I'm not old enough to have used many of the antiques, but I sure wonder how those folks find and acquire all that stuff to stock their many restaurants.
I also wonder how much they're paying so many people for their priceless family photographs. I wonder how grandma would feel if she knew her heirs were going to turn her portrait over to a restaurant chain to hang on one of their walls.
Well, pardon the drift -just some thoughts I have every time I eat in there.
I'm not old enough to have used many of those old tools either but I remember many of those old signs that were hanging around at the grain elevator and the old hardware store in the little town I grew up in. I remember old tools stashed in the tractor shed and barn too. Stuff that wasn't discarded in the trash is nowadays sought out for decoration.
As to the old family pictures, sadly many are to be found in antique stores or at sales. Once the people who knew them are gone many are just "old pictures" and not valued by folks who have either little interest in the past or feel no connection to the people in them. I have talked to more than one person who has found such photos in the trash or left behind in an old house. A friend recently showed me some tintypes he had. He had bought a house from some local people and helped them move into a smaller retirement home. While they kept certain things there was a box of old photos they told him to put with the trash because "they didn't know who the people in them were". He couldn't see throwing them away so saved them even if only to sell them at an antique show.
Now as to Cracker Barrel itself, I love the biscuits and gravy, oh yeah the pancakes too. Just wish I could keep the wife from wandering around in the gift shop too long. The meal always ends up costing me a lot extra (though she did find the grand daughter a lovely little dress for Easter this year!).
Then all of a sudden after all that time a forend appeared under the barrels.
