In July the Date Was Still a Guess. Now It Is Monday, November 16, at Six in the Morning.
Back in July, when we wrote about the beaver-shaped building rising at Exit 81, we were careful to say the November target was not settled. The city had pointed to mid-November. The company had not confirmed it. The founder had mentioned December. Late 2026 was the certainty; the week was not.
That caveat can come down now. The store is scheduled to open Monday, November 16, at 6 a.m., and customers are allowed to begin lining up at midnight. A company media manager, Crissy Gonzales, confirmed both times. There will be a ribbon-cutting that morning, though the hour for it has not been set.
If you have never watched one of these openings, the midnight detail is not a throwaway. Buc-ee's openings draw people who drive in from other states and sit in a parking lot for six hours to be among the first through the doors. Murfreesboro is about to host one of those mornings on a Monday, at an interstate exit that already carries a good deal of traffic at dawn.
What is actually being opened
The numbers have not changed since summer, and they remain the reason people talk about this chain the way they do. The Murfreesboro store sits on roughly 47 acres at the Interstate 24 and Joe B. Jackson Parkway interchange, about seven miles from the MTSU campus. The building runs to about 74,000 square feet. Outside it there are roughly 120 fueling stations, electric vehicle chargers, close to 490 car spaces and 15 more sized for RVs and buses.
There is no car wash at this one, which is worth knowing if you were expecting the full version. And the company put roughly $20 million of its own money into infrastructure around the site, including work at the interchange itself.
It will be the fourth Buc-ee's in Tennessee. Crossville was first, in June 2022. Sevierville followed in June 2023. A Memphis-area store came this year. Murfreesboro is the first in Middle Tennessee, which is the part locals have been arguing about since the ground was cleared.
The part that matters before November
The store is expected to employ around 200 people, and hiring is happening now rather than in November. A hiring event runs Monday, September 29 through Wednesday, October 1, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., at The View at the Fountains. That is nine days out, not two months — which makes it the more useful date on this page if you are looking for work rather than for brisket.
Two months of construction remain, and anyone who has watched a large retail opening in this county knows a date can still move. But there is a meaningful difference between a target a city is pointing at and a date a company has put its own name to, and this is now the second kind. Exit 81 has a morning on the calendar.
The south side of Rutherford County has been collecting these announcements for a while — a furniture chain opened on Old Fort Parkway this month, and more is coming behind it. This is the one that will put cars on the shoulder.
