Cracker Barrel throws conservatives two
bones — neither works

M.B.'s essay sounds very personal. I'd say this comfort food restaurant will survive. If the food doesn't change and if it was that good...

The CEO is still there, she lied about public opinion, the DIE is still ingrained, and no one has apologized. And the food has gone downhill (too much is pre-made and simply re-heated--and not that well!). They may survive, but they will need to be happy with a new, much lower, profit. No way their target market is interested in going to CB, and there are other options for us old-timers.

Bingo. You can't put lipstick on a pig and expect us to kiss it.

M.B. had to do a very public I was wrong" about her opposition to Trump a while back, also published at AT. . It would seem that she should allow CB to do the same now without being slammed by her..

Haven't been to a CB in years. Food wasn't as good, smaller portions, and more limited menu. Good riddance.

Cracker Barrel is a corporation someone like Elon Musk should buy out and reorganize, and especially to get back to the quality of “down home” food that the Cracker Barrel was known for years ago. There certainly has been a change and service of the food at Cracker Barrel. I believe that years ago the “down home” food at Cracker Barrel was prepared from fresh and was baked and cooked at the restaurants. But now it appears that just about all that food is prepared, precooked, and is packaged someplace else, before it is delivered to the restaurants where it is reheated in microwaves as the meals are ordered. Customers most likely could purchase similar precooked and packaged food in their local grocery stores a lot cheaper than ordering it heated up at a Cracker Barrel. A couple of months ago I was traveling long distance on the Interstate Highways when I came across a Cracker Barrel and decided to stop and eat dinner there. I ordered a meatloaf dinner as I had done many times before at Cracker Barrel restaurants across the USA. When the meal was served, the meatloaf consisted of a small piece that was the butt end of a meatloaf, certainly not the quantity that I have been served in the past, that was no doubt heated up in a microwave. I have not gone to a Cracker Barrel restaurant since then.

The new interior looks like cheap Formica booths. It reeks of the kind of place that just opened up in a used space and had to be decorated on the cheap. The previous interior had wood and warm colors. And nice chairs and tables. The new interior is just cold.

If you are fortunate, you rarely have occasion to stop at places like CB. But what are alternatives? People who road travel for a living have to eat also. Even Wendy's seems to be declining.

Perhaps there has been a difference in the quality of food in various CB restaurants at various locations throughout the years. Some are probably better than others, as is the case with any franchise. The closest one to me is 50 miles away. The decor and gift shop was fun to peruse, but the food was never anything special to me during the very few times I was there. The only other one that I visited more recently is twice as far away and twice as disappointing. I only went because a friend wanted to go there when we were in that city on business. The restaurant food was not good, and the nostalgic snacks and candy items from the gift store weren’t fresh. That in itself was enough to turn me off stopping at CB restaurants, and that was before I learned how dedicated they are to Woke-ism. They have gotten very little money from me in the past. They will get none in the future, not even to accommodate the wishes of friends. If they still want to go there, after knowing what we now know about CB, it will have to be when I’m not with them, or they with me. Once such a business has taken a very public stance (or their stance exposed as in this case), in support of issues that are contrary to my core values and beliefs, it puts me in a position of appearing to approve and support that stance by going there, imo.

Well, the Cracker Barrel leadership sure made some stupid decisions here. And are wise enough (but it took them a while to figure it out) to backtrack on dumb ideas. But I can see where they were coming from. Here in Texas, Luby's Cafeterias were an institution. Every town of decent size had one, metro areas had dozens of them. Great meals, family-friendly, if you were a manager you made really good money ($100-200 K in the 80s). But Luby's missed one thing. Their target customers were old and dying. Business moved to younger, more hip places. Luby's is a mere shell of their 80s footprint ... maybe 20 or 30 stores still left, changed hands several times, I think there are only three or four left in San Antonio, their birthplace. If I'm Cracker Barrel, I don't want that to happen to me. So maybe we have to "modernize" our look. But you do that in baby steps by not upsetting that significant customer base. Okay, refresh the sign. But the barrel and the old guy need to stay. Maybe change the tag line to "Old Country Store and Comfort Food for the Family." Fix some of the issues with quality and training. Slowly change the interior ... I kind of like the new look with the white walls, not as dark and dingy. You have a decent product. You have great locations. Don't lose those. But baby steps will continue your growth.

I am amazed that Cracker Barrell turned a blind eye to all the damage wokeness has caused to corporate America and doubled down on alienating their customers.

Funny and accurate, #7.