How To Sell To Cracker Barrel

[Frida Kosofsky]

CrackerBarrel Old Country Store, Inc., trading as Cracker Barrel, is an American chain of restaurant and gift stores with a Southern country theme. The company's headquarters are in Lebanon, Tennessee, where Cracker Barrel was founded by Dan Evins in 1969. The chain's early locations were positioned near Interstate Highway exits in the Southeastern and Midwestern United States, but expanded across the country during the 1990s and 2000s. As of August 10, 2023[update], the company operates 660 stores in 45 states.

Cracker Barrel's menu is based on traditional Southern cuisine, with appearance and decor designed to resemble an old-fashioned general store. Each location features a front porch lined with wooden rocking chairs, a stone fireplace, and decorative artifacts from the local area. Cracker Barrel partners with country music performers. It engages in charitable activities, such as its assistance to victims of Hurricane Katrina and injured war veterans.

The company was criticized for anti-LGBT policies in the 1990s, which it reversed in response to backlash from the public and shareholders. In the early 2000s, Cracker Barrel was the subject of several civil rights lawsuits and a U.S. Justice Department investigation, all of which were settled. Cracker Barrel licensed products are sold in grocery stores under the name "CB Old Country Store" following a 2013 trademark-infringement lawsuit brought by Kraft Foods, which sells cheese under the brand name Cracker Barrel.

Cracker Barrel was founded in 1969 by Dan Evins, a representative for Shell Oil, who developed the restaurant and gift store concept initially as a plan to improve gasoline sales.[7] Designed to resemble the traditional country store that he remembered from his childhood, with a name chosen to give it a Southern country theme,[8] Cracker Barrel was intended to attract the interest of highway travelers.[7] The name comes from the barrels of soda crackers that could be found for sale in small-town stores across the American South in the early 1900s; people would stand around the barrels chatting and catching up, similar in purpose to contemporary office water coolers.[9]

The first restaurant was built close to Interstate 40, in Lebanon, Tennessee.[10] It opened on September 19, 1969,[11] serving Southern cuisine including biscuits, grits, country ham, and turnip greens.[10]

Evins incorporated Cracker Barrel in February 1970,[7] and soon opened more locations. In the early 1970s, the firm leased land on gasoline station sites near interstate highways to build restaurants.[8] These early locations all featured gas pumps on-site; during gasoline shortages in the mid to late 1970s, the firm began to build restaurants without pumps.[7]

Cracker Barrel became a publicly traded company in 1981 to raise funds for further expansion.[7][10] It floated more than half a million shares, raising $10.6 million.[8] Following the initial public offering, Cracker Barrel grew at a rate of around 20 percent per year;[12] by 1987, the company had become a chain of more than 50 units in eight states, with annual net sales of almost $81 million.[7] The company grew consistently through the 1980s and 1990s, attaining a $1 billion market value by 1992.[10][13][14] In 1993, the chain's revenue was nearly twice that of any other family restaurant.[8]

In 1994, the chain tested a carry-out-only store, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Corner Market, in suburban residential neighborhoods.[where?][14] In addition, it expanded into new markets through the establishment of more traditional Cracker Barrel locations, the majority of them outside the South, and tested alterations to its menus to adapt to new regions.[15] The chain added regional dishes to its menus, including eggs and salsa in Texas and Reuben sandwiches in New York, but continued to offer its original menu items in all restaurants.[13] Cracker Barrel did not close any locations until 1995, when a location on American Way in Memphis, Tennessee was closed due to it no longer meeting the company's standards.[16]

By September 1997, Cracker Barrel had 314 restaurants, and aimed to increase the number of stores by approximately 50 per year over the following five years.[15] The firm closed its Corner Market operations in 1997 and refocused on its restaurant and gift store locations. The company's president, Ron Magruder, stated that the chain was concentrating on strengthening its core theme, offering traditional foods and retail in a country store setting, with good service and country music.[12] The number of combined restaurants and stores owned by Cracker Barrel increased between 1997 and 2000, to more than 420 locations. In 2000 and 2001, the company addressed staffing and infrastructure issues related to this rapid growth by implementing a more rigorous recruitment strategy and introducing new technology, including an order-placement system.[17] Also in 1997, the company purchased the Mitchell House in Lebanon, Tennessee. The house had been the elementary dormitory and school for Castle Heights Military Academy which both Dan Evins and his son attended. The school had closed in 1986 and the building had sat empty since then. Cracker Barrel spent two million dollars to restore the home and used it as its corporate headquarters from 1999 to 2013.[18][19]

