Cracker Barrel's Logo Revolt and the 90,000-Item Antique Warehouse

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Cracker Barrel started in 1969 in Lebanon, Tennessee, where Shell Oil representative Dan Evans designed a country store with gas pumps to sell more gasoline to highway travelers. The 1970s oil crisis forced the company to drop the pumps and live entirely on food and retail. Its decor is run from a 90,000-item archive of genuine antiques at its Tennessee headquarters, built up for decades by the Singleton family: designers mock up each new dining room inside the warehouse, arrange real artifacts, photograph the layout and ship the pieces with a map. The chain went public in 1981, grew about 20 percent a year, and reached a $1 billion valuation by 1992. Fans Ray and Wilma Yoder drove over 5 million miles between 1977 and 2017 to visit 644 locations, but 1990s suburban carryout spots called Corner Market failed.

A 1991 internal memo told managers to fire employees who lacked "normal heterosexual values"; Evans called it a mistake and it was ended within months, but the New York City employees' retirement system pressed shareholder votes until 58 percent backed adding sexual orientation to the nondiscrimination policy in 2002. In 2004 the company settled NAACP-backed racial discrimination suits and a Justice Department case requiring an outside auditor. The pandemic brought DoorDash delivery and, in September 2020, alcohol. Kraft, which has sold Cracker Barrel cheese since the 1950s, won a trademark case that forced grocery products under the name CB Old Country Store. By May 2024, 16 percent of pre-2020 customers had not returned. An August 2025 logo that dropped Uncle Herschel lasted one week before the company scrapped it.

• Every location displays the same five items: a shotgun, a cast iron cook stove, a deer head, an antique telephone and a vintage traffic light.
• Activist investor Sardar Biglari tried five times over a decade to win board seats before a 2022 truce.
• After the logo reversal the company halted remodels tested in four locations and removed diversity and Pride pages from its website.
• In 2026 it cut its traditional New Year's Day black-eyed pea special.
• A January 2026 memo told corporate staff traveling for work to eat at Cracker Barrel whenever practical.