Cracker Barrel

Cracker Barrel is a massive chain of combination restaurant/country-store locations that feature a surprisingly well-prepared menu of Southern comfort foods served in gigantic portions at ridiculously low prices. Don't look for originality or anything outside of the American canon, but if you want hot coffee by the gallon, real buttermilk pancakes served with maple syrup that actually once saw the inside of a tree, and grits with sawmill gravy, Cracker Barrel delivers. The gift shops attached to each restaurant offer everything from books on tape and classic candies to lawn ornaments, pancake mix, Loretta Lynn CDs and the kind of tourist T-shirts that tend to pop up at ironic moments in Quentin Tarantino movies.