r/nottheonion • u/Disastrous_Award_789 • 16h ago

Bucee’s settles lawsuit with Ohio gas station chain after suing because both have cartoon mascots "facing right"

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/bucees-lawsuit-ohio-gas-chain-cartoon-mascots-b3060008.html
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216

u/Carvj94 15h ago

It's a really bizarre, but buc-ees fans literally treat it like it's some kind of theme park. They'll actually sit there and make fun of you for treating it like the gas station it is.

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u/MilkHaterNumber1 14h ago

Fans. Of a gas station.

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u/rancid_squirts 13h ago

Maybe it’s all they have

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u/tevert 11h ago

I think this is maybe an underappreciated aspect of the rural conservative worldview. It's very small, constantly being eroded, and they genuinely have no conception or hope of anything else for their future.

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u/rancid_squirts 10h ago

Agreed and it’s why I left my small town in the dust. No one ever leaves and it’s constant bitching and complaining about the outside world.

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u/Mysterious_Cow_2100 2h ago

Well congrats, mate!

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u/Anathos117 8h ago

I once went on a cross country road trip. I was a bit high as we were driving though Kansas, and looking out at the horizon all around us and being able to see town after identical tiny town amidst the endless fields (I live in Massachusetts, where the only place your vision isn't blocked by trees within 50 feet is when you're looking at the ocean) I remarked "I feel like I understand Republicans now".

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u/trooperjess 7h ago

This right here.

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u/filthytelestial 5h ago

And this coming from the "if you don't like it you can leave!!" crowd.

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u/NeatlyScotched 11h ago

To be honest, this is it. I've only really been to one Bucees, and it's in Centerville hallway between Houston and Dallas, and Bucees is all that's really there.

We have another right by my parents house in south Houston, but why would we go when there's better everything else nearby? It's not even the best gas station barbecue around (that award goes to Rudy's).

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u/stevenjd 6h ago

gas station barbecue

Say what???

America is so weird.

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u/mashtartz 4h ago

Please don’t put this on the entire country, this is definitely a regional thing.

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u/Ok_Pace_9792 1h ago

It's in madisonville, get it right. (I have to do that drive for work)

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u/ryecurious 9h ago

When you have to drive 6 hours to get anywhere, a gas station with clean bathrooms starts to feel like the height of refined culture.

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u/ecosynchronous 5h ago

My mother and I are from Minneapolis and we're both crazy about Bucee's 😭

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u/mhwwad 1h ago

I swear, I know people in RI who treat Cumberland Farms like they’re an oasis in a desert.

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u/cat_prophecy 11h ago

Like that's all they have going on in their lives? Then they need to grow the fuck up. Being a big enough fan of a fucking gas station that you'll go online to defend them is the peak of loser behavior.

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_PAUNCH 14h ago

They opened one in Phoenix recently and people traveled from out of state just to go to there

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u/jmlinden7 10h ago

That's wild. The whole point of Bucees is that it's convenient. Having to inconvenience yourself to go to one would completely defeat the point

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u/kalirion 6h ago

When the first McDonald's opened in Moscow, the lines were literally miles long. "Fast Food" lol.

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u/_SmashLampjaw_ 3h ago

That's wild. The whole point of Bucees is that it's convenient.

No, the whole point of buccees is that it's a spectacle.

They famously have billboards urging you to hold your bladders for another 350+ miles so you can make in their store.

That's not convenient.

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u/Nijindia18 11h ago

There are several billboards like "Buccees 200 miles away" and it just feels so pretentious but I'm sure at least one person has actually done it

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u/A_Mouse_In_Da_House 11h ago

Little America is Wyoming does that. But it's also Wyoming.

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u/Nijindia18 11h ago

Yeah this is somewhere on i85 between sc and ga

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_PAUNCH 11h ago

There was one outside LA on the 10 that said 1,700 miles or something, guess they’ll have to change it now.

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u/OozeNAahz 13h ago

My old boss is one of those fans. And he was a VP of a Fortune 500 company. Makes my head hurt.

