We Speak Business

Buc-ee’s Keeps Crossing State Lines: First Stores in Ohio, Arizona and Arkansas in One Year, and More Already on the Way

Published

3 days ago

November 12, 2026

Buc-ee's travel center in Alabama. Photo by John Perry, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).

The beaver is not slowing down. Buc-ee’s, the Texas travel center chain famous for spotless bathrooms, brisket sandwiches and stores the size of supermarkets, spent 2026 planting its flag in state after state, and its next opening, a new Tennessee store in Murfreesboro, is set for November 16.

The run started in April, when the Huber Heights store outside Dayton became the first Buc-ee’s in Ohio and rang up more than $1 million in sales on opening day. In June, the chain crossed into the West, opening its first Arizona location in Goodyear, off Interstate 10 west of Phoenix. August brought the first Arkansas store, in Benton, off Exit 114 of Interstate 30 southwest of Little Rock, a travel center with 120 fuel pumps and more than 200 jobs.

Each Buc-ee’s takes 18 to 24 months to build, which makes the current pace a statement. The company now runs 58 locations across 14 states, a long way from the single store that opened in Lake Jackson, Texas, in 1982.

Murfreesboro’s opening gives Tennessee its fourth Buc-ee’s, and 2027 is already spoken for. Wisconsin gets its first store, in Oak Creek outside Milwaukee, in April 2027. Groundbreakings have already been held in Ruston, Louisiana, in October 2025, Kansas City, Kansas, in October 2025 and Mebane, North Carolina, in May 2026, each set to be its state’s first. Industry trackers count at least six new states joining the map across 2026 and 2027, pushing the chain toward 20 states once everything announced is built.

Not every rumor makes the cut. The company has publicly shot down reported sites in Pennsylvania and Illinois this year, a reminder that a Buc-ee’s opening is a multi-year bet on a single highway exit, and the chain only makes it when the traffic math works.

We Speak Business

A Second Sphere Is Coming to America: Maryland Approves the $1.4 Billion National Harbor Venue

Published

3 days ago

November 12, 2026

We Speak Media

The Sphere in Las Vegas. Photo by Nigel Hoult, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

The glowing orb that rewired the Las Vegas skyline is officially getting an East Coast sibling. On October 27, the Prince George’s County Council voted 8 to 0 to approve the financing package for Sphere at National Harbor, a $1.4 billion entertainment venue planned for the Potomac River waterfront in Maryland.

The Maryland Sphere will be the first smaller-scale version of the format: about 6,000 seats, against roughly 17,600 at the Las Vegas original, which opened on September 29, 2023. Smaller does not mean stripped down. The venue is planned with the same signature technology, including a 16K by 16K interior LED display, an exterior LED exosphere, spatial audio, haptic seating and 4D environmental effects, on a site next to MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, about 15 minutes from downtown Washington, D.C.

The county’s vote authorizes up to $215 million in special obligation bonds to support the project, which Sphere Entertainment is developing with Peterson Companies. The package includes $130 million in tax increment financing bonds, a $40 million county-owned parking garage and $13.5 million in state funding, with Sphere Entertainment covering the roughly $1.2 billion balance.

Construction is expected to begin in 2027, with an opening targeted for early 2030. If the timeline holds, National Harbor will be the third Sphere on the planet: a full-scale, 20,000-seat venue in Abu Dhabi is expected to be completed in 2029. The message from the company is clear. The Sphere is no longer a one-off Las Vegas spectacle. It is a format, and it is on its way to the world.