Dan Evins
The cofounder of Cracker Barrel
Danny Wood Evins (October 11, 1935 – January 14, 2012) was an American entrepreneur and founder of Cracker Barrel, a Southern-themed restaurant chain.
Early life
Evins was born in Smithville, Tennessee, on October 11, 1935, the youngest child of Estelle McCartney and William Jackson Evins. As a child he graduated from Castle Heights Military Academy in Lebanon, Tennessee. He enlisted in the US Marine Corps
and attended Auburn University.
Career
Evins also worked as an aide for his uncle, U.S. Rep. Joe L. Evins, before taking a position with his family's oil company.
Evins founded Cracker Barrel in 1969 while he was working for Shell Oil. He opened the first restaurant in Lebanon, Tennessee, on Tennessee State Route 109. He borrowed $40,000 to construct the first Cracker Barrel, which turned a profit just one month after opening.
Evins was the chief executive officer (CEO) of Cracker Barrel from its founding in 1969 to 2001, and after a shareholder exodus due to his discriminatory policies, he was chairman of the board from 2001 until his retirement in 2004.
“Dan Evins” enters the record as the cofounder of Cracker Barrel. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Evins, cofounder and Cracker can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5213457. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1935, 2012, 1969 and 2001.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dan Evins” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.