I wonder what percentage of posts containing the words “woke” or “DEI” are from bots, and what percentage of posts with those words are from liberals getting upset about a bot post.
Who had money on Cracker Barrel faking outrage about a plan that wasn’t to be?
They were also inconveniently experiencing significant negative feedback to their business decision to sell warmed up day old food as a standard operating procedure just before new of the logo drama erupted. If you thought cracker barrel was extremely mid before, it’s apparently gone full Applebee’s microwave kitchen bad lately.
Dang. They were mediocre the last time I went there (about 10 years ago), but at least uniquely mediocre (mediocre southern food). I’ve been there 2-3 times, and each time was on a road trip where the choice was Cracker Barrel, Denny’s, or a fast food place, and Cracker Barrel has an interesting store.
I very much dislike Applebees, Chilis, and other massive chains, but at least Cracker Barrel is a bit unique in presentation and has decent portion sizes. Or had, idk, I haven’t been there in a decade.
I don’t think anyone goes there for fine dining, so them reheating stuff isn’t all of that surprising. But it is disappointing.
People need to remember that these themed businesses are taking huge risk by maintaining their identity. If a CB goes out of business they practically take a loss on the building because no one wants to buy an old timey restaurant. It’s too niche. Companies are going to bland and grey so the properties are easier to sell. It was never about woke and everything to do with money as usual.
Especially since Cracker Barrel is publicly traded.
That said, I don’t think Cracker Barrel locations are all that different from Applebees or Chili’s. The “country store” is basically a waiting area, but with merch instead of more benches for waiting to be seated. Or it’s like Buffalo Wild Wings and its counter for order pickups and sauce sales.
I think the main intent here is to appeal to more people. A new logo could get people interested who weren’t before.
Imagine how much more successful any given business might be by simply… ignoring Twitter.
For all we know CB may have been behind the outrage
Biglari has been trying to take over Cracker Barrel for years. Not really hard to guess who was behind this.
Here, Gizmodo. Let me fix that title for you.
“Almost half the upset tweets on the most bottidden platform (twitter) about Cracker Barrel were likely from bots.”
Realistically, the upset was probably more about how the new logo came on all of a sudden, was very plain, and like how coca cola found out with new coke in the 1980s, it’s not necessarily that people love cracker barrel. It’s a part of their nostalgia they grew up with. They went with Grandma and Grandpa growing up. It was a special little stop on a family vacation to eat. They liked looking at the toys and candy in the gift shop and it was so weird and cool they had a store in the restaurant. It can be a company nightmare to screw with a logo that’s been around for decades that could have memories attached to it.
Especially the new one is pretty lame.
Exactly. I’ve been to Cracker Barrel maybe 2 or 3 times. I think the food is decent, especially since I didn’t grow up eating southern style food. I’m not really nostalgic for it, but will prefer stopping there over a fast food place if it’s near where we’re going to stop anyway on a road trip (i.e. to get gas).
The new logo sucks, and it looks like they ripped off Denny’s. Likewise the interior redesign completely kills the soul of the place. Crack Barrel isn’t a cool hunting lodge or something, it’s a place to get home-style cooking (or what I imagine southern-style home cooking to be like) away from home, so it should feel like eating in a kitchen, not a lodge. The store is like the box of toys and puzzles and whatnot grandma and grandpa would have on the coffee table while food is getting finished up and really adds to the vibe.
I don’t really care all that much about Cracker Barrel though. It’s not a place I’d ever go out of my way to eat at, but it’s still a decent option when I’m hungry and tired.
Peter Teil straight up told an audience that he will push ideas with tech.
The point where I realized it was fake was when nobody was complaining about the font or going “Uhm, aktually it’s ‘typeface’!”
I like Cracker Barrel’s four vegetarian sides plate. I can pick reasonably healthy options and the price isn’t terrible. They are my preferred interstate-adjacent dining option on roadtrips. I’m even a loyalty member.
Yet I can’t imagine spending one microsecond thinking about their logo let alone being stupid enough to be manipulated into having an opinion and then believing it relates to politics. Unless you are the majority shareholder, your view is utterly irrelevant. Shut up and either patronize the place or not.
There are a lot of people today on the right who cosplay as libertarians but somehow care deeply about the logo of a company they don’t own.
Exactly.
I only go to Cracker Barrel on road trips and when they happen to be near where I plan to stop anyway. I don’t go out of my way to go there, but I do prefer them over fast food joints.
Their new logo is stupid, mostly because it reminds me of Denny’s. It doesn’t change whether I’ll go there, it only makes me think their logo is stupid when I do.
Someone got offended that they took the cracker off the logo.
I mean they took the barrel off too. What is cracker barrel without a cracker and a barrel?
To be fair, the new logo is kind of barrel shaped. It’s also Denny’s shaped…
I love watching companies tear themselves apart trying to appeal to both sides of the aisle.
Eventually, they’re just going to have to stop trying and pick a side. That’s when the real fun begins.
Why not just run a decent business? You don’t need to appeal to the left or right to sell food at a restaurant to hungry road trippers. Make your product appealing and people will come.
That’s what I don’t understand about target as well. They went out of their way to appeal to the left, then out of their way to appeal to the right, and now everyone is pissed off. If they stuck to selling stuff at reasonable prices, they would’ve been fine.
Don’t discriminate in your workforce, just find the best people for the job and you’ll do fine with people regardless of their politics.
Why not just run a decent business?
Bc propaganda sells and corporations have entire teams that exist to market a brand as a value. That’s why Dove and Axe are both owned by the same parent company.
One exists to empower women and one exists to empower men by objectifying women. It’s not that either are really run by anybody with those values. They’re both faceless corporations, and it’s all just a marketing ploy.
It’s part of how hysteria works.
The average idiot can’t resist it by definition.
They choose… profit.
The entire thing feels manufactured by design to get people talking about Cracker Barrel.
cracker bargle
Culture war keeps the rubes fighting the wrong people so that the real villains can keep robbing them.
No shit
I saw the logo, thought it was weird, figured they would roll it right back in a week.
Honestly I just thought it was funny they got rid of the cracker and the barrel.
Through the course of the controversy, I learned that the “cracker” was the Uncle Herschel mentioned in the menu a few times. He’s a character of theirs, something of a mascot, though a much subtler one than most other restaurant mascots. He’s in the art but his name isn’t widely advertised. A couple menu items have his name in them (e.g. Uncle Herschel’s Breakfast), but the name is not connected to the mascot in the logo.
Oh, I also thought it was funny that they said they changed the logo to be more inclusive (I guess of people who don’t look like Uncle Herschel), but they still don’t operate in California due to that state’s progressive policies, so they can shove their “inclusive” talk. Actions speak louder than words. They do hire women, and people of color, which is a great start for a restaurant so steeped in “Southern values,” but you can’t say nobody is excluded from the table while excluding an entire state based on the politics of its government. That’s just as dumb as rock groups refusing to play whichever Southern state did a stupid thing most recently.
The cracker in Cracker Barrel is that the barrels are “Cracker Barrels”
Exactly! Barrels full of crackers. And the new logo kinda looks like a barrel (it also kinda looks like Denny’s, but that’s neither here nor there).
There’