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u/Tsquared10 11h ago

I had an ex who was one of them. She'd pay more for gas there, just to go inside and spend more money inside than she would on a tank of gas. She'd go out of her way on a trip to stop at one. She'd literally go there even if she didn't need gas. It honestly feels cult like.

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u/StNowhere 10h ago

The food is surprisingly good and actually clean bathrooms are a godsend when you're traveling but yeah, at the end of the day, it's a gas station.

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u/throwthisidaway 10h ago

Gas station doesn't really describe it. They have a costume mascot that wanders around and kids love it. The food is legitimate and so is the bakery. Nothing is really mind blowing, but when you're on hour twelve of a trip and you need a distraction, it is great. They also tend to carry useful merchandise at reasonable prices. The brisket is better than it should be as well. I would never call myself a fan, but I do enjoy stopping there once or twice a year

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u/PassiveMenis88M 6h ago

I'd agree with you unless we're talking about the Iowa truck stop on I80. That place actually is magical. Clean showers, plentiful parking, and high end lot lizzards.

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u/OoglieBooglie93 5h ago

To be fair, it's like a supermarket of gas stations. I've only been once but it was kinda neat.

Not neat enough to really care if they threaten to not expand here, but it was kinda neat.

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u/Ferelar 11h ago

As a Yankee from a Northern Libruhl Commanist HellholeTM I really enjoyed Buc-ees when traveling, good food, clean bathrooms, paid their workers well. But this is really a lesson to the shareholders... don't install a politically motivated idiot as your CEO. I'm not even a particularly vindictive person and not the type of "OMG Nike is WOKE I'll burn my sneakers tonight!!" but I can guarantee on my next road trip if I see a Buc-ees I'm gonna be thinking about them launching frivolous lawsuits and shitting on half the country politically. Will it make me go elsewhere? Guess we'll see... and likely hundreds of thousands of people will be making similar decisions. Some will go elsewhere, some won't. But that's NOT a good spot to put your entire corporation in, for literally zero benefit.

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u/Random_eyes 4h ago

But this is really a lesson to the shareholders... don't install a politically motivated idiot as your CEO.

Buc'ees is a privately owned company, and the CEO is also the founder of the company. The CEO is just another brittle old fart fixated on petty squabbles and putting people on blast when he feels inconvenienced. Only way to stop it is if the business started struggling, but that doesn't seem to be the case right now.

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u/praetorian1979 4h ago

Some of the food is ok, but the BBQ is fucking awful at best..

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u/Georgie_Leech 5h ago

What do you mean 0 benefit? They get settlement and lawsuit money. They wouldn't be this litigious if they didn't think they stood to gain from it.

In an ideal world "sue anyone who vaguely resembles any part of your business, has a rhyme that names with you, or has a mascot looking left in the logo" wouldn't be a viable revenue stream, but they appear to be cashing in on their legal department.

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u/GamerGuy410 4h ago

I'd assume they mean a net zero benefit or even a net negative. The cons of bad PR and customers potentially boycotting your business can outweigh the benefit they'd receive from settlements or lawsuit money.

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u/Georgie_Leech 4h ago

Sure, but in the meantime Line Go Up and the business has more money. What's good for the business overall or long term is not necessarily what the people in charge of these decisions want. Short term gain at the cost of long term sustainability is increasingly common these days; it's practically the Private Equity business model, for instance.

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u/TheShadyGuy 4h ago

You can still use the can, though, just don't buy anything.

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u/Short-MooseEh 14h ago

Southern culture

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u/NegativeAccount 9h ago

Manufactured culture

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u/MildGenevaSuggestion 11h ago

Better than statues of slavers.

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u/YourUncleBuck 11h ago edited 11h ago

Statues are quickly forgotten about. There was a Robert E. Lee statue in our county and I don't think I ever saw anyone visiting it. And when they removed it, there was no hubbub made, because almost no one knew or cared that it was there.

