A Land of Disappointment

Day one of the grand trip up to SpeedGaming Live technically began before the event even started. For those that booked a room for the event on the Hilton website, for some reason (and I’m not pointing fingers) the reservation started a full day before the event would even really get going. SpeedGaming Live runs Thursday through Sunday, with many people showing up a day before on Wednesday to help with setup of the event and to get settled in themselves. The reservation, though, starts Tuesday. Like… Tuesday. I just don’t even know why.

Still, because of that (and because I didn’t pay attention and booked the stay from start to end which is really on me) I found myself driving out to Northern Virginia a day earlier than expected to hang around and do very little. It was fine, I didn’t mind the act of doing very little… but I could have done that at home and been more comfortable. Doing nothing at home is one of my favorite activities. Doing it when not at home isn’t as thrilling.

The drive up was good. Not a lot of traffic, not much to report there, but it did provide an opportunity to do something I’d been meaning to do for some time and never had a chance: go to Buc-ee's and write a review of the location. Buc-ee’s, for those that don’t know, is a chain gas station supercenters. For some reason, beyond my comprehension, Buc-ee’s has developed an almost cult-like following. They’re massive stores, built on even bigger lots, with hundreds of gas station pumps (at least it feels like hundreds, and it may actually not be hyperbole) and a huge shopping center where you can get tchotchkes, camping gear, and food. Oh so much food.

Walking it you’re assaulted by the smell of candied nuts. Now, if you like candied nuts this is probably a good thing. People swear by Buc-ee’s candied nuts (and I’m not just continuing to say candied nuts over and over again because it’s amusing and fun to say). I do not like candied nuts but I will concede they did smell good. I did not buy any and maybe that’s on me because I might have missed out on a quintessential part of the Buc-ee’s experience. I’ll learn to live with that.

Beyond the nut sacks (because they’re paper sacks of nuts, get your head out of the gutter), there’s the huge displays of all the food. A couple of massive sandwich serving stations, a place where meat is roasted and cooked, huge running shelves of all kinds of snacks and nuts and candies, more bays of drinks. It’s all stuff you probably expect from a gas station (except for the sliced meats at the back, maybe) but there’s so much of it. You feel like you have all the selections in the world and that nothing can betray you.

It can betray you, though, and it will. I was betrayed. I went along and grabbed things I figured I would like – a bag of Buc-ee’s own Jalapeno Cheddar Curls, a bottle of Buc-ee’s own Peach Lemonade, and one freshly made Texas Cheesesteak Burritos – and then went back to my car to eat and drive and decide just how good or bad the food from Buc-ee’s was. I wasn’t planning on this being the first and last time I ever ate there as, with all the selections available I assumed I’d be back to write further articles. The food, though, was so bad I don’t want to ever eat there again.

Let’s start with the Texas Cheesesteak Burrito. I will concede that I might have picked the wrong thing. There were also Chicken Fajita Burritos available, and maybe that would have been better… although, maybe not considering. This burrito was listed as having beef (of course), onions, peppers, jalapeno mayo, and cheese, which isn’t that far off from a normal cheesesteak, outside the spicy mayo. I figured, “this is a safe bet. How hard is it to make a cheesesteak, even if it is in a burrito form?” Let me tell you, nothing about this, in any form, was good.

For starters I didn’t taste the beef, the mayo, the veggies, or even really the burrito. All I tasted was fake flavored cheese whiz. I don’t know if the person that made this had a heavy hand or if this is always how it’s made, but this burrito was absolutely slathered in, fake tasting cheese. It was gross. I got the beef texture, sure, but all I tasted was white american cheese for bite after bite. It was gooey and sticky and unpleasant, and without a thick bread to help absorb it (again, that’s my fault for picking this as the burrito, although in my defense they had two full bays of them leading me to think this was a popular option) it was just foul and floppy cheese food.

Needless to say I didn’t finish this burrito. I ate a little less than half and wadded the rest up in the bag to throw away later. And then it was on to the cheese curls, which also betrayed me.

Again, I figured this is something that’s pretty hard to screw up. Everyone knows cheese curls. Just about every snack producer has their own version of cheese curls, from Herr’s to Cheetos to the grocery store in-house brand you walk past every time you’re there. Cheese curls are solid, basic snack food that every brand can get right. Every brand, that is, except Buc-ee’s, apparently. To their credit, the taste was good at the start, reminding me of Herr's Jalapeño Poppers Cheese Curls (which are great), but then they settle in your mouth for a second, and it all goes bad.

Beyond the taste of cheese and spicy, what I got was grease. Lots and lots of grease. I didn’t realize that grease could be a flavor when it came to snack food, but it can. I tasted it on the back end of the second curl from the bag, and it built. It started coating my mouth, leaving a nasty residue. I made it through four curls before those, too, ended up in the discard bag because, my god, they were somehow even worse than the burrito. I didn’t want to eat that thing again, but if it came down to the burrito or the curls for my basic survival… actually, don’t make me choose. They both suck.

Okay, two down, at least the Peach Lemonade will be good, right? It’s lemonade. Water, sugar, lemon, a bit of additional fruit. Easy. Nope, this too was awful. It was the best thing I had from the set but, trust me, that’s a very low bar. The drink didn’t really taste like lemon or peach. Instead it had this sickly sweet flavor that was mostly just sugar water with a little bit of faux Kool-Aid vibe to it. I know the bottle said it had twelve percent juice in there, but I’d be hard pressed to identify what those juices were. I drank the thing, simply because I was thirsty and I had to get the taste of cheese whiz and curl grease out of my mouth, but I didn’t enjoy it. That is a drink I will never get again.

Buc-ee’s is known for two things: their food and their massive banks of gas pumps. The food, for me, was a total miss, a collection of items so bad that, even with giving them some grace that maybe I just chose poorly, they still made it so I never want to risk their food again. It was all just so foul, start to finish. On the gas side, their pumps are much cheaper than competitors, with the gas on sale there being twenty cents cheaper than the competition across the street. I assume that means they’ll put everyone else out of business and raise prices at that exit (as corporate America does) but for now it was nice driving up, getting a pump, and then not stressing about gas.

Except, unlike every other gas station around, Buc-ee’s doesn’t provide squeegees so you can clean your windshields. No washer fluid, no wipers, nothing. It’s a basic little nicety that I always use because I love having a clean windshield. You have cheap gas but you fail at the one other thing I’d like…

Honestly, I just don’t know if I’d go back. Everything about this visit was disappointing. I know people love Buc-ee’s but I just don’t know why. It’s large, it has a lot, and it’s there. I guess if that’s all you need then, sure, it’s a thing. It’s just not a thing for me and, if I’m lucky, I’ll never have to go back.