Cracker Barrel has dotted the sides of U.S. interstates since 1969, when founder Danny
Evins had a hunch travelers were looking for a pitstop food option that wasn't fast food.
He was right, but there are some things you should know before heading to the highway
staple again.
According to Southern Living, Cracker Barrel isn't just giving homage to the literal barrels
of soda crackers it used to have available for purchase in the country stores at each
restaurant.
The actual Merriam-Webster definition of cracker-barrel is, quote, "suggestive of the friendly homespun
character of a country store."
Ah yes, it all makes sense now, doesn't it?
So Cracker Barrel aimed to be a place where diners could have a cracker-barrel experience
in an atmosphere adorned by literal barrels with crackers in them, or cracker barrels.
Confused yet?
No need!
The famous logo for the interstate staple does, indeed, feature a gent in a rocking
chair leaning on a barrel full of what one can only assume are crackers, and all visitors
are familiar with the welcoming, country store-type feel..
Cracker Barrel is simply a name more complicated than it seems at first glance, and it's one
that recognizes the brand's history and mission.
It's also one that reminds us we need more adjectives like "cracker-barrel" in our regular
lexicon.
Cracker Barrel does not mess around when it comes to the rocking chairs decorating the
patios of its many outposts.
It sticks to the friendly southern front porch theme and nothing will stop it.
Southern porch aesthetic aside, the iconic rocking chairs serve another purpose: You
need somewhere fun to sit because the wait time to get a table at Cracker Barrel can
be quite long.
Those rocking chairs are made for Cracker Barrel by the Hinkle Chair Company in Springfield,
Tennessee, so yes, even they are authentically Southern.
They have some pretty impressive roots, too, as it's a family company that has been in
the furniture-making biz since their triple-great grandfather started a side hustle from his
farm almost 180 years ago.
Grandpops would be proud, as they make about 200,000 rocking chairs a year for Cracker
Barrel restaurants, and even though you can buy chairs through Hinkle themselves, you'll
need to buy it directly from Cracker Barrel if you want that signature medallion on your
own front porch.
They'll set you back $170, but it's nice to know Cracker Barrel is true to its roots even
with the furniture, which is not only American-made, but Southern-made.
Even better?
They regularly run charitable programs such as Operation Rocker, and donate a huge number
of rockers to military families across the country.
That's the sort of thing you can feel good about while rocking away in your own.
In 2017, the firing of one Cracker Barrel employee led to legions of Internet trolls
and memes poking fun at the down-home country restaurant chain.
A man named Bradley Reid Byrd posted to Facebook that he was livid with Cracker Barrel for
terminating his wife, who had been working at the restaurant for over a decade.
He entrusted his Facebook followers with going to the Cracker Barrel Facebook page, calling
them out, and asking what had really happened.
The Internet really delivered because from that moment on.
Anything the restaurant posted on its social media was lambasted with comments about Brad's
wife's firing.
It even birthed the hashtag #JusticeforBradsWife.
Within a week, there were tons of memes inspired by the event, and offers of employment for
Brad's wife, Nanette.
The meme had some serious staying power, too.
Years later, there are still folks trolling Cracker Barrel's Facebook with "Brad's Wife"
jokes and memes.
But really, you can't blame Cracker Barrel for staying mum.
Would you want a former employer telling the world why they fired you?
Let it be known: Cracker Barrel isn't in the business of handing out free grub.
In fact, one of their employees was fired for giving a homeless man a muffin and some
condiments at a Cracker Barrel location in Venice, Florida.
The worker, Joe Koblenzer, a 73-year-old military veteran, claimed the man came in asking for
tartar sauce and mayo to eat with the fish he was cooking, so Koblenzer kindly obliged
with some free condiments along with a corn muffin for good measure.
Then, the general manager of the Cracker Barrel canned Koblenzer for violating a policy that
prohibits giving away free food.
To be fair to Cracker Barrel, Koblenzer acknowledged he had already broken some rules prior to
the tartar sauce incident.
So legally, if someone's had a couple of slaps on the wrist already, they are within their
right to fire him.
Still, Cracker Barrel does sort of come off like the bad guy for telling a worker to deny
someone in need of a very minute amount of free sustenance.
But them's the rules, and they've got a business to run.
It seems as though Southern hospitality only goes so far.
"Mr Jordan, I saw you steal my sink.”
You may have thought you were a Cracker Barrel super fan but you've got nothing on Wilma
and Ray Yoder from Goshen, Indiana.
The octogenarian couple have made it their mission to go to every Cracker Barrel in America.
In August 2017, they met their goal when they hit an Oregon Cracker Barrel that was very
the location that marked a grand total of 645 restaurants for the chain.
Ray Yoder started frequenting the restaurants more than 40 years ago when he was working
for a company that delivered recreational vehicles all over the country.
He says the visits alleviated the tediousness of his trips.
His wife Wilma started accompanying him and after three decades of the duo's treks, the
chain started to publicly acknowledge their loyalty.
The company even celebrated the couple's arrival at the 645th restaurant in Oregon, giving
them free aprons and a hearty welcome from the staff.
Of course, the Yoders' goal is never really complete as Cracker Barrel continues to add
more locations every year.
Honestly, they don't seem to mind.
