Cracker Barrel Once Owned This Growing Steakhouse Chain. Do You Know Which One?

Family restaurant chain Cracker Barrel isn't only about niche design choices, the occasional weird mascot drama, and Southern-inspired food. Like any prudent business, it also has other profit streams, like perhaps most notably, the gift shops that peddle rocking chairs and objets d'art like smiling plastic frogs. Cracker Barrel was also once more solidly in the steak business. That's beef steak, not just chicken-fried.

Cracker Barrel owned Logan's Roadhouse, which launched its first location in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1991, from 1999 to 2006. The Southern-themed chain bought Logan's for close to $179 million, according to The New York Times, and unloaded it for $486 million, per Cracker Barrel disclosures. That's a lot of Old Timer's Breakfasts. Cracker Barrel would go on to buy the fast-casual Maple Street Biscuit Company for the relative bargain of $36 million in 2019, and Logan's Roadhouse rolls on under its present owner, SSCP Management, which might be familiar as the operator of the Cicis Pizza and Corner Bakery chains.

Logan's Roadhouse has well over 130 locations, but in fewer than half of the United States. Most are scattered around the country's eastern half. A list of folksy "Roadhouse rules" creates the tableau of a downhome, rootin' tootin' kind of place. "All persons are allowed to be themselves and may not be anyone else," for example, certainly implies the absence of things like dress codes that you'd find in stuffier establishments. The restaurant's warmly lit, wood-paneled dining rooms reinforce the rustic vibe.

Logan's lengthy menus start with classics like loaded potato skins, beer-battered onion rings, and mesquite wings. The steaks are mesquite-grilled, too, and include the sirloin that fancier spots sometimes eschew, as well as filet mignon, porterhouse, ribeye, and New York strip selections. There aren't any explicitly listed classic martinis to go with them, but, with the wide variety of other cocktails on offer, we'll venture a guess that they can whip one right up. There are also several wines available by the can, and you're liable to find a generous dozen or so beers on offer.

While Logan's Roadhouse has changed owners several times over the years, the brand seems to have found its footing after being under the Cracker Barrel umbrella. In Market Force's 2025 Casual Dining Industry Study, Logan's Roadhouse scored the highest marks for customer loyalty. Clearly, the steakhouse chain is doing something (or several things) right.