Cracker Barrel’s CEO faces an uphill battle to revive the restaurant chain after a blunt admission sent stock prices plummeting 20 per cent.
I’ve frequented Cracker Barrel’s since I was very little. And it’s a family tradition to always stop at one to eat on long road trips.
It’s gone downhill, and it started happening well ahead of COVID.
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Every server used to be an old southern person. They cared about their job, and proudly wore “stars” on their apron to represent their seniority. They were engaging, sweet, and often interesting to talk to. These days, I usual just see teenagers, or people who act like they are working there as a condition of their probation. I assume this reflects poor / eroded pay.
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A long standing “benefit” at Cracker Barrel has been the unlimited biscuits and cornbread that come with every meal. They used to bring out a huge basket of them - enough for everyone to have 3-4 - often as soon as you sat down. So good. These days, I usually have to ask for them. They usually seem to stall and only bring them with the food. And there is usually only 1 (maybe 2) per person.
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Similar to above, the portion size of just about every meal has shrunk over time.
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I know people that used to work there. All the food was either cooked to order or hand prepped and cooked that morning. There was pride in making the food fresh, and not letting it get old, cold, and stale. I’m not sure what they are doing now, but it seems like the quality is way down. It more often seems old, cold, and stale. I’m guessing the cooks aren’t paid very well anymore either.
So, I think this CEO has it all wrong. My guess is she’s going to turn it into another Applebee’s that gets some attention for a while for being new and interesting. Then, in a few years, it goes out of business.
It’s so clear to you and all the other customers but the C suite people making all the decisions are so oblivious. They see other companies cutting costs on labor and making short term gains and think that’s what they need to do. They call themselves leaders but they are just followers. All of those wonderful people you spoke about lost their jobs because of these losers.
Those old people probably had steady hours and earned reliable paychecks. That’s not how it’s done anymore. Employees work part time, if it can even be called that. A single restaurant has something like 200+ employees, and some can go weeks without having any hours.
Those senior employees were too expensive. They probably weren’t fired or laid off. They were probably phased out in a flood of new hires so they would quit and not collect unemployment. Nowadays your server could have worked there for 2 years and have a few months’ worth of experience or less.
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The simplified menu now features-
Simplified menus are why Panera Bread now sucks. A hedge fund bought them, decided they could save a small percentage by dropping their turkey distributor, so they dropped the Turkey Bacon Bravo, their most popular sandwich, from the menu. The same thing happened to Dunks, which is why ham is no longer available on breakfast sandwiches. This is the stage capitalism we’re at; destroying popular goods and services to squeeze a few cents of temporary profits out for shareholders.
Its such a chore to customize a sandwich to turn it into a Sierra Turkey. Just bring it back officially.
It’s also a pain walking around with ham in my pockets in case I want to go to Dunks.
It’s* such a chore
The simplified menu now features exciting additions like green chilli cornbread and a hashbrown casserole shepherd’s pie.
I don’t find those the least bit exciting.
The cracker boss man done fucked up. Some new barrels for the crackers should do it. They’ll even have loyal cracker programs.
“cracker” is a term used for slave owners on horseback ‘cracking the whip’ on the backs of slaves. Possibly analogous to a modern CEO that pays slave wages. Like half minimum wage to server staff.
“Cracker Barrel” refers to 19th century rations. The Cracker was a shelf stable hard-tack biscuit and they were packed into barrels or boxes for transport. You would have encountered hard tack in the military or as a poverty food.
There is a story about General Lee and Jackson meeting before Chancellorsville while sat on these boxes called the “Crackerbox Meeting”
I don’t think the name is related to the anti-white pejorative.
Oh yeah! Cracker Barrel, as far as I can tell, never offered hard tack made items on the menu! Boo! False advertising!
Thanks for the info, I didn’t realize that’s where the name came from :)
Not it is not but, it is know to a haven for old white people so…
I thought you were wrong about the term. I’ve lived all my life in the south and had known it to reference poor whites that had to crack corn to live. But Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_(term), says your definition is one of the meanings. I learned something today!
This is a cute little history lesson you two have been on, but the name for the restaurant comes from barrels of literal crackers.
Are you familiar with the term “whitewashing”? That’s another good one, and it happens frequently when it comes to history classes in southern states.
First time I got called a cracker I laughed and hung up on the caller (customer service job).
“Eww! You a smartass little cracker ain’t ya!”
Pulled a black friend aside:
“Hey Darren, I just got called a ‘cracker’. Is that a racial slur or something?”
LOL, Darren just stared at me a minute. “Yeah, you know, master cracking the whip? (with hand-waving demo) You never heard that?!”
Darren was an education. Got stuck with him and another coworker in a room all afternoon. Had to leave because my stomach hurt from laughing so hard and so long. Thought I was getting sick until I got away from him and took a breath.
It’s one of my favorite things to teach white friends and (extended) family when they say they don’t care about being called cracker, or are “never offended” by words
“Oh, you’re right. I don’t really like that!” - my cousin in law. lol. The look on her face was honestly priceless
It’s a reminder that those you oppress see you as less than human too, but they have a reason to. It’s never just a word, it’s the weight behind it
Idk about less than human; moreso, we just see them/each other through a racial lens - one rooted in our respective culture(s) and understanding of history (which is itself usually heavily-written/influenced by earlier European culture/historians).
