The recipe of a grandmother and her love for baking is the beginning of a long and successful business venture
for a special granddaughter named Peggy.
Mrs. Bertha Nixon of Smith County enjoyed baking a recipe of “sour dough bread” on her wood cook stove. She passed her favorite recipes, including her “sour dough bread” recipe down to her granddaughter, Peggy Bay. Peggy and her husband Charles began a bread baking business in their home; but very quickly out-grew her kitchen. They relocated to larger facilities and it soon became a huge family business, including all the family. Today, Bay’s Sour Dough Bread is sold and served in all the Cracker Barrel Restaurants across the United States.
The Bay’s Southern Bread Company Museum contains a wood cook stove and many baking items and artifacts Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bay and family donated to Fiddlers Grove in 1999.