Buc-ee’s expects store to open in March

JOHNSTOWN

Texas-based company known for mega convenience stores plans to hire about 400 people for its first Colorado site

The Texas-based Buc-ee’s will build its first Colorado travel plaza in Johnstown, just off Interstate 25 and Colorado 60. The announcement by the company famous for its huge convenience stores and dozens of gas pumps at each site is the latest development in the northern Colorado community’s fast growth.

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By Judith Kohler

jkohler@denverpost.com

Work is on schedule for Colorado’s first Buc-ee’s to open early next year.

The Texas-based company, known for its mega convenience stores, gas stations and red-capped beaver mascot, is building a store in Johnstown. The store will be the company’s first planned outside the South and the farthest west.

And at 74,000 square feet, the Johnstown store will be one of the biggest Buc-ee’s. There will be 120 gas pumps.

“We’re scheduled to open the store in March. As we get closer to March, we’ll announce the official day,” Jeff Nadalo, Buc-ee’s general counsel, said Thursday.

The building at the southwest corner of Interstate 25 and Colorado 60 is taking shape, clearly recognizable as a Buc-ee’s. The store will be the same size as one in Sevierville, Tenn., currently the largest Buc-ee’s, Nadalo said.

A new store under construction in Luling, Texas, will be slightly bigger at 75,000 square feet. Luling was the site of the first Buc-ee’s. There are now more than 40 stores.

Nadalo said hiring has started for the Johnstown store. The company plans to hire about 400 people for jobs including grocery and warehouse stockers; deli workers; cashiers; food and merchandise associates; managers; and janitors and maintenance attendants.

The pay is in the $18-$22 range, Nadalo said. Employees get three weeks paid time off, medical and dental benefits and a 6% matching 401K contribution after one year on the job, he said.

Nadalo said Buc-ee’s locates its stores in areas where there are families and people who are on vacation and where there’s a pool of employees to pull from. Northern Colorado is one of the state’s fastest-growing regions.

The company doesn’t allow 18-wheelers because its travel centers are “optimized for passenger vehicles,” Nadalo said.

Buc-ee’s stores are known for its big selection of merchandise and food, including Texas barbecue, freshly baked pastries and beaver nuggets, caramel coated corn pops.

And it has a reputation for super-clean bathrooms. In 2012, a Buc-ee’s store in New Braunfels, Texas, won “America’s Best Restroom Award,” from Cintas, a business services company.