Cracker Barrel minus "the cracker and the barrel" (UPDATED: 8/23)

Cracker Barrel follows Bud Light off the DEI cliff

"CB will lose a big part of their base while not recouping that volume with new customers from the woke mob. That is not a good thing. After all, what self-respecting leftist would eat at a “Cracker” anything?"

"Cracker Barrel (“CB”) recently announced with great pride (pun intended) that they have become woke and are implementing customer-facing DEI throughout their restaurant chain, a project that has been in the works for about a year. Proving once more that idealistic leftists are oblivious to anything remotely involving sanity. 

"The Left never seems to learn. Their DEI agenda is so important that they willingly crater their own businesses. Even Left-leaning news channels and their famous anchors have learned that they are not immune to this effect. I have doubts about the success of this new direction, for a couple of reasons.

"1) Woke people who pretend to live healthy lives don't eat there anyway -- you know, because of the biscuits, gravy, fried chicken, calories, fat, etc., where just one glass of sweet tea likely has more calories than they consume in a day. Somehow CB thinks taking the "country" out of Cracker Barrel, removing the old white dude and his barrel from the logo, and making the decor look like a latte cafe will entice them in (I have a bridge to sell you).

"2) Their loyal fans, including me, have no interest in overall DEI wokeness when it is an in-your-face action. Hire whoever you wish, as I don’t care about the proclivities of my server or the cook, so no problem there. But I do care about the thinking of leaders who believe this is a good direction to pursue as a business." . . .

Cracker Barrel falls to DEI   "DEI and wokeism are divisive scourges on our society. While there’s some commonsense relief that the mindless leftist onslaught is finally being thwarted, the remaining holdouts infuriate even more -- read the room, already. One such place is Cracker Barrel, and its recalcitrant resistance to robust all-American (especially Southern) values is incongruous with its traditional country motif.

Corporate logos represent a company’s identity, values, and mission. For Cracker Barrel, the iconic logo welcomed good, hearty folks with a nice elderly gentleman (perhaps a patriarch, perish the thought) sitting in a wooden chair beside a barrel upon which his left arm seeks deserved rest. It really conveyed Southern warmth and charm. Now, the logo conveys a bland… never mind, I don’t know what, such is its uninspiring, androgynous-like design. Perhaps the unintended message is “keep driving,” there’s a cozier restaurant around the country bend." . . .

And so it goes...

"The left set out to destroy Cracker Barrel, and one way or another, it succeeded."

Upward News on X: "This is the story of how Cracker Barrel went woke.  . . . "It started in the early 1990s, when Cracker Barrel was caught in a scandal for discriminating against gay workers and customers. As a symbol of the South, the chain quickly became a target for the growing progressive establishment and its new institutions.

"Chief among them was the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), built to rank corporations on their adherence to progressive ideology — a tool to keep companies in line. The former HRC president later admitted that Cracker Barrel was “under fire” from the organization, saying even that was “an understatement.”

"By 2005, Cracker Barrel had a failing grade from HRC. Then came Steve Smotherman, a corporate leader who launched internal LGBTQ reforms, steadily raising the company’s HRC score. He even sat on an HRC advisory council, linking the chain directly to the group’s agenda.

"Over the next two decades, Cracker Barrel reshaped itself — changing internal policies, pulling “controversial” items from stores, blocking certain figures from dining events, funding Pride parades, and chasing higher woke scores." 

.The latest rebrand — removing Americana décor and the white man from its logo to make the chain “more welcoming” — is not a fresh marketing pivot. It’s the culmination of a decades-long effort to bring Cracker Barrel into the good graces of the progressive establishment. . .

. . . "This means that this wasn't just a really bad idea from a restaurant looking to update itself. This was a years-long campaign to pressure and pull Cracker Barrel into ridding itself of its Southern personality and adopt a more neutral personality that pleased hard-leftists, many of whom don't frequent those restaurants anyway.

"And without waiting for time to pass to see if it helps improve the restaurant's attendance, I can make the safe assumption that this pivot in the name of pleasing the most unpleasable people in the world is going to drive away whatever loyal base it had left. People who liked the restaurant for its Southern charm and likely felt it was relatable will probably no longer find it speaks to them. 

"More than that, anyone who catches on that this rebrand was done to please an LGBTQ+ bullying organization will likely turn their back on it on principle." . . .