That said, most Americans tend to use racism as a synonym for prejudice (as opposed to the academic definition of racism; i.e. an “organized system of race-based” prejudice). To probe this line of thought, I’ve recently started asking people whether they would consider a black American (wo)man growing up in 1845 (pre-Civil war) or in ~1930 (peak KKK membership; ~5 million Americans) racist for their likely negative views of the average white American. I’ve yet to get an answer, which is a bit of a bummer. Personally, I think most people realize it would be silly to call a black American slave racist for being prejudiced of their fellow white American citizens who they know only as brutal slave owners/traders. (Did y’all know pirates would use African slaves to launder money since they had a stable monetary value?)
Sorry, if it’s a bit of a tangent. I find this stuff super interesting. Highly recommend “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” by Beverly Tatum and the doc “Exterminate All the Brutes” on HBO to anyone interested. Then come and chat with me about your thoughts! No one I know cares about this kind of stuff. It’s all rap battles and dumb culture war crap, but I digress (further)
Thank you for the insight, and I suppose I may have spoken carelessly.
And yeah as a white American I’ve absolutely noticed a tendency to view racism as you describe and I really appreciate your examples and hope to remember them next time I’m in that argument
But we’re not saying racial prejudice is a good thing just because it doesn’t fit the academic definition of racism, right? Like, if a white child grows up in a predominantly black area and is picked on for being different, it’s still terrible if they grow up loathing black people. Even though it’s not an example of systemic or
instructionalinstitutional racism and just plain old boring racial prejudice.Edit: autocorrect
But prejudice has always been bad. It’s just that racism, especially the racism that resulted from centuries of chattel slavery, is worse. It’s a lot worse. It’s something that can be studied through multiple lenses/fields, politics (colonization, authoritarianism), psychology (identity formation, PTSD), law (red-lining, jim crow, mass incarceration) economics (no business loans from banks, racist hiring practices), philosophy (justice, freedom, epistemology), sociology, anthropology, etc.
People don’t really fear being called a slur on the street as much as they fear being seen as less than human by our society and shared institutions.
You mean c*****r if it’s as bad as you say.
Uhh, did I say it was bad somewhere? I don’t think I even stated my opinion about it. lol. Wtf u talking bout?
It’s usually white people that say it’s not bad/offensive and/or that everyone should be allowed to say whatever they want or they’re just words, don’t get so offended, etc.
I’m just teaching my white friends and fam their own history. Personally, I think it’s worse and more offensive that they don’t know or care about the atrocities their ancestors committed than the modern use of the word cracker. That said, it’s offensive like seeing a piece of trash on the street - it won’t ruin my day or anything but I’m well aware it’s stll trashy
Old white guy here, never seen the appeal. And I feel like the targeted demographic.
It’s all stuff I can make at home, sometimes better. If I want some real fried chicken or BBQ, I’ll drive down the road and find a black man with a grill under an umbrella. Same with Mexican. Hit a taco truck where they speak just enough English to take an order. I’m perfectly capable of making white people food with loads of sugar, butter and salt.
The gift store sometimes has odds and ends I might like, but the prices are too stupid to bother looking anymore. “Meh, that’s a kinda cool coffee mug. $25 BUCKS?!”
Weirdly enough, my Pilipino wife seems to like it. Never been with her, keep voting it down. I’ll have to cave one day. Bleh.
Back in the early 90s, before Cracker Barrels weren’t so plentiful, my Granny would drive over an hour to the nearest one to eat when family visited. She was also great at cooking southern food, but she made the effort. However, now it definitely isn’t as good as it was 5-10 years ago. Nowadays, if I had to drive an hour to get to the nearest one, I wouldn’t be making the effort.
I can’t speak to it in the last 15 years or so, but it used to be a pretty reliable stop on road trips between places with good local food. Their biscuits were ok.
Southern country-themed restaurant chain Cracker Barrel, with over 660 locations nationwide, has seen a significant decline in customers, losing more than 16 per cent in just four years
I wonder how much COVID contributed to that.
I know Covid played a big role & economy supply chain blah blah blah…
What I want to know is how much of the bankruptcy has to do with Brad’s Wife?
This article is written like a fever dream. Emphasis mine:
Cracker Barrel faces a critical challenge: Attracting younger diners. Currently, their core customer base are those over 65. Masino, who joined Taco Bell nine months ago, outlined a five-point turnaround plan during a recent earnings call to address this.
I saw that too. Does that mean Masino made the 5 pt plan, announced it and then bounced to Taco Bell?
Or is this just shitty writing and lazy editing?
Prob ai
I am probably the target audience for the traditional Cracker Barrel customer (50+ white male). I have not been in years. The experience was wholly unremarkable. I can’t hear the name without thinking of Chef from Southpark asking the children, “How are my little crackers?” If I wanted to catch covid, Cracker Barrel seems like a good place to look. Other than that, CB seems like the restaurant most likely to have a Stars and Bars flag available for purchase.
Are all 5 points “resign”?
No that’s step 5. Steps 1 through 4 involve maximizing shareholder profits before they fold the company.
Portions went down and so has quality. Value has gone away. They even took the sampler platter off of the menu! And the beef vegetable soup as a standalone. Muffins and biscuits have shrunk to bean size.
fuck em. let’s get some real news.
Never saw the appeal of this place. The food was always at best bland and the coffee tasted like the paper filters they used.
It helps white people feel like they still own people. /s
But more seriously, I grew up in the South and the main reason people go is because you typically have 3 choices of breakfast restaurants: IHOP, Waffle House, and Cracker Barrel.
And Waffle House isn’t typically a choice, it’s a place you stumble into with a hangover or after a party.
Cracker barrel does have best pancakes tho.
I will not be taking questions. Thank you.
