Deep Dive on Stuckey's

Buc-ee's has ~50 stores. Remember Stuckey's? They had 350!

I went DEEP on their story & it is FASCINATING

Stuckey's started as a roadside pecan stand in 1937 & 4 years ago the granddaughter purchased it for only $500k to turn around

This happened in those intervening 82 years:

Once upon a highway, not so very long ago, W.S. Stuckey, Sr. set up a humble lean-to by the roadside in Eastman, Georgia, to sell pecans to travelers.

It was 1937, and America was in a mood for road trips.

Stuckey was a college dropout, trying to dodge the life of cotton farming by selling pecans in the tough times of the Great Depression.

With just a $35 loan from his grandma and a trusty Model A Ford, he started a business that would grow into something big.

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Stuckey was clever, selling pecans by day and writing checks just in time to deposit the day's earnings to cover them. Side note, can you relate to this? I can. I guess entrepreneurship has always been this way...

His hustle paid off! What started with a roadside stand and his wife Ethel's homemade candies turned into a thriving business. They started opening retail stores and the brand was growing fast. If this isn't Americana then what is?

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But then the war hit, and things got tough with rationing and some rough times with moonshiners. Yet, Stuckey's became so beloved that their candy was even munched on by soldiers during the war.

By the '50s, there were 29 Stuckey's stores, and by the '60s, over 100! By 1967 Stuckey's was at its zenith, with over 350 stores dotting the American landscape.

I grew up down the road from one in Scottsmoor, FL., and this was the billboard I'd pass on I95 every day:

Stuckey's was more than a stop; it was an experience, a place where children pressed their noses against glass cases filled with colorful candies and parents picked out mementos.

That same year, Stuckey decided to sell the company to Pet, Inc, a brand that produced evaporated milk products for pets. Pet was looking to expand their human food products business and spend a decade in acquisition mode, Stuckey's being one of many.

2 years later, however, the Pet CEO passed away, and the new bosses didn't care much for Stuckey's, and things started to decline.

Stuckey decided to retire early, sadly passing away feeling let down by the company he started.

To make matters even worse, the oil crisis of 1973 and the US interstate system taking off in the 70s and 80s continued to make matters even worse for Stuckey’s, and many stores closed or were sold off.

Stuckey's began to fade from America's rearview mirrors…The stores that once thrived on the two-lane blacktops found themselves isolated from the new fast-moving traffic arteries.

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Turnaround #1:

Yet, the Stuckey family hadn't written the final chapter. In 1985, W.S. Stuckey Jr., seeing the decline, decided it was time to steer the family business back onto the main roads of American commerce.

He repurchased the brand, aiming to restore Stuckey's to its former glory. He bought what was left and mixed it up with his Dairy Queen franchises. He tried new things, like Stuckey's Express, and kept the spirit alive until he retired and left it to a small team.

Things went ok for a while, but then the brand started shrinking into irrelevance once again...

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Turnaround #2:

Fast-forward to the 21st century, and another Stuckey was ready to take the wheel. In 2019, Stephanie Stuckey, granddaughter of the founder, purchased the company for $500,000.

It was a bold move, but Stephanie had the same pioneering spirit that had driven her grandfather. She saw not just a business but a slice of Americana, ripe for revival.

With new vigor, Stephanie began refurbishing old stores and opening new ones. She emphasized Stuckey's nostalgic charm, making it resonate with a new generation of travelers seeking the allure of the road.

The pecan log rolls, the billboards, the teal blue roofs, and the quirky souvenirs—they were all part of the new story she was telling, one of resilience and rebirth.

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I chatted with Stephanie @StuckeyStop last month, and the brand is doing awesome things. They now sell online, but the main focus is on reselling their products inside other gas stations, convenience stores and roadside attractions.

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She acquired a company called Front Porch Pecans in 2020 and now can’t make enough pecan snacks to keep up with demand.

In 2021, she acquired three more companies: Atwell Pecans, The Orchards Gourmet, and Thames corporations to add candy-making pecan processing and fundraising to the company.

They now have 65 licensed locations, over 200 retailers, a distribution center and a pecan and candy plant to make everything in-house.

Today, Stuckey's is not merely a memory of roadside past but a living, breathing part of the journey. It stands as a monument to the days when the journey was as delightful as the destination, and a stop along the way could lead to discovery.

As travelers continue to seek the charm of the past with the conveniences of the present, Stuckey's serves as a reminder that some legacies, like the open road, stretch endlessly into the horizon.

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Thanks for reading. Follow @mhp_guy for more cool small biz stories.