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The Cracker Barrel is Paradise's main landmark -- famous
for prime rib
By Jon Cox
April 19, 2005 | PARADISE -- One sign
reads, "The Cracker Barrel, A Territorial Trading Post
Since 1881," and for those who pass through the small
town of Paradise, you probably remember little else.
In fact, there really isn't anything else. For the
small town of Paradise, with a population of less than
1,000, the Cracker Barrel stands as the only restaurant
in town.
"Folks here either work in Logan or at the Cracker
Barrel. There really isn't much else," Councilman Dale
Anderson said.
The Cracker Barrel General Store and Café originally
began as a mercantile known as the PCMI (Paradise Cooperative
Mercantile Incorporated), a subsidiary of the ZCMI group,
part of the once LDS Church-owned holdings.
"The Church sold off a bunch of their little mercantiles,"
owner Alan Stock said. "Paradise was one of the first
to go."
For years it would function under various owners as
a mercantile for Paradise and the surrounding community.
"They might have sold a burger or two, but back then
it was just a mercantile," Stock said.
Remnants of the former mercantile still exist, though.
An old gas pump still sits out in front of the restaurant.
The store stopped selling gasoline years ago, but Stock
opted to keep the tank there. "It just fits in with
with the rest of the setting," Stock said.
That setting fits in with the rest of Paradise. The
diner is small with mostly families seated together.
"I felt like I was back in Malad, Idaho," USU student
Bree Price said of the restaurant. "It just seemed like
one of those everyone-knows-everyone kind of atmospheres."
More than seven years ago, Stock purchased the restaurant
and continues to help foment the transformation from
mercantile to general store to café. Since the change,
the restaurant continues to serve not only Cache Valley,
but also an occasional passerby who has heard of the
famous Cracker Barrel prime rib. And such passersby
come more often than not.
"I hear people say it's the best prime rib in all
of Cache Valley," Brent White, longtime Paradise resident
said.
"It's the only place to eat in Paradise," Stock said.
"But we also have regulars come in from all the way
down in Ogden."
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