Will fuel and convenience sites continue to get bigger? What Buc-ee’s tells us about the future of the forecourt

For decades, the basic formula for fuel retail was relatively straightforward: secure a strong location, provide enough fueling capacity to meet demand, add a convenience store, and optimize the operation.

That formula is changing.

Few businesses illustrate the shift more dramatically than Buc-ee’s. The Texas-born retailer has turned the gas station into something approaching a retail destination. Its Luling, Texas location exceeds 75,000 square feet and has 120 fueling positions. Newer developments are following a similar formula: large stores, substantial fueling capacity, extensive foodservice, branded merchandise, and enough parking to accommodate significant traffic.

More importantly, the concept is traveling. Since beginning its expansion outside Texas in 2019, Buc-ee’s has entered markets across the South, Midwest, Mountain West, and Southwest, with further development underway. Its first Arkansas location opened in August 2026, while additional states are in the pipeline.

The obvious question for the wider industry is: is bigger the future of fuel and convenience retail?

The answer is more complicated than simply building larger stores.

Buc-ee’s demonstrates what a fuel site can become

The interesting thing about Buc-ee’s is not really its size. It is what the size enables.

Fuel is one component of a much broader proposition encompassing prepared food, beverages, snacks, private-label products, merchandise, restrooms, and an experience distinctive enough that consumers actively plan stops around it.

In that sense, Buc-ee’s represents the continuing evolution from gas station to roadside retail destination.

Its expansion suggests that there is considerable consumer appetite for the model. Buc-ee’s has continued taking its supersized format into new territories rather than significantly shrinking it for new markets. Its first Ohio location, opened in April 2026, has a 75,000-square-foot store and 120 fueling positions, while a planned Virginia development is expected to have a 74,000-square-foot store and 120 fueling positions.

But that does not necessarily mean every successful fuel site of the future will resemble a Buc-ee’s.

Instead, its success points toward something broader: the increasing importance of the non-fuel offer and the need to build sites around the opportunity available in their individual markets.

The economics of the convenience store are becoming more important

Kalibrate’s market studies illustrate how important the convenience component has become. In one sample US major-city market, average monthly c-store sales increased from $74,000 in 2013 to $87,000 in 2025. Over the same period, the number of open c-stores increased from 1,985 to 2,728.

The modern site can also incorporate considerably more than traditional convenience retail. QSR, fresh food, coffee, car wash, EV charging, parcel services, and other ancillary offers create additional reasons to visit.

That creates an understandable temptation to build more.

More store space means more room for foodservice and merchandise. More land can accommodate additional parking, fueling positions, car wash facilities, EV chargers, and other services. More fueling positions can increase peak throughput and reduce congestion.

Theoretically, a larger site can therefore capture more customer missions and generate more revenue streams. But there is an important word in that sentence: can.

Bigger doesn’t automatically mean better

Buc-ee’s should not be interpreted as evidence that every retailer should start building 70,000-square-foot convenience stores.

The success of a large-format site depends on having the demand to support it.

A major interstate location serving long-distance travelers has fundamentally different requirements from a neighborhood convenience store serving commuters and nearby residents. A 120-position forecourt might make sense at one and represent enormous overinvestment at the other.

This is why site development increasingly needs to start with the market rather than the format.

Traffic, access, demographics, consumer behavior, competitive intensity, trip purpose, and existing retail provision all help determine what a location can realistically support. Kalibrate’s fuel market surveys, for example, examine attributes ranging from traffic counts and interstate proximity to lot dimensions, parking, c-store size, cooler doors, QSR brands, car wash formats, and fueling positions.

The question therefore shouldn’t be “How big should our new format be?”

It should be “How much site does this particular opportunity justify?”

There is a cost to getting size wrong

This distinction becomes particularly important when construction costs are high.

Adding pumps that will rarely be utilized doesn’t simply mean paying for unnecessary equipment. It can affect canopy dimensions, storage requirements, pavement, site configuration, maintenance, and the amount of land required.

The same applies inside the store. Building additional retail space only creates value if there is sufficient demand to monetize it.

And getting those decisions wrong at the development stage can be difficult to reverse. Adding pumps, expanding parking, changing access, or substantially enlarging a store later can be significantly more complicated than incorporating the appropriate capacity into the original design.

The objective isn’t maximum size. It is maximum return from the available real estate and capital.

The future could actually mean greater divergence in site size

Rather than every gas station becoming bigger, Buc-ee’s may be pointing toward a market in which fuel and convenience formats become more differentiated.

At one end could be large destination sites positioned on major highways and strategic travel corridors. These locations can combine high fuel throughput with extensive foodservice, retail, parking, and ancillary services.

At the other end could be smaller, highly optimized formats designed around quick convenience missions, urban locations, or markets where land costs make larger footprints uneconomic.

Between those extremes will be numerous variations.

That’s an important change in thinking for network planners. Historically, retailers have often developed standard site templates that could be replicated across markets. Standardization brings obvious advantages, but increasingly diverse customer missions mean the optimal offer can vary significantly from one trade area to another.

As Kalibrate’s network planning guidance argues, site formats and amenities should align with local needs rather than simply applying a generic template everywhere.

Bigger stores also change the competitive equation

There is another lesson from Buc-ee’s that extends beyond the physical site.

A sufficiently differentiated facility can change what consumers consider to be a competitor.

Competition in fuel retail isn’t determined purely by geographic proximity. Brand, facilities, convenience offer, foodservice, pricing, and customer experience all influence where consumers choose to stop. Two nearby sites can therefore compete for very different customer missions.

A destination-format operator takes that principle further. If consumers are prepared to alter their journey or travel farther to visit a particular location, the effective trade area can become very different from that of a conventional gas station.

For planners, that means evaluating the potential competitive impact of major new developments carefully. The arrival of a large-format competitor can alter established customer flows and potentially change the performance potential of surrounding sites.

Build for potential, not for precedent

Ultimately, Buc-ee’s provides a compelling example of what is possible when location, brand, facilities, merchandising, and operations work together.

But copying the physical manifestation of that success misses the bigger lesson.

Fuel retail sites are becoming more sophisticated retail assets. Network planners have more choices about pumps, store size, foodservice, QSR partnerships, parking, car wash, EV charging, and other services than ever before. Each additional feature consumes land and capital, so each needs a commercial justification.

That makes understanding location potential before deciding site format increasingly important. Planning should distinguish between how a site is performing today and what the underlying real estate could realistically support, then test different development scenarios before capital is committed.

So, will fuel and convenience sites continue to get bigger? Some almost certainly will.

Buc-ee’s has demonstrated that exceptionally large roadside destinations can attract consumers and successfully travel into new markets. Other operators will inevitably explore how far they can expand the traditional convenience proposition.

But the more significant trend may not be bigger sites. It may be better-sized sites.

The winners won’t necessarily be the retailers with the biggest forecourts or largest stores. They will be those that understand precisely how much demand exists, what consumers in each trade area actually want, and how much capital they should invest to capture that opportunity.

In the next generation of fuel and convenience retail, the smartest question may no longer be “How big can we build?”

It will be “How big should we build?”