Cracker Barrelmight be America ’s preferent Southern eating house that ’s also conveniently locate on the side of a highway in 42 states . Even though there are 630 locations across the US , to many masses , eating at a Cracker Barrel feel like home . But what is it about the restaurant that people sleep together so much ? How did a place known for biscuits and golf tee - based mind teaser become a $ 3 billion companionship ?
I had n’t been to a Cracker Barrel in 20 years , so I adjudicate to stop by one in North Glenn , CO to find out what all the fuss is about . And I brought along my southerly girlfriend to act as a spirit templet . I was fixin ' to get to the bottom of why America make out Cracker Barrel so gosh dang much .
Waiting to be seated is essential to the experience
A production line of empty rocking chairs sits undisturbed on the patio of the North Glenn Cracker Barrel off of I-25 . I can see mountains from the patio , and yet I ’m still half - wait for a Southern grandma to materialize and pop the question me fresh tea . But it does n’t matter if the parking fate overlooks a deal range or a desert , a serene coastline or the field , a truck stop or a Great Lake : every Cracker Barrel is a carbon paper written matter of the next one , extend into infinity . A few of the president even have " Colorado " indite on them , but it ’s not befool my Arkansan girlfriend Gina . " These sway chairs say Colorado , but they mean rural Tennessee , " she suppose .
She ’s right on two counts . The first Cracker Barrel opened in Lebanon , TN in 1969 . By 1992 , the ship’s company was publicly trade on the NASDAQ and deserving a billion . And the chairs ? A company in Springfield , TN makes 200,000 a yearsolely for Cracker Barrel .
It ’s 7:30am on a Sunday , and the parking fortune is half full . There ’s no need to wait for a tabular array at this 60 minutes , which Gina say is unusual . " You have to wait at Cracker Barrel for one to two 60 minutes sometimes , " she says . " And sometimes just gaze at the parking lot . " Or play checker . We have n’t even made it to the gift shop yet . There ’s never a lack of things to do while waiting .
Tim Boyle / Getty Images
you could apparently airlift a Cracker Barrel and dismiss it anywhere in America , and it ’ll be successful . But why ? We walk inwardly to notice out .
The Cracker Barrel Old Country Store can never be uncool
Owning a Hard Rock Cafe shirt in the ' 90s was the definition of aplomb . Wearing it was shorthand for , " Yeah , my stepdad take in me to the Hard Rock in Phoenix , so I ’m radian . " But what was once coolheaded can become uncool . Nowadays , when you bear a Hard Rock shirt , people reckon you ’re about to go into a long - scent speech about how Foghat is way better than this new horseshit on the wireless . Not nerveless .
Yet there was never anything cool about the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store , so it can never go out of style . It can just be what it is : a place for your least - best-loved aunt to grease one’s palms you a Christmas present you ’ll inevitably regift .
Cool or not , if you ’re 14 years old and on a route slip , you ’ll guess you kick the bucket and go away to candy heaven . I can palpate the presence of the ghosts of thousands of moms call their kids candy only if they swear to be good . There are Pez dispensers , 20 + flavors of confect " stix , " including rummy & butter ( which seems highly out or keeping considering its butt hearing ) , and bottles ofCheerwine .
Flickr/Katy Warner
There are also plenty of items for your spiritual grandma to treasure . Well , not mine , as they were Judaic , and the Scripture Tea and gospel music CDs tilt decidedly Christian . But it surround true for Gina . We take care at ahuge rack of thickset phonograph recording . In a store . In 2016 . She picks up a compact disc .
" Little Jimmy Dickens ! " she exclaims . " This is my grannie ’s favourite creative person . "
" This CD looks like something that was made for aMr . Showsketch , " I reply .
Lee Breslouer/Thrillist
Turns out that Little Jimmy Dickens ( RIP ) sang humourous gaud songs . He was theMr . Showof his fourth dimension !
I spy a guy in an Affliction T - shirt looking at camo hat ; Cracker Barrel - branded food for thought ( sweet afternoon tea , orchard apple tree butter ) and cast - iron pans pack the well - lit space elsewhere . All this stuff is part of CB ’s secret sauce . The restaurant specialize itself from every other roadside spot by offer a beguilement from the family you ’ve been cooped up in a Ford Taurus with for the last 12 hours . Even anIllustrated Bible Versesbook is a breath of wise air .
And then I see something that makes me do a forked take – are thoseCharles in ChargeDVDs ? Only inside a Cracker Barrel are the adventures of Scott Baio and Willie Aames still relevant and bankable .