From the late 1990s to the mid-2000s, the company focused on opening new locations in residential areas to attract local residents and workers as customers.[20] The chain opened its first restaurant and gift store not located near a highway in 1998, in Dothan, Alabama.[20] In the 2000s, in the wake of incidents including charges of racial discrimination and controversy over its policy of firing gay employees, the firm launched a series of promotional activities including a nationwide book drive and a sweepstakes with trips to the Country Music Association Awards and rocking chairs among the prizes.[21] It updated its marketing in 2006 to encourage new customers, changing the design of its highway billboard advertisements to include images of menu items. Previously the signs had featured only the company's logo.[22]

By 2011, Cracker Barrel had opened more than 600 restaurants in 42 states.[23][24][25] The company has since begun expansion to the West Coast: in 2017, their first store in the region opened in Tualatin, Oregon,[26] and their first store in California was opened the next year in Victorville.[27] In 2019 Cracker Barrel purchased Maple Street Biscuit Company for $36 million cash.[28]

Cracker Barrel partnered with DoorDash in 2020, in response to restaurant closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It was the restaurant's first partnership with a delivery service.[29][30] Cracker Barrel permanently added alcohol to its menu for the first time in September 2020. The company began testing a limited selection of beer, wine and mimosas at 100 stores in early 2020 before announcing that it would expand the offerings to over 600 of its locations after receiving a positive response from its customers.[31][32] In Q2 2023, the company reported $933.9 million in revenues; takeout, delivery, and catering made up 23% of sales.[33] In May 2024, Cracker Barrel revealed that 16% of their customer base had not returned since 2020.[34]

As a Southern-themed chain, Cracker Barrel serves traditional Southern comfort food often described as "down-home" country cooking. Breakfast is served all day, and there are two menus: one for breakfast, the other for lunch and dinner. Since the first restaurant opened, the menu has featured Southern specialties, including biscuits, fried chicken, and catfish;[7] seasonal and regional menu items were added during the 1980s and 1990s.[7][15]

The gift shops sell gifts including simple toys representative of the 1950s and 1960s, toy vehicles, puzzles, and woodcrafts. Also sold are country music CDs, DVDs of early classic television, cookbooks, baking mixes, kitchen novelty decor, and early classic brands of candy and snack foods.[35][36]

For much of its early history, Cracker Barrel located its restaurants along the Interstate Highway System,[7] and the majority of its restaurants remain close to interstate and other highways.[37][38][39]

The locations are themed around the idea of a traditional Southern U.S. general store. Items used to decorate each store are authentic artifacts,[10] including everyday objects from the early 1900s and after.[40] Each location's exterior features a front porch lined with wooden rocking chairs, while the interiors all include five common decorations: a shotgun, a cookstove, a deer head, a telephone, and a traffic light. Every table has a wooden peg solitaire game.[41][42][43]

The decor at each location also includes artifacts related to the local history of the area, such as antique household tools, old calendars and posters, and antique photographs.[38] The practice began with the first location which was decorated by Lebanon, Tennessee, antique store owners Don and Kathleen Singleton. The Singletons continued to be involved in decorating subsequent stores until 1979 followed by their son, Larry Singleton, who held the role until his retirement in 2019.[44][45] Items acquired by the company to be used as decorations are centrally stored in a Tennessee warehouse,[46] where they are cleaned, restored and cataloged until needed.[47] As of 2018[update], the facility held more than 90,000 items.[48]

Destinations magazine has presented the chain with awards for best chain restaurant,[49] and in 2010 and 2011, the Zagat survey named it the "Best Breakfast".[50][51] The chain was selected by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America as the 2011 OBIE Hall of Fame Award recipient for its long-standing use of outdoor advertising.[52] It was also named the "Best Family Dining" restaurant by a nationwide "Choice in Chains" consumer poll in Restaurants & Institutions magazine for 19 consecutive years.[42]

Cracker Barrel is known for the loyalty of its customers,[13] particularly travelers who are likely to spend more at restaurants than locals.[15] From 1977 to 2017, married couple Ray and Wilma Yoder drove a combined total of more than 5 million miles (an average of 342 miles per day) to visit 644 Cracker Barrel locations. When the company opened their 645th restaurant, in Tualatin, Oregon, in August 2017 (on Ray Yoder's 81st birthday), it flew the Yoders out for the grand opening and presented them with custom aprons and rocking chairs, among other gifts.[53][54]

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