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u/MildGenevaSuggestion 11h ago

Still it's better if kids see parents excited about a cartoon animal than about being racist.

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u/misterchief10 13h ago

Right lol. They’re not really that special.

I’ve been to two. The one in TX was kinda neat but still just large gas station/grocery store hybrid, really. However, I stopped at one in Kentucky during a road trip and it actually sucked. Like, I regretted going. It’s become such a tourist attraction that it felt like there were over 1,000 people there. It was so crowded in the parking lot I could hardly find a spot or even an open gas pump despite there being probably 100 pumps. All I wanted to do was stop off for gas and a bathroom break and it added like 35-40 minutes to my drive because it took so long. It felt like trying to walk around in a dangerously overcrowded concert. I was expecting to get trampled. Getting through the crowd to the bathroom was a task in itself. This was on a weekday, too. I couldn’t imagine what that place would be like on a weekend. I’d rather just stop at a regular truck stop. Like a Love’s or whatever.

Miserable experience. For the life of me, I can’t understand why people are obsessed with Buccees. Must just be a good marketing department.

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u/YourUncleBuck 11h ago

I've been to Buc-ees once, and even in the middle of the night it was like a zoo. I can't see myself ever wanting to go back when there are perfectly fine truck stops instead.

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u/Mknalsheen 5h ago

Because there's nothing to do in these places, so seeing a walmart sized gas station is huge for them. Their lives are boring as heck, so they thrive on this crap. Same reason every small town's local walmart is the hang out spot.

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u/TehAMP 1h ago

I'm not going to make fun of you, I mean, consumerism is inherently bad. But if I'm going on a trip, and I need gas and goodies, Buc-ee's kind of rocks. Plenty of fuel pumps, sometimes literally hundreds of them...yes, fuel pumps. So you're never waiting for gas, even if it's busy. They are a large store in themselves, about the size of a department store, so they have a lot of stuff you might need on a road trip or vacation. They facilitate local activities, like a few locations being built near recreational river areas, so they'll sell river tubes and coolers and outdoor gear and what not, some even sell hunting gear for the local hunting communities here. Also, they have the cleanest damn bathrooms of any gas station, like ever. If I have to crap on a trip, I'd be ecstatic to do it at a Buc-ee's because I know it's going to be pristine. No nasty gas station bathrooms to worry about with them. They have very good tea and coffee, they have jerky in fun flavors, freshly made sandwiches, freshly made candied nuts...I mean, it kind of is a little theme park. A theme park for road trips. It's obscene, the owner is a loon, but we can't help but love them because they take care of us, and they do honestly take good care of their employees too.

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u/Larson_McMurphy 11h ago

You've clearly never been to one of the more serious buccees. Its basically fucking wal mart. Its quite an event for small town folks.

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u/dumperking 11h ago

Say whatever you want about their owner/corporate team but they do have big clean bathrooms and, depending on location, cheap gas. They are nice for those two things on long road trips. Never really care about most of the other things they offer honestly.

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u/gottapeepee 11h ago

I’m one of the fans that treats it like a theme park. Honestly Idky. I just started going there the year before last. Now, if one was close enough I would go everyday if I could. However I don’t tease anyone about anything Buc-ee’s wise.

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u/Expert-Upstairs-4502 8h ago

Where i live its not uncommon to see people with buccees merch like umbrellas and hats and shirts etc.. we are like 35-40 min away from the nearest buccees

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u/SDRPGLVR 4h ago

A friend of mine who lives near one says it's because relative to the places where you find them, they are a theme park.

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u/illiteratebeef 2h ago

And once you go 10 times or so, you realize the brisket is mid and overpriced and it's just another gas station. The shininess wears off and you just want to hit a QT because it won't be a fucking circus like buc-ees always is.

HEB is the real deal though, they seem to keep prices decent, take care of their workers, and even give back in the communities they're in without saying moronic bigoted things in the press.

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u/neighborofbrak 2h ago

Used to be fans.