Buc-ee’s popular travel stations with endless gas pumps, spotless bathrooms and beloved food items have been popping up all over the country. But Buc-ee’s has also gained a reputation for challenging any company that dares to have a logo or name that could resemble the Texas chain’s beaver. Now one of those battles has been settled.
According to court records, Buc-ee’s and moose-themed Ohio store Mickey’s ended their battle this week after both companies agreed to a confidential settlement on Tuesday.
On Feb. 18, the legal team for the beaver-themed Texas brand filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court in Ohio against Coles IP Holdings, the parent company of the Mickey Mart chain, which has a moose mascot. Buc-ee’s alleged that the moose mascot of Mickey’s was too similar to its iconic cartoon beaver mascot.
The lawsuit was filed a couple of months before Buc-ee’s opened its first store in Ohio. In April, the first Ohio Buc-ee’s debuted in Huber Heights and made more than $1 million in sales on its first day, shattering previous store records.
In April, Mickey’s filed a counterclaim after Buc-ee’s filed its initial complaint, calling the Texas travel-stop claims meritless and emphatically stating, “A moose is not a beaver.”
Details of the settlement and whether or not Mickey’s has agreed to change its logo have not been released.
In July, Buc-ee’s also targeted another Ohio convenience store, suing Beaver’s Mini Mart, which is located in Beavercreek, Ohio, and uses a beaver in its logo. According to Jeff Gore, the mayor of Huber Heights, Buc-ee’s CEO Arch Aplin III said in August that Buc-ee’s had “no issues” with Beaver’s using a beaver for its logo, but that Buc-ee’s “did not want was a series of BeaverMarts popping up across the state or regionally.”
Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio called the entire situation “absurd,” pointing out that a town called Beavercreek having a store with a beaver as its mascot shouldn’t be a surprise. The community came together in protest against Buc-ee’s lawsuit and started selling Beaver’s Mini Mart merch to generate funds for the convenience store’s legal defense.
In recent years, Buc-ee’s has gone after several other convenience stores and gas stations that use a cartoon animal as their mascot. Buc-ee’s sued a San Antonio store with a grinning alligator, a Dallas-based convenience store that featured a cape-wearing cartoon dog, and a Missouri liquor store known as Duckees, which features a logo showing a duck in a yellow circle and a name that could be argued is inspired by Buc-ee’s.
Chron reached out to Buc-ee’s CEO Jeff Buckley for comment but did not receive a response before publication.