15 Fun Facts About Cracker Barrel Even Regulars Don't Know
Sure, you think you're a die-hard Cracker Barrel fan. After all, it doesn't matter if you're hitting the road or just looking for some good ol' Southern-style cookin' and small town-type hospitality close to home. You're always gonna straight head to the comfy, cozy confines of the Tennessee-based chain. But can you even really call yourself a devotee if you're not up on your Cracker Barrel History/Facts?
For example, do you know how many dishes of Chicken n' Dumplins the restaurant sells annually? (Hint: it's more than one-and-half times the population of New York City!) And for that matter, can you name the most popular items in the Old Country Store? Or the five pieces of décor found in every single Cracker Barrel? If you haven't got a clue about these head-scratchers, you're going to want to read on for our rundown of the most surprising Crackle Barrel trivia.
We're still not sure if the biggest shocker is the fact that you could gas up there at one time or that whole Grammy Award thing. But one thing we do know is that our fav restaurant will always have our backs. After you've learned all the ins and outs of this 50+ year brand, you're going to want to go read how Cracker Barrel Just Took a Strong Stance on Egg Surcharges.
Cracker Barrel has been in business for more than a half-century!
The very first Cracker Barrel opened on September 19, 1969. It was located on Highway 109 in Lebanon, Tennessee, just outside of Nashville. From the very beginning, founder Dan Evins wanted to provide a homey place where folks traveling along the nation's roads could stop for good, hearty, scratch-made food. Nowadays, 40 percent of Cracker Barrel's business still comes from travelers.
Cracker barrels were a real thing.
Cracker Barrel takes its name from the barrels filled with soda crackers that used to populate country stores back in the late 19th century. Folks would gather around them to chat and catch up (or even play a game of checkers or chess). The term has since evolved to mean anything with a "friendly, homespun character." Since Dan Evin's goal was to create a restaurant with the warm, rustic look and feel of an old country store, he named his establishment Cracker Barrel.
You can shop 'til you drop there.
Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores give guests the chance to peruse everything from candles to clothing, along with home décor, gardening goods, quilts and bedding, holiday decorations, and much more. Their best sellers include women's apparel, with 3.7 million items sold every year. People also can't get enough of thin sticks, that old-timey candy that looks like little barber poles and comes in a zillion different flavors. Cracker Barrel sells 13 million annually.
Those rockers are a hit, too.
Who doesn't love those beautiful rockers that line every Cracker Barrel front porch, inviting guests to sit back and stay for a spell? Cracker Barrel sells about 70,000 a year, making them another one of the chain's most popular products. The Hinkle Chair Company, a sixth-generation, family-owned company with roots going back to 1834, crafted the very first Cracker Barrel rockers. The Tennesee company is still making Cracker Barrel's most in-demand chair, the Hinkle Slat Rocker, today.
Speaking of American made...
Cracker Barrel sources 90 percent of their ingredients from farmers and producers located in the U.S. From Maine blueberries to Vermont maple syrup and domestically raised catfish, beef, poultry, and pork—along with home-grown goodies like sweet potatoes and turnip greens—each dish is made with the freshest meat and produce possible. Cracker Barrel also supports purveyors committed to animal welfare and has committed to using only eggs harvested in a cage-free environment by the end of 2026.
That's a whole lotta Dumplins.
Cracker Barrel sells more Momma’s Pancake Breakfast than any other entrée, but Chicken n’ Dumplins are also a favorite. The restaurant serves up 13 million orders every year. Every dumplin is rolled by hand, just like Cracker Barrel's biscuits, and made from scratch, just like the mashed potatoes and gravy. And that super tender and juicy beef is slow-roasted for 18 hours.
A true (red, white and) blue success story.
