Cracker Barrel restaurants are a traveler's tradition

SARASOTA, Fla. -- Logs crackle in the stone fireplace, and two boys jaw over a game of checkers on the porch. A lady in an apron hustles along, her hands full with a pitcher of sweet tea and a steaming plate of chicken `n dumplings and country ham.

Welcome home?

No, welcome to one of nearly 400 restaurants just off interstate highway exits all over the country -- in places like Milford, Conn., and Yuma, Ariz. Welcome to Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores, one of America's favorite restaurant chains and certainly one of the country's most old-fashioned businesses.

While CEOs and talking heads from all walks of business race to be the first to squawk about Y2K compliance and e-commerce initiatives, Cracker Barrel managers and employees seem content to fret about whether peppermint sticks belong on the top shelf or the bottom shelf and if $8.49 is just too much to pay for a country fried steak dinner.

Dan Evins, Cracker Barrel's co-founder, president and CEO, opened his first restaurant 30 years ago just off Interstate 40 in rural Wilson County, Tenn., on the outskirts of the town of Lebanon. That first restaurant is now a Citgo gas station, but in 1999 there are 385 Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores coast to coast, and they pulled in $1.32 billion in sales last year.

That might seem superb on the surface, but it's how Evins got there that sets Cracker Barrel apart. Since that first day in 1969, Cracker Barrel hasn't changed the type of food it serves or its style of service.

All the restaurants are company owned, with no franchisees. All the restaurants are physically the same as well -- wide front porches covered with enough rocking chairs to scare even the bravest long- tailed cat; gift stores offering antiques, candy and crafts, dining rooms with the familiar fireplace, checker board and infuriating peg game on every table.

The restaurants are at or near interstate exits, continuing Evins' vision of Cracker Barrel as a prime eating spot for travelers.

Company spokeswoman Julie Davis said consistency and an unwillingness to change has served the company well.

"We like to think that we have succeeded in maintaining the old country store atmosphere -- and our focus on guests and hospitality - - as we have grown," she said. "We will stick to a core vision. There will always be a tweak here, a tweak there, but you're not going to see any radical changes."

Consistency of service brought consistency of results for the chain, which is still headquartered in Lebanon. After going public in 1981, Cracker Barrel became a favorite of Wall Street for its steady results and a lack of true competition for its niche market.

But restaurants keep popping up. As Cracker Barrel sees more competition, its customers see more choices. In the most recent quarter, the chain's holding company, CBRL Group, recorded its second straight quarterly decline of earnings per share, to 25 cents from 39 cents a year ago. Wall Street is not as favorable as it once was, particularly since same-store sales have fallen for four consecutive quarters, despite the fact that the restaurant industry overall is on an upswing.

Cracker Barrel has made recent changes -- cutting prices here and there, adding more staff per shift -- that have a negative effect on short-term bottom line but may pay dividends in the future.

Customers treat Cracker Barrell well in industry surveys. It was named best restaurant chain by tour operators in Destinations magazine from 1994 to 1998, and this year Restaurants & Institutions named it the best family dining chain for the ninth year in a row.

But it hasn't all been grits and gravy for the restaurant chain that relies heavily on its country charm image. In 1991, the company touched off nationwide protests by adopting a policy banning homosexuals from working at its restaurants. Public outrage caused the restaurant to rescind the policy within the year, but the damage was done, said David Smith, spokesman for Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, D.C.-based gay rights organization.

Smith said that although discrimination against gays still occurs in workplaces all over the country, Cracker Barrel was unique in the overtness of its stand. "I think that the company has still made no effort whatsoever to erase that image," he said.

Davis said that in fact, the company has done something. Though the company's employment policy does not specifically mention homosexuals, it does say that Cracker Barrel does "not tolerate discrimination of any kind toward any individual or group."

The flap generated headlines but did not seemed to affect the company's growth. Last year, the CBRL Group holding company was formed when Cracker Barrel bought the Logan's Roadhouse restaurant chain, which includes about 50 stores.

More than 100 stores have been added since July 1996, with another 40 expected this year. Two restaurants have been built away from interstates, but that concept is still in the testing phase, Davis said.

The lion's share of the company's expansion will take place outside the company's core market, which is the Southeast. Opening restaurants in the Northeast or Southwest presents a unique problem, Davis admits: When your specialty is scrumptious Southern cooking, how do you educate a public that couldn't tell the difference between a grit and a dumpling?

"There's a story I've heard of a man from the Northeast who came into the Cracker Barrel for breakfast one day. He asked the waitress what she recommended, and she told him that grits were excellent topped with gravy or sugar. He said, `Yeah, I'll try a grit. Bring me one.'

"She had to inform him that it would be hard to eat just one grit."

Copyright 1999
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