534Living in the town of Lebanon, which happens to be the corporate headquarter of Crackel Barrel Old Country Store I decided to do my research about them. All throughout the city and surrounding area I meet families with some form of ties with the company. Several friends of my family work or have worked either directly for or with the company since its inception; this includes the corporate pilot, retired chief legal council, sour bread suppliers, and a few marketing department employees.
The companies profile on the financial page of Yahoo states that, “Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc., through its subsidiaries, engages in the development and operation of the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store restaurant and retail concept in the United States. Its restaurants provide breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The company’s gift shops offer various decorative and functional items, such as rocking chairs, holiday and seasonal gifts, apparel, toys, music CD’s, cookware, old-fashioned-looking ceramics, figurines, a book-on-audio sale-and-exchange program, and various other gift items, as well as candies, preserves, pies, cornbread mixes, coffee, syrups, pancake mixes, and other food items. As of May 22, 2012, it operated 615 company-owned locations in 42 states. The company was formerly known as CBRL Group, Inc. and changed its name to Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. in December 2008. Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. was founded in 1969 and is headquartered in Lebanon, Tennessee. (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=CBRL+Profile).
While working in the family gasoline business back in the late 1960s, Dan began thinking of ways to better meet the needs of folks on the road. Back then, the interstate system was still young and goods and services were hard to come by and often not to be trusted. What's more, with the rise of fast food, the little places that served up some of the real flavor of America seemed to be getting pushed out. Fast food might be a good business idea, Dan thought, but it sure wasn't such a hot eating idea. Truth is, Dan always saw mealtime as special – a time to catch up with your family, your friends, and your thoughts. Meals weren't meant to be swallowed down in three bites with a squirt of ketchup. One of Dan’s stories was to tell how, at the beginning of the suppers he remembered from childhood, his mother would let the family know they could start eating by pointing to the wide variety of country vegetables spread out across the table and saying, “Well, there’s the crop.”
Dan began to think about all the things that would make him feel comfortable were he far from home. Things like big jars of candy and homemade jellies, pot-bellied stoves, folks who let you take your time. He thought about simple, honest country food, and a store where you could buy someone a gift that was actually worth having.
What Dan had in mind was the kind of place he'd been to hundreds of times as a boy. It was a place called the country store, something every small community once had. Out west, they called them trading posts; up north, they were general stores. Where Dan grew up, in Middle Tennessee, they were old country stores, and Dan figured maybe folks traveling on the big new highways might appreciate a clean, comfortable, relaxed place to stop in for a good meal and some shopping that would offer up unique gifts and self-indulgences, many reminiscent of America’s country heritage.
As luck would have it, Dan's company owned a nice parcel of land on the outskirts of town. So with the help of a friend who was a contractor, plans were drawn up, and the first Cracker Barrel location opened on September 19, 1969.
Of course, building a country store isn't the same as being one. A lot of things would have to be just right, the two most important of which were what to serve, and who would serve it. So the corn bread came from cornmeal and an old country recipe, not a mix. Quality mattered, along with offering
