the smokey, porky tasting pork.
I had been really excited to try the brisket as I keep hearing that’s one of the reasons people crave Buc-ee’s. There are options for both sliced and chopped. I always choose sliced when that’s an option. You can also choose from sauced or not sauced. I grabbed not sauced because I love the juicy, saltiness of brisket done right. This sandwich was good but it was nowhere near a restaurant style smoked brisket. Like most things in a gas station setting, it suffers from sitting under heat lamps which continue to cook it. It was still tender but it was the melt in your mouth like butter tenderness. There also wasn’t a strong salt and/or pepper taste to it. It was a tasty sandwich (and I’d go back for more brisket on the way home as you’ll soon see) and a really strong sandwich for gas station food but if I had the choice between this sandwich and a sit down BBQ restaurant brisket, I’d likely choose the restaurant.
To go along with our sandwiches, J and I both grabbed a box of Beaver Chips. These are house made potato chips and they are delicious. We grabbed two boxes and I snacked on them all weekend. I don’t think my plan was ever to eat all of them on the drive. I knew it was going to be a great hotel snack and they really were.
On L’s recommendation, I had to grab some of the cookie dough. One of her teammates called it “life changing” when they got it in Texas. L got the ones with sprinkles but I stuck to plain chocolate chip. It was delicious. Very rich. Very sweet. Life altering? No, but it was a really good way to end the meal and get back on the road to head to our final destination.
That was the end of our meal for that day but we also had to come, right? We left Nashville about 8:30 AM on Sunday and got to Buc-ee’s just before 10:00 AM. That gave us opportunity to have breakfast at Buc-ee’s before the drive home.
The experience was similar. We got Icee’s and fountain pops for the drive. I also got gas. We found out Buc-ee’s in Smiths Grove, KY is exactly one tank of gas to Kalamazoo.
As for food, I wanted more brisket so I grabbed a brisket taco. I meant to grab the brisket and egg taco but I grabbed the wrong one. It was fine. The brisket taco is just brisket on a flour tortilla. Simple and tasty.
I also grabbed a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit. The star of this sandwich was, by far, the biscuit. I guess we are in the south so it should be a good biscuit. It was so light and fluffy. I could have eaten it by itself but it was better to have the bacon, egg, and cheese on it. J got the same but in a croissant instead of a biscuit. I think she missed out.
I also grabbed a Beast Burrito. This thing is a massive flour tortilla stuffed with bacon, eggs, cheese, sausage, and potatoes.
I ripped it in half before starting because I pretty much knew I wasn’t going to eat all of it right away and I was right. There was so much in every bite. So much meat. So much potato. It was delicious but by the time I got to it, I was already pretty full. I wrapped the second half of it up and ate it like five hours later right as we were getting back to the Michigan state line.
Instead of Beaver Chips in the morning, they have tots. J grabbed a box of these (and I think L did too). I don’t really like tots so I didn’t try them…but there were some in my burrito so I guess I did. J really liked them though and I think had most of them gone before we got too far down the road.
Our second stop at Buc-ee’s was mostly food so the cost was a little bit lower this time coming in at around $65.
Buc-ee’s is an experience. They do such an amazing job creating demand by spreading out the locations, putting billboards up hundreds of miles away and creating a brand that people want to be associated with. Would Buc-ee’s be what it is if there was one in ever town? Absolutely not. It’s gas station food. What sells it is the brand. I’m glad I finally got my Buc-ee’s experience. It was fun and it was tasty road trip food. There was nothing life altering about any of it but I can now say I’ve been to a Buc-ee’s.
SW Michigan Dining 