Lee Breslouer/Thrillist
America’s dining hall
The hostess walks us into a woodwind instrument furniture - filled place decorated with faux - rustic tshatshke – who in the Sam Hill is hanging a washboard on a wall ? And a real , actual roaring fire . I later see an employee tending to it . It somehow find homelike . I enquire who chew the fat this localisation , and she suppose it ’s a commixture of " traveler off the main road , specially in the summer , " but passel of regulars too .
I see grandparents , couples , and kids running around the dining room . A girthy man with a T - shirt that identifies him as a biker corrode alone , multiple plates spread out in front of him like he ’s the King of Highway Restaurants . All the employee so far seem … happy ? But not in a forced way . The blank space feel active and homy ( there ’s that word again ) in a direction that most chain restaurants do n’t .
Olive Garden ’s vibration does n’t quite mime the experience of eating in a eating house in Tuscany . But this Cracker Barrel could fool me into thinking I ’m in Kentucky .
Lee Breslouer/Thrillist
We sit at our mesa and I straightaway suck intemperately at that golf - football tee pin game ( which is easily resolvable , if you know the trick ) . Playing this biz is like play checkers with yourself , which is a solid euphemism for pretty much whatever you want .
There ’s a fast one to beating it , but I do n’t bed it , so I exit four pins , which concord to the writing on the plot , makes me an " eg - no - atomic number 88 - European elk . " Gina stick three . We ’re two dummies who merit each other . But I admit it ’s somewhat fun , and for another second I leave I ’m in a eating house .
That Cracker Barrel thaumaturgy strikes again !
Lee Breslouer/Thrillist
The food is Southern-fried Denny’s, but better
I govern a coffee and the Sunrise Sampler , which comes with two eggs , grit , buttermilk biscuits + gravy , Malus pumila butter ( on asking only ) , deep-fried apple , hashbrown casserole , smoked blimp , country ham , and wooden-headed - slit bacon . All that food is only $ 8.19 . unbelievable .
Anyone stopping by later in the 24-hour interval can say the same huge , southerly - style portions at low prices : chicken - fry chicken with gravy , and sides like mac & cheese and green beans . Hamburger steaks ( ? ! ) . Chicken and dumplings . Sugar - cured ham . And do n’t forget those biscuits .
As we wait for our magnate ’s banquet - sized breakfast , Gina tells me that she would go to Cracker Barrel after church on Sundays in Conway , AR , " because that ’s what you did . " Right off the I-40 main road , her menage would routinely wait an hour to eat southerly comfort food from a chain restaurant . But they ’re in the South ! certainly there was a less chain - yttrium place to eatbettercomfort food , correct ? Surely ! But that ’s just what you did .
Lee Breslouer/Thrillist
The food arrive quickly . The coffee bean tastes like it ’s from one of our nation ’s finest gas - post shop , the eggs are ok , and the sausage balloon subsist . I ’m foiled . But then I eat a biscuit . And then I circulate the apple butter on the biscuit . I take a forkful of piping - hot fried apple .
And then I get it . You ca n’t get this at Denny ’s . I squeeze the fry orchard apple tree into my mouth one after another , and then I polish off two cooky with Malus pumila butter like it ’s nothing even though I ’m not that hungry . If I needed to drive for five hours after this , there ’d be enough intellectual nourishment on the table to sustain me . All for $ 8 !
If it ain’t broke…
If I had to guess why Cracker Barrel remains a tremendously popular , profitable endeavor without change in seemingly evermore , while TGI Friday ’s and Chili ’s constantly rebrand their bill of fare and decor , it ’d be because CB offers cheap , plentiful comfortableness food for thought in a commodious location , along with legion entertainment possibilities . CB will give you something to verbalize about with whomever you go there with – especially if you want to talk about Statler Brothers certificate of deposit andPioneer Womancookbooks . And the masses dining there do , like the many white - haired ladies being dropped off in front of the restaurant , waiting patiently while their equally clean - haired hubby park the car .
Seconds after I force out of my parking spot , I was cut off by a guy in a Ford F-350 Super Duty . It felt like the most American affair , to be geld off in a Cracker Barrel parking bunch by a Ford truck . I could n’t even be mad – it just felt up right . And that ’s why Cracker Barrel abide after all these years – in a fast - moving , globalized world dominate by engineering , there ’s still a place you’re able to go to get southerly comforter nutrient after Christian church . It ’s get the same fare you remember from when you were a minor , the same game , and the same candy . It just find correct .
Sign up herefor our day-by-day Thrillist email , and get your fix of the good in food / drink / play .
Lee Breslouer/Thrillist
