Dan Evins, 76, founded the Cracker Barrel chain

LEBANON, TENN.

- The founder of the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store chain, Dan Evins, died Saturday. He was 76.

Evins opened his first restaurant in Lebanon in 1969. The restaurant catered to highway travelers and focused on offering Southern hospitality, country-style cooking and an associated gift shop that came to define the chain.

He fashioned the restaurant after the country stores of his youth in rural Tennessee and used a number of family recipes. The restaurant was named after the practice of customers' gathering at country stores to share news and to play checkers on top of an empty barrel that had been used to deliver crackers to the store.

Evins helped build the chain into a national brand as CEO from 1969 to 2001 and chairman until he retired in 2004. Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc. now operates more than 600 restaurants in 42 states.