Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Family restaurant in Matthews, North Carolina.
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store is a restaurant in Matthews, North Carolina, housed in a wooden building with a covered front porch lined with rocking chairs. Inside, a dining room and a retail shop occupy the same space, selling food, gifts, and home goods alongside the meals.
The chain was founded in 1969 in Tennessee, originally set up along the interstate to draw in travelers looking for a Southern-style meal on the road. Over the following decades it expanded across the country, and this Matthews location is part of that broader growth.
The menu centers on Southern dishes like buttermilk biscuits, grits, and country ham, all served throughout the day. Eating here gives a sense of how rural communities in the American South have long gathered around the table.
The restaurant sits along a main road and is easy to reach by car, with a large parking lot right by the entrance. If there is a wait for a table, the rocking chairs on the front porch are a good place to sit while you wait.
The walls are covered with old farm tools, tin signs, and black-and-white photos that were not bought as generic decor but sourced from auctions and private collectors over the years. The company actively refreshes these objects so that no two locations look exactly the same.
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