how many states have a cracker barrel restaurant
43
title: Cracker Barrel text: Cracker Barrel Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. is an American chain of combined restaurant and gift stores with a Southern country theme. The company was founded by Dan Evins in 1969; its first store was in Lebanon, Tennessee. The corporate offices are located at a different facility in the same city. The chain's stores were at first positioned near Interstate highway exits in the Southeastern and Midwestern United States, but has expanded across the country during the 1990s and 2000s. , the chain operates 645 stores in 44 states. Cracker Barrel's menu is based on traditional Southern cuisine, with title: Cracker Barrel text: mid to late 1970s, the firm began to build restaurants without pumps. Into the early 1980s, the company reduced the number of gas stations on-site, eventually phasing them out altogether as the company focused on its restaurant and gift sales revenues. Cracker Barrel became a publicly traded company in 1981 to raise funds for further expansion. It floated more than half a million shares, raising $4.6 million. Following the initial public offering, Cracker Barrel grew at a rate of around 20 percent per year; by 1987, the company had become a chain of more than 50 units in eight states, title: Cracker Barrel text: menu, and asked that the Smithfield Foods deal be nullified by the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois. Cracker Barrel Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. is an American chain of combined restaurant and gift stores with a Southern country theme. The company was founded by Dan Evins in 1969; its first store was in Lebanon, Tennessee. The corporate offices are located at a different facility in the same city. The chain's stores were at first positioned near Interstate highway exits in the Southeastern and Midwestern United States, but has expanded across the country during the 1990s title: Cracker Barrel text: infrastructure issues related to this rapid growth by implementing a more rigorous recruitment strategy and introducing new technology, including an order-placement system. From the late 1990s to the mid-2000s, the company focused on opening new locations in residential areas to attract local residents and workers as customers. It updated its marketing in 2006 to encourage new customers, changing the design of its highway billboard advertisements to include images of menu items. Previously the signs had featured only the company's logo. By 2011, Cracker Barrel had opened more than 600 restaurants in 42 states. On January 17, 2012, company founder Dan title: Cracker Barrel text: store that he remembered from his childhood, with a name chosen to give it a Southern country theme, Cracker Barrel was intended to attract the interest of highway travelers. The first restaurant was built close to Interstate 40, in Lebanon, Tennessee. It opened in September 1969, serving Southern cuisine including biscuits, grits, country ham, and turnip greens. Evins incorporated Cracker Barrel in February 1970, and soon opened more locations. In the early 1970s, the firm leased land on gasoline station sites near interstate highways to build restaurants. These early locations all featured gas pumps on-site; during gasoline shortages in the