ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 13, 1997 TAG: 9701130138
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: TROUTVILLE
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
THE GOOD FOOD ISN'T the main reason Botetourt County officials are singing Cracker Barrel's praises.
It's the gravy at the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store restaurant that always gets to John Shiflett.
"You can get gravy on just about everything," Botetourt County's Buchanan District supervisor said. "Those biscuits are kindly brown and crusty, and you put that warm gravy on it, my God, it's awful good. You'd have to be a communist not to like it, I think."
And if you're a revenue-scoping Botetourt County official - or any form of self-respecting capitalist for that matter - you can't help but love it.
The 6-month-old Cracker Barrel, it seems, is turning out to be a real gravy train for the county.
While a string of manufacturers was being lured to the county over the last few years by plenty of land, a skilled work force, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in incentives, the Cracker Barrel rather quietly set up shop on 5 acres of land at the already-crowded intersection of Interstate 81 and U.S. 220.
And that one restaurant is expected to collect and pay taxes for the county that will rival revenues generated by just about any other new business in the county, including all those fancy new factories - Dynax America Corp., Meadville Forging Corp., York International Corp., and A.O. Smith Automotive Products Inc.
Cracker Barrel's management estimates sales in its first year of business could reach $5million. If that's true, the county's cut - from a 4 percent meals tax and the 1 percent it gets from state sales tax - will be $250,000.
Add to that business license taxes; real estate tax on the land and building, whose estimated value is $1.5million; and business personal property tax; and this one relatively small business likely will collect and pay more than $260,000 in taxes to Botetourt County.
"They gotta be loving us," said Cracker Barrel Associate Manager Kelly Gilkeson.
By comparison, A.O. Smith, a 200,000-square-foot automotive parts plant on a 40-acre lot will pay just under $250,000 in real estate and machine and tool taxes on the $24million it has promised to invest in the county. And the company received $350,000 in incentives from the county and another $150,000 from the state.
Cracker Barrel built a $1.1million restaurant on a half-million dollar lot, so its real estate and property taxes will be a good bit lower than those of A.O. Smith and other manufacturers. The big bucks from Cracker Barrel will come from meals and sales taxes the restaurant collects on behalf of the county and the state.
On an average Sunday, Gilkeson said, 2,400 customers are cycled through the restaurant's 207 seats.
The restaurant, which serves breakfast all day, cracks an average of 4,340 eggs - that's 362 dozen - per week. Cooks fry up 450 pounds of thick-sliced bacon per week.
The wait to get a table on weekends is often an hour or longer, but it hasn't kept people from coming back.
"My wife likes the `Country Morning' breakfast" - two eggs, grits and, of course, gravy - said Larry Garret of Salem between bites of oatmeal. "I like it all."
The Garrets drive over from Salem to eat at Cracker Barrel, and they seek out a few of the restaurant's 275 locations whenever they travel.
"We just went to Florida," Betty Garret said. "We ate at Cracker Barrel comin' and goin'.''
Gilkeson said some customers plan their vacations around Cracker Barrel locations.
Customers seem to like the restaurant's atmosphere. Built like a big barn with a cavernous fireplace for a centerpiece, it's full of antiques - from old snowshoes and magazine covers to a composite photograph of the class of 1948, Palmer School of Chiropractic, in Davenport, Iowa.
The entrance is a gift shop that peddles a bizarre set of sundries - including blackberry cobbler filling, AA batteries, ceramic gnomes and the restaurant's famous rocking chairs for $109.99.
Cracker Barrel could have been doing all this business - and bringing in all those taxes - in Roanoke County.
In 1992, Cracker Barrel wanted to put a restaurant at the Hollins exit off I-81, but Roanoke County lost out on the deal over the restaurant's precious sign requirements. Cracker Barrel wanted to put up a 75-foot high sign where only 25-foot ones are permitted.
Botetourt County was not so finicky.
Botetourt has its own sign ordinance at the exit where Cracker Barrel opened, but the supervisors decided to make an exception.
A half-dozen other signs in the immediate area exceeded the height allowed by zoning laws - they were built before the sign restrictions were enacted - so the supervisors felt like they couldn't say no to Cracker Barrel.
"There wasn't no way we could turn away that kind of money over 20 feet of sign," Shiflett said.
But if Cracker Barrel is so lucrative and requires so little in incentives, why do county officials bother trying to lure factories to the area?
The difference is the quality of the jobs. Though Cracker Barrel employees can earn benefits, many retailers don't offer that option.
"We would not want to fill the county up with those kind of jobs," Burgess said. Besides, there's not much economic developers can do to attract retailers like Cracker Barrel.
"It's basically a traffic decision" for them, Burgess said. "Retail goes where it makes money."
LENGTH: Long : 111 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSEN STAFF. Annette Myers works the counter atby CNBthe country store inside Cracker Barrel. The large store is adjacent
to the Troutville restaurant's dining room. 2. Harvey and Sandy Mays
of Botetourt are regulars at Cracker Barrel. The couple is used to
waiting up to 45 minutes to get a table. color. 3. At left,
Christine Miller and Erin Lynch enjoy a cup of coffee on Cracker
Barrel's porch, which overlooks Interstate 81. 4.Seven-year-old
Tamara Phillips, above, enjoys a generous helping of iced tea with
her lunch.