Cracker Barrel
Hometown: Lebanon, Tenn.
The tiny town of Lebanon is east of Nashville and most famous as the home of Cracker Barrel. The 550+ restaurant chain offers comfort food and nostalgia as an alternative to the hordes of fast-food options clogging the highways.
Cracker Barrel has been embroiled in controversy through the years, first with gay rights groups and then with claims of racial discrimination and sexual harassment.
As with many interstate travelers, the Cracker Barrel is a regular meal stop during family vacations. Partaking of some comfort food, perusing the country store for toys and food we recall from our childhoods, and resting for a spell in the rocking chairs can be just the thing after long hours on the road
A local spring was the chosen site for the town, and a nearby grove of red cedars inspired the town’s bibical name. The town was incorporated in 1819, and Cumberland University opened its doors there in 1842. The town square — which today features antique and gift shops that bring tourists from far and wide — was the site of a Civil War battle in 1862. Some 130 confederate soldiers are buried at Lebanon’s historic Cedar Grove Cemetery.
The town expanded once the Tennessee and Pacific Railroad came to town after the Civil War, followed by the Lebanon Woolen Mills and the Gulf Red Cedar Company in 1908. General George Patton’s tanks passed through the town on their way to Europe, and after World War II, the town expanded again, with the opening of Tennessee’s first industrial park, which is the site of Cracker Barrel’s corporate headquarters.
Dan Evins opened the first Cracker Barrel Old Country Store in 1969 on a plot of land on the outskirts of town that the family owned. With its country cooking and gifts that were "worth buying," it was a big hit. With friends and local associates as investors, the Cracker Barrel became a chain of 13 locations in the South by 1977.
Until the oil embargoes of the 1970s, Cracker Barrel sold gasoline as well as comfort food. The company went public in 1981. Today there are more than 500 locations in more than 40 states.
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