Founded in 1969 by Dan Evins, a sales representative for Shell Oil, Cracker Barrel developed as a restaurant and gift store concept initially as a plan to improve gasoline sales. Evins designed the original stores to resemble the traditional country store that he remembered from his childhood. The name he chose for the popular chain introduced the organization’s Southern country theme while also attracting the interest of highway travelers. The first Cracker Barrel opened in September 1969, serving Southern cuisine including biscuits, grits, country ham, and turnip greens. Evins incorporated Cracker Barrel in February 1970, and soon opened more locations. In the early 1970s, the firm leased land on gasoline station sites near interstate highways to build restaurants. 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. Into the early 1980s, the company reduced the number of gas stations on-site, eventually eliminating them out altogether as the company focused on its restaurant and gift sales revenues. The popular chain of over 600 stores continues their legacy of providing a friendly home away from home atmosphere in our old country store and restaurant, and there is good reason for that. Cracker Barrel holds steadfast to the true-life story about Cracker Barrel, from our humble beginnings right up to today
While working in the family gasoline business back in the late 1960s, Evins began thinking of ways to meet the needs of folks on the road. During that time, 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 small Ma and Pa restaurants that served the real flavor of America were being overlooked. Fast food at the time may have been a good business idea, Evins thought, but it sure was not much of an idea for those that valued eating a hot meal. Evins always saw mealtime as special and as a time to catch up with family, friends, and ones thoughts. According to Evins, dinner should not be eaten in three bites with a squirt of ketchup; a meal should be savored with good friends and good conversation. One of Evins’s stories tells 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.” Evins began to think about all the things that would make him feel comfortable were he far from home. He envisioned stock like big jars of candy and homemade jellies, pot-bellied stoves, and restaurants with “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 Evins had in mind was the kind of place he had been to hundreds of times as a boy. Evin’s vision involved a place every small community once had called a country store. Cracker Barrel developed an organizational culture that valued a friendly, neighborhood feel while offering quality southern food at seemingly reasonable prices. One of the ways that Cracker Barrel forms and ensures its cultural values through organizational storytelling, the communication of the company’s values through stories and accounts, both externally and internally. An organization’s story provides history to would- be customers and potential organizational member’s questions about where a company’s history began, who the key players were, how they started and what the organization is in business. An
