Walking into a Cracker Barrel restaurant kind of feels like walking into your grandma's house. There are antiques on the wall, it always feels familiar, and you know you won't leave without a full stomach of home cooking. If you've ever wondered how a restaurant with more than 600 locations around the country is able to recreate this coziness from store to store, the answer is in large part thanks to Larry Singleton.
Cracker Barrel's decor manager has been with the company for decades, and either he or his parents are responsible for picking out each one of the hundreds of thousands of antiques that line the walls of every restaurant. In the last 50 years, he estimates his family has picked out upwards of one million pieces that are now spread out in Cracker Barrel stores. Together with the culinary team and merchants (the people who stock the gift shop you walk through upon entering any restaurant), Larry helps create the Cracker Barrel aesthetic.
Delish spoke to Larry, as well as Cracker Barrel's VP of Culinary and Menu Strategy Cammie Spillyards-Schaefer and Head Merchant Laura Daily, on a recent trip to Lebanon, TN, to find out how, exactly, the magic of Cracker Barrel comes to be. Items like the new-ish Southern Fried Chicken, which took years to develop, are dreamed up and thoroughly tested in the Product Development Kitchen. Nearby, in the training kitchen, managers from every region convene to learn how to prep seasonal promotions and new menu items.
Over in the Retail Development Center, buyers are working more than a year out to determine what to sell in the gift shop. When we visited in September, they were already gearing up for Christmastime, with woodland themes and nostalgic red trucks taking over the warehouse. All of this comes together in the headquarter's mock store, where higher-ups taste test new items and the decor team lays out their design plan.
Watch the video to explore the Tennessee headquarters for yourself!
