The One-Of-A-Kind Place Where Cracker Barrel Stores All Of Its Antique Decor

One of Cracker Barrel's signature design elements is its heavy use of vintage signs and knick knacks which line the restaurant's walls. Depending on the location, you might see old butter churns, sports equipment, portraits, farming tools, and old ingredient tins. Clearly, it takes a lot of antique-picking to decorate any given restaurant. Of course, with the company's recent announcement to refresh and redesign several Cracker Barrel locations, it's unclear whether they'll need the same amount of material in the future. With 660 restaurants scattered around the country (in all but a handful of states), you can imagine the sheer number of items the company has to accumulate to decorate them all. As it turns out, Cracker Barrel keeps all its flea market finds in a specific décor warehouse located in Lebanon, Tennessee.

There are roughly 100,000 pieces of decoration in the 26,000 square foot warehouse with new pieces constantly arriving from flea markets, auctions, and collectors. Every item is carefully inspected upon arrival, tagged, and cataloged so that the décor manager knows exactly where each piece is when it's ready to be sent to a new or existing restaurant. Cracker Barrel is intentional about keeping the decorations at each restaurant unique to the area it's located in and every restaurant is outfitted with around 1,000 pieces of antique décor. So, while you might see old gas cans and mason jars in several restaurants, a Cracker Barrel in Huntsville, Alabama might have some vintage space-themed pieces since it's known as "Rocket City," while a store in Nashville, Tennessee might host old guitars and other instruments as a nod to "Music City."

Cracker Barrel's décor warehouse has the type of treasure trove that the hosts of "American Pickers" would love to get their hands on. Aside from a 1926 Model T automobile, there is a Coca Cola sign dated from 1895 along with 11,000 other vintage advertisement signs, old books, sewing machines, luggage, cameras, and even a giant bin full of old roller skates; all of which might end up at your local Cracker Barrel. Smaller items are often grouped together and placed in shadow boxes to hang on walls. The warehouse contains a mock store or staging area where the Décor Supervisor, Joe Stewart, and his team put pieces together to see how they look before shipping the items off to stores.

In 2024, the Cracker Barrel décor warehouse hosted its first-ever yard sale where it sold hundreds of pieces to the general public to make room for its upcoming (and controversial) renovation. All 700 items sold out within half an hour. When choosing and approving décor, Stewart considers whether or not new (so to speak) pieces fit the company's "old country store" theme which has shaped Cracker Barrel since its inception. There is one item, though, that you'll find in every Cracker Barrel restaurant but won't find in its décor warehouse: the ubiquitous peg game that's on every dining table. These actually come from a novelty store, also located in Lebanon, Tennessee.