The Beloved Convenience Store Chain That Serves Banana Pudding In A Cup

Convenience stores like 7-Eleven and Circle K are quick and easy for grabbing something simple like a bottled drink or chips, and can be welcome, familiar places to stop for a break when you're on the road. But they've got nothing on the devotion inspired by the Texas-based convenience store and gas station chain Buc-ee's. The huge stores, open around the clock, are attractions in themselves, selling many types of hot, cold, and prepackaged foods, as well as souvenirs sporting the red-hatted beaver logo, and many other items. One of Buc-ee's food favorites is its sweet and silky banana pudding served in a cup.

The chain's treat is made with vanilla pudding, fresh banana slices, and vanilla wafers, and topped with a whipped cream dollop. It comes in small ($3.99) and large ($4.99) sizes in plastic cups with the Buc-ee's beaver on the side, making it easy to carry out and eat in the car. The clear cups allow you to see the tempting light yellow pudding and banana and cookie pieces, and have a domed top to accommodate the whipped cream.

Buc-ee's banana pudding has won social media praise, including from posters who noted the vanilla wafers' texture contrast — being crunchy in the middle while softened by the pudding toward the edges. Others applauded that it was made with vanilla pudding instead of banana-flavored pudding, which is sometimes used for a more intense banana taste.

Buc-ee's most famous snack is arguably its Beaver Nuggets — corn puffs coated with caramel, sugar, and butter — which come in other sweet and savory flavors as well. The chain's fans also swoon over its barbecue, made in-house every day, including the super tender and juicy brisket. It anchors Buc-ee's most popular sandwich, the chopped brisket, with onions, pickles, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and liquid hickory smoke sauce, and fills breakfast tacos. 

Customers can also choose from 14 unique flavors of beef jerky, and buy sweet and savory kolaches — filled pastries that are a Texas specialty brought to the region by Czech immigrants. For another sweet option, banana pudding pops up again as one of a range of homemade fudge flavors.

The first Buc-ee's opened in Lake Jackson, Texas, in 1982, with 23-year-old founder Arch "Beaver" Aplin basing its logo and name on his nickname from childhood and dog Buck. The second came in 1985, and new ones continued to open in the state until the first non-Texas Buc-ee's debuted in Alabama in 2019. The chain has since spread across the South, with over 50 locations as of November 2025 — 36 in Texas, and the others in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Colorado.