HNI Tour of Cracker Barrel Warehouse

Address: 305 Hartmann Dr. Lebanon, TN 37087

Join HNI on an exclusive tour of Cracker Barrel’s very own décor warehouse! Joe Stewart, who has been the warehouse manager for almost 40 years, will be leading us through and showing us the frame shop, shadowbox work, and aisles and aisles of hand-picked antiques from his team. He’ll explain the history of the antiques in stores and all the thought and love that goes into choosing what goes into decorating every Cracker Barrel location. What a perfect way to spend a chilly Saturday morning!

This is a free event exclusively for HNI members, and tickets and membership are required. Memberships can be purchased or renewed on our website at historicnashvilleinc.org/get-involved/membership.

Where does CB find all those antiques? The answer is simple: everywhere.

Since 1969, they’ve traveled the country, visiting estate sales, auctions, flea markets, encountered individual collectors, and recently, been able to find items on the internet. They’ve purchased thousands of original artifacts including farm tools, business signs, family photographs, old-fashioned toys, and many other items.Cracker Barrel has a 26,000-sq.-ft. warehouse that stores all the antique and vintage items. From this warehouse, each store is decorated with the local community in mind. They carefully gather items and design what each store will look like in the warehouse. They develop multiple themes in their designs from kitchen, toys, music, and sporting designs.

This all started with a vision of bringing new life to the old country store. In 1969, Dan Evins opened the original Cracker Barrel old Country Store location in Lebanon, Tennessee. Dan wanted his new store to look and feel like the old country stores he remembered as a child. To create that look, he turned to Don and Kathleen Singleton, the owners of a family antique store just down the road from the original Cracker Barrel. As time went on, their son Larry Singleton joined them in the hunt for antiques. Since then, Larry has retired and a local person named Joe Stewart has taken up the hunt and continued what the Singletons started