A 74,000-square-foot Buc-ee's with 120 fueling stations is rising off Interstate 24 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and both the city's mayor and the company now say the doors will open before 2026 is over.
Murfreesboro Mayor Shane McFarland laid out the timeline in a July 16 YouTube interview with Murfreesboro.com. The travel center, the first Buc-ee's in Middle Tennessee, is under construction and on pace for a late-year debut. McFarland put it plainly:
"Buc-ee's is coming along, where they think they're gonna open this year."
The mayor's remarks track with what Buc-ee's media coordinator Cissy Gonzalez told the Murfreesboro Post back in May: the Murfreesboro location would open before the end of 2026. The Sun reported that a local outlet, The Murfreesboro Pulse, has shared a prospective opening date of Monday, November 16, though Buc-ee's has not officially announced a grand opening day.
One detail from McFarland's interview stands out. The mayor said Buc-ee's paid for all road improvements tied to the project, including construction on the interstate, an interchange, and a nearby roundabout. No city, county, or state dollars went toward the work.
That is worth noting. Across the country, Buc-ee's expansion has drawn pushback from communities worried about traffic, water use, and taxpayer-funded infrastructure upgrades. In Murfreesboro, at least, the company picked up the tab itself.
For a project of this scale, 120 fueling stations and a travel center larger than most grocery stores, road capacity is not optional. The fact that Buc-ee's handled it privately, rather than leaning on local government subsidies, is exactly the kind of private-sector accountability taxpayers should expect from any company that wants to plant a flag in their backyard.
Buc-ee's is not waiting for a ribbon-cutting to start staffing. Job listings on the Workday hiring platform show openings for assistant general manager, grocery manager, maintenance manager, assistant merchandise manager, cashier, food service associate, grocery associate, and gift associate, all for the Murfreesboro store.
A mass hiring event is scheduled for September 28 through October 1 at The View at the Fountains in Murfreesboro. That four-day window suggests the company expects to fill a large number of positions quickly, consistent with the volume a 74,000-square-foot operation demands.
Tennessee already has two Buc-ee's locations, in Crossville and Sevierville, both in the eastern part of the state. The Murfreesboro store will be the chain's third in Tennessee, and a fourth is planned outside Memphis with a projected opening in May 2027.
The chain's growth is not confined to the Volunteer State. Buc-ee's opened its most recent location in Goodyear, Arizona, on June 21, where some customers started lining up at 4:30 p.m. the day before the 6 a.m. opening. The next opening is set for August 12 in San Marcos, Texas. Over a dozen additional locations are reportedly in various stages of development, part of a broader push into new states that could grow the chain's footprint to 20 states.
Buc-ee's is not the only brand betting big on Tennessee travelers. Dolly Parton has opened a supersized travel stop in the state, directly challenging Buc-ee's on its home turf. The travel center arms race reflects genuine consumer demand, Americans who spend hours on the road want clean restrooms, hot food, and fuel without a half-mile detour off the interstate.
Buc-ee's has built its brand around exactly that promise. The company markets itself as offering the "Cleanest Restrooms in America," though whether that designation comes from a third party or is self-described remains unclear from available details.
Meanwhile, competitors like Sheetz are pushing deeper into the Midwest, signaling that the supersized travel center model is no longer a Texas novelty. It is a nationwide industry trend, and Tennessee sits squarely in the middle of it.
The prospective November 16 date shared by The Murfreesboro Pulse has not been confirmed by Buc-ee's. The company has not announced a formal grand opening. But the hiring timeline, a mass event wrapping up October 1, lines up with a late-fall opening. Staff need to be trained before doors open, and a six-to-seven-week window between the hiring push and a mid-November launch is tight but plausible.
What is confirmed: the mayor says the company expects to open this year, and Buc-ee's own spokesperson said the same thing two months earlier. Construction is visibly progressing off I-24. Jobs are posted. Road work is paid for.
When a private company builds a massive facility, funds its own infrastructure, hires locally, and opens on schedule, without a cent of taxpayer subsidy, that is the free market working the way it is supposed to.