By 1977, Dan Evins had opened 13 Cracker Barrels from Kentucky to Georgia, and come 2000, that number had grown to 420 restaurants. These days, there are more than 660 locations in 45 states around the country that welcome about 230 million folks annually! Every year, Cracker Barrel dishes out roughly:
210 million biscuits
162 million eggs
140 million slices of bacon
75 million pancakes
55 million 1.5 oz. bottles of Pure Natural Syrup
41 million servings of grits
13 million pounds of chicken tenders
You could fill up your belly and your ride.
Dan Evins was still working for his family's oil company when he opened the first Cracker Barrel. It seemed a natural fit to serve the needs of travelers whose tanks were as empty as their tummies, and so initial locations offered gas pumps along with savory, stick-to-your-ribs home cooking. But after the oil embargo of the mid-70s hit, new Cracker Barrels were built without pumps.
Yep, those are real antiques.
One of the things Cracker Barrel is best known for (besides the down-home and delish family-friendly fare) is the antique décor that lines the walls of each approximately 10,000-square-foot location. Every Cracker Barrel features between 800 to 1,000 pieces of authentic Americana—no reproductions allowed! And while what can be found from restaurant to restaurant varies almost entirely, there are five items common to every single one:
Deer head—usually hangs over the fireplace in the dining room
Horseshoe—this symbol of good luck is placed outside, above the front doors
Cookstove—often used in Old Country Store displays
Ox yoke—traditionally placed above barn doors on Southern farms, this also hangs above Cracker Barrel front doors
Stoplight—used in the vestibule, as a tongue-in-cheek way to direct restroom traffic
And it all comes from the décor warehouse.
Back in Cracker Barrel's early days, Dan Evins asked local antique dealers Kathleen and Don Singleton to decorate his new restaurant so it resembled the old country stores he loved so much. When the couple retired, their son, Larry, took over. For the next 40 years, he ran the company's décor warehouse, a 26,000-square-foot building that contains more than 90,000 artifacts. Today, a team researches each new Cracker Barrel location to make sure the artifacts used to decorate the restaurant complement the region.
Related: Cracker Barrel Changed Their Decor, and Fans Have Thoughts
There's always someone there.
Hours vary from location to location, but Cracker Barrels are staffed around the clock. When the dining room and retail store shutters for the night, the graveyard shift arrives to clean. Keeping all those nifty relics of bygone days dust-free is no easy task!
You can work up an appetite with a brain teaser.
Fans of Cracker Barrel know that no meal there would be complete without trying to crack the infamous peg game while you wait for your food to arrive. The little triangular boards stuffed full of colorful golf tees have sat on every Cracker Barrel table since the first location opened, just waiting for their next victim. There are supposedly 6,000 ways to get down to one peg and win, but make two wrong moves and you're in a serious pickle. Cracker Barrel has sold a whopping 300,000 peg games, which are also known as “Peg Solitaire” or “Hi-Q.”
That's not Uncle Herschel on the logo.
If you've ever wondered who the old timer is on Cracker Barrel's iconic logo, despite rumors to the contrary it's not Herschel McCartney. Dan Evins' uncle was a cherished fixture in the company's early years, pretty much acting as Cracker Barrel's unofficial goodwill ambassador. But Nashville ad man Bill Holley actually dashed off the logo on a napkin during a meeting with Dan, intent on evoking nostalgia for the good ol' days.
Cracker Barrel's got a Grammy. Yes, really.
From time to time, Cracker Barrel teams up with country music royalty like Alabama and Alan Jackson to produce exclusive albums that can be purchased online and in Old Country Stores. In 2012, the chain partnered with legend Dolly Parton for the two-disc live album An Evening with Dolly, which went gold. Five years later, Cracker Barrel released Dolly's remake of her beloved classic, "Jolene," with Pentatonix. It snagged a Grammy award for "Best Country Duo/Group Performance.”
There's a couple that's been to every single location.
Ray and Wilma Yoder from Goshen, Indiana, have spent their golden years touring the country. They love Cracker Barrel so much that they made it their mission to visit every single one over the past 30 years—and they did it!
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