Buc-ee's opened its first Arizona location in Goodyear on Monday, June 22, bringing the travel-center chain’s huge, round-the-clock model to the state for the first time. The store sits near Interstate 10 and Bullard Avenue and opens around the clock, every day of the year, with 120 fueling stations meant to handle the kind of stop that can swallow a highway exit.
The opening matters now because it is the only Arizona Buc-ee's, and the draw was obvious from the start: fuel, barbecue and a store built at a scale most drivers do not see in a roadside stop. The Goodyear location covers 74,000 square feet, which is large enough to fit roughly 17 of the chain’s 4,000-square-foot convenience stores inside it, a comparison that shows why the opening landed like an event instead of a routine gas station launch.
Bill Goodykoontz spent opening day testing the food that has helped make Buc-ee's a destination. He tried the chopped brisket sandwich, the Carolina pulled pork sandwich, the three meat sandwich and beef jerky, while the store also sold Arizona-specific items such as Buc-ee's Arizona T-shirts with Canyon and saguaro imagery.
That pull came with a cost. Buc-ee's is known for cheap gas and very clean restrooms, but the opening also brought slow-moving and, at times, standstill traffic around the site, which is why the city provided a Buc-ee's travel route and put officers along it during opening week. Rideshare and carpooling were encouraged to keep the congestion from tightening further, while regular gasoline was listed at $3.85 a gallon and diesel at $4.49.
Officials said the travel route would stay in place as long as traffic control was needed, and that is the real test now: whether the rush settles once the opening-day crowd thins, or whether the first Arizona Buc-ee's keeps pulling enough drivers to make the detour part of the routine.
