One of the benefits of traveling by road outside of California is eating breakfast at Cracker Barrel… love the biscuits and gravy and even shopping the store looking at the classic toys, etc. Dan Evins, the founder of Cracker Barrel died at age 76 in Tennessee.
The company said Monday that Evins — known as Danny — died Saturday in Lebanon, Tenn. No cause of death was given.
Evins opened his first restaurant in Lebanon, Tenn., in 1969. The restaurant catered to highway travelers and focused on offering Southern hospitality, country-style cooking and an associated gift shop that came to define the chain.
He fashioned the restaurant after the country stores of his youth in rural Tennessee and used a number of family recipes. The restaurant was named after the practice of customers gathering at country stores to share news and play checkers on top of an empty barrel that had been used to deliver crackers to the store.
Evins helped build the chain into a national brand as CEO from 1969 to 2001 and chairman until he retired in 2004. Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc., headquartered in Lebanon, Tenn., now operates more than 600 restaurants in 42 states.
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Got to go to a Cracker Barrel, when I was on a shoot over in West Palm Beach, Florida. Was taken there by local fruit gift owner Alan Cushman – anyone from that area knows about his famous “Honeybell” Tangelos. Great guy – and neat place to grab lunch after a morning of shooting.
Love me some Cracker Barrel and try and get some every time I am back in the states.
I love Cracker Barrel too, even though it has been years since I have been in one (pretty hard to find one out this way). My favorite salt and pepper shaker set is from there.
Someplace like Bakersfield/Victorville is where I would imagine a Cracker Barrel in Cali.
Egad. I suppose someone has to live there but I am sure glad its not me.
I have spent many a day and night in the Victorville area, quite the place.
That’s one way of putting it. I tend to be biased though, as most Northern Cali types are toward the SoCal part of the state.
To be fair, I am sure it is like anywhere else with nice parts and not so nice parts and it is what you make of it.
No….Victorville is a hole! The second runner-up to hole is Barstow, then Bakersfield.
Needles should be in contention as well.
That’s true. Forgot Needles.
Cracker Barrel is the Stuckey’s of today. For you younguns, Stuckey’s was a low rent Cracker Barrel.
I finally got to eat at one when I was in Texas over New Years. I thought it was very good. We still don’t have one in Vegas. The closest is in Kingman, AZ, about an hour and a half down the road from Hoover Dam.
Yep,Stuckey’s.My sister and I in the back seat of the car:”Stop,Daddy,we wanna go to Stucky’s!”
That’s interesting, because when I was younger I used to ask my friends, rhetorically, on road trips, “Does anybody ever say, ‘Oh boy! A Stuckey’s! That’s where I want to eat!’?”
No Cracker Barrels in the Northcoast, at least not to my knowledge growing up, but more than made up for it when we did the Looking for Oscar road-trip. Probably should have hit them up as a sponsor now that I think about it because we hit one every chance we could. RIP, Danny, er, Mr. Evins.
We have one here in town, right by the interstate. Good grub. I enjoy their breakfast offerings, especially the hash brown casserole.