Good day all. Cracker Barrel Old Country Store is a nation wide chain of restaurants specializing on traditional southern cuisine. Their logo was a man in a rocking chair sitting next to a large barrel. The chain is quite popular apparently. I have never been to one myself. Recently, the Cracker Barrel management decided that it was the perfect time to completely destroy their brand.
The self destruction started with throwing out the old logo and replacing it with something that is bland, boring and unlikable. This led to people blasting the new logo and the idiots who refused to learn from the abject failures of Bud Light and Jaguar Motors. Rather than pull back and consider that they might have possibly made a mistake, the IOC’s, (Idiots In Charge), doubled down on stupid. Here are the details from Fox News:
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store customers have been vocal on social media about their disdain for the recent transformation of the Tennessee-based restaurant chain.
That is a nice way of putting it. From what I’ve been seeing and reading, they have been flooding the corporate offices with messages questioning the intelligence of the management. Then came the new logo.
Those voices grew even louder after Cracker Barrel unveiled its new logo this week. The new logo does away with the illustration of an old man leaning against a barrel while seated in a chair. Instead, the text-only logo uses a new typeface against the familiar gold background.
Cracker Barrel also rolled out a new menu that includes breakfast, lunch and dinner options and “refreshed restaurant remodels” as part of its “All the More” campaign, according to a news release.
From what I understand, these knuckleheads are refreshing the restaurants in much the same way that Disney has refreshed the parks, the Marvel, Starwars and Indiana Jones franchises. By utterly destroying them. In another Fox News Story, patrons and reviewers basically tore the “Refresh” apart. Here are some of those details from Fox News:
Rachel Love just wants to make Cracker Barrel great again. The 38-year-old Tennessee resident and self-proclaimed Cracker Barrel loyalist first caught the restaurant chain’s attention after she strolled into an Old Country Store location in April and noticed things were different. The place was brighter, the antiquities were missing from the walls — and the peg games were gone, she told Fox News Digital.
In other words, it looked like any other chain. Ms. Love posted a video on TicToxic that went viral. Cracker Barrel, completely misreading the whole situation, sent her a gift basket as thanks for creating the buzz.
A number of other people also started commenting and they were not to appreciative of the changes. This finally caught the attention of the Bud Light Jaguar Cracker Barrel Marketing department.
Sarah Moore, Cracker Barrel’s chief marketing officer, told Fox News Digital in May that the classic peg games, rocking chairs and the “things you love about us” would remain.
“While a few things may look different, we’re not changing who we are… just shining things up a bit,” Cracker Barrel commented.
The last quote was in reply to one of Ms. Love’s videos. She said that the comment has since been removed.
Rachael Love believes the company’s social media folks deleted the comment because “they realized they were feeding us a line.”
Apparently, another issue is the food quality. Again, I’ve never been to Cracker Barrel so I can’t comment on their menu. According to Ms. Love, her “Go to: meal is a meatloaf dinner with Mac and Cheese with some biscuits. The impression I get from Ms. Love’s review is that the meal was about as appetizing as military MRE’s.
She said, “I was honestly shocked by the biscuits. They weren’t the soft, buttery biscuits I remember. They resembled dinner rolls that were hard and flat.”
Love was complimentary of the meat loaf and the mac and cheese – but said the “green beans still tasted like they were straight from a can, only heated for a few minutes.”
She added that “the mashed potatoes had an odd consistency – dry, lumpy and sticky, as if half of them wouldn’t even come off the serving spoon.”
Things went down hill from there. Returning to the original Fox story, Cracker Barrel’s management seems to have decided to double down on stupid.
Moore told Fox News Digital in May that Cracker Barrel has been “listening to what the guests ask for – and examples of what the guests asked for are things like spaces that feel brighter, that feel less cluttered, more booth seating, more seating options, so our guests are more comfortable while they’re dining with us.”
Not according to the comments I read in this and the other Fox News story. The customers were pretty uniform in complaining about the food and the changes to the environment. Even competitors are opening fire on Cracker Barrel’s stupidity.
Even Steak ‘n Shake had something to say about the Cracker Barrel backlash.
“This is what happens when you have a board that does not respect their historical customers or their brand,” the Indianapolis-based burger chain wrote in part on its official X account.
Finally, in a fit of absolute tone deafness, Cracker Barrel announced that everything is fine and that the changes are very popular.
A Cracker Barrel spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement that the company is “very pleased with the trajectory of our remodeled stores.”
“Feedback from both guests and team members has been overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic about the refreshed dining and shopping experience,” the statement said.
“All of the elements of our remodels were informed by direct input from our guests and team members alike. These changes are for them.”
Cracker Barrel added that “there may be a vocal minority who feel differently.”
“However, the strong performance of these locations affirms that we are moving in the right direction,” the statement said.
“However, the strong performance of these locations affirms that we are moving in the right direction,” the statement said.
Apparently, the people running Cracker Barrel, (Into the ground), haven’t been paying attention to the stock price. While the general market trend has been up. Cracker Barrel dropped about 10 points on August 21st. It came back a bit but is still down overall. If the loyal customers decide to walk away, and I gather they are very loyal, Cracker Barrel may just crater the way Bud Light and Jaguar did.
As for me? The nearest Cracker Barrel is about 40 minutes from me and I really have no interest in going. There are far better places within walking distance of the Anger Central Primary Dwelling and with better food. I think Cracker Barrel is suffering from a case of DEI, Girlboss and MBA, (Masters of Business Annihilation), arrogance. We shall see if they figure it out before the going out of business signs go up.
Thatisall
(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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~The Angry Webmaster~
Reportedly, by the Usual Suspect, the Cracker And the Barrel are being returned to the logo, as ‘too many folks were throwing a hissy fit about the change.’ US is also kind of happy that the interior will be less cluttered and brighter – then again, she has problems with concentrating among more than minimal clutter.
She had no mention of the changes in menu and food quality, but then it’s been almost 3 years since we’ve been to one.
I also noted the irony of the comment by Steak ‘n’ Shake – the local one converted to a Kiosk based ordering system, without table service, and cut the menu in half. The local store closed about 6 weeks or so ago, and the building is stripped of all indica.
I have a follow up in the works. I’ve never been to Cracker Barrel as the closet one is about 40 minutes from me. Until this story happened, I had never heard of Steak and Shake and it doesn’t look like there are any near me at all.