Let the Yoders be a lesson — there are definitely perks to staying loyal to a brand.
If you're planning to dine at Cracker Barrel, may we not suggest the Southern Fried Chicken?
Health-wise, it's easily one of the worst items on the menu.
It weighs in at a whopping 1,640 calories, and has 100 grams of fat, and an astounding
4,730 milligrams of sodium.
Even worse?
None of those numbers even include the two sides and endless biscuits.
And if you're dining on Sunday, watch out for the featured special: the Homestyle Chicken.
The Lord's day is definitely not the heart's day in the case of Cracker Barrel, because
this dish weighs in at 1,350 calories and 92 grams of fat.
"I state my regret,"
Of course, you can order these chicken dishes if you're just dying to give them a try, but
we certainly wouldn't recommend making it a weekly event.
If you are going to take the plunge, maybe split the meal with your fellow Cracker Barrel
patrons?
If you're thinking about giving the whole Thanksgiving Day hassle a miss this year and
just getting your dinner from Cracker Barrel, you'd better get in line.
Cracker Barrel confirmed in a press release that Thanksgiving Day is, in fact, their most
jam-packed day of the year.
Across the country on this feasting holiday, they estimate they serve 650,000 pounds of
turkey and 1.1 million slices of pie.
The other Thanksgiving staples it slings out in massive quantities include 8 million ounces
of gravy and 1.6 million ounces of cranberry relish.
Who would have thought cranberry was that popular?
This includes carry-out turkey day meals, as well as dine-in grub, so bottom line?
If you plan to eat at Cracker Barrel this Thanksgiving, plan accordingly.
You won't be the only one.
Cracker Barrel is very deliberate with its decorations.
All of the locations are full of authentic antiques and the layout of each new restaurant
is well-planned.
In fact, there is even a mock restaurant in their headquarters used to lay out the decor
of new locations.
The design theme comes from the general stores that used to be the name of the game in the
late 19th and early 20th century, when they started to exist as a solution for peddlers
sick of being on the road.
They were nothing fancy, but they did serve as a one-stop shop of a lot of your basic
needs — and that's the spirit Cracker Barrel is going for, and it's why the items for sale
in the Cracker Barrel store range from everything you need to decorate your own country kitchen
to gospel music CDs.
While the historical vibe might not be exactly what the store vibe was a century ago, the
restaurant's commitment to preserving the American country general store, with both
its retail items and its decor, really serves as a living museum of American history.
And that museum also happens to have some pretty legit chicken fried steak.
In 2016, Cracker Barrel got into the fast casual market with Holler & Dash, a biscuit
house that serves up breakfast, brunch, and lunch, with a titillating array of savory
and sweet options.
The menus vary by city, but the vibe is decidedly minimalistic and industrial.
The Holler & Dash locations are very unlike Cracker Barrel, and while the fate of the
Holler & Dash spin-off is unknown for the long-term, props to Cracker Barrel for trying
to make biscuits a novel concept.
In the meantime, if you find yourself heading to Cracker Barrel and wishing you could get
more of those delicious biscuits and only those biscuits, this might be the place for
you.
Cracker Barrel has a bit of a sordid reputation when it comes to progress on some hot button
American issues.
According to the New York Times, in 1991 there was a company-wide directive to fire any Cracker
Barrel workers who had, quote, "sexual preferences [that] fail to demonstrate normal heterosexual
values."
More than a dozen employees were fired, and many spoke out and comdemned this as a blatant
act of discrimination against gay people.
Cracker Barrel founder Danny Evins eventually apologized and retracted the policy, but the
New York City Employees Retirement System insisted that an apology just wasn't going
far enough.
They demanded he make the forbidding of discrimination explicitly official in Cracker Barrel corporate
policy.
Cracker Barrel got some negative attention that plagued the brand for a while, but they've
moved on.
Fast forward, and attitudes seem to be different.
In June 2019, Cracker Barrel was in the news for refusing to let a pastor who'd expressed
anti-gay sentiments hold an event at one of its restaurants.
“Progress. It's the reason why your grandparents' views are best not spoken in public"
Cracker Barrel hasn't always been on the right side of history when it comes to race relations
in America.
In the early 2000s, the Justice Department accused the company of acting with racial
bias on several occasions.
A civil rights investigation revealed instances of mistreatment of black patrons at Cracker
Barrels across several states in the southern region of the U.S., and the accusations — along
with the findings — were pretty horrible.
Employees that participated in the investigation admitted that practices such as seating based
on the race of the customer were basically encouraged by management, and employees also
claimed that a customer's also impacted the level of service they received.
And this was in 2004.
A rep for Cracker Barrel at the time said they didn't believe the accusations, but nonetheless
were going to move forward with an aggressive plan to address the complaints.
Just how far that progressed attitudes, it's difficult to say — particularly because
more accusations have been leveled at the chain since.
In 2018, US Air Force veteran Randy Freeman was at a Cracker Barrel in West Virginia and
was accused by a manager of cursing at a server.
Witnesses confirmed no such thing had happened, and condemned it as the actions of a management
that was just looking for an excuse to kick him out of the restaurant.
Freeman took Cracker Barrel to court over the behavior, and the company found itself
dealing with some extremely negative press yet again.
Hopefully the company is working to resolve the systematic issues that have plagued the
company.
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