As corporations, they may be able to enter the vacuum with a spin-off restaurant, "Buc-ee's Back Porch", etc.
It is amazing how much the atmosphere of a restaurant attracts or repels its market segment. There was a crab place here in Maryland I only went to infrequently, but when I took out-of-town family there, they started to seat us in their dimly lit dining room, where the curtains and carpeting had absorbed decades of crab smell. Yuck! What I wanted was their "back room"—a take-out shop with clean stainless steel counters and linoleum floors, a couple of clean formica tables, no cocktail lounge muzak, no stank, and the same crab menu -- we only had to walk through the door and had a great crab dinner.
Buc-ee's is more of a glorified truck stop like Love's than like a Target (pfft pfft), but so far, it remains wholesome—you don't get the feeling they are trying to groom your kids or tolerate hookers in the mens' rooms.
I also have many fond memories of Stuckey's, but they were always more of a candy, gift and souvenir shop—I don't remember ever actually dining at one. But I do remember their pecan log rolls.
Jul 23, 2025 — There are 657 Cracker Barrel locations in
the United States as of July 23, 2025 —are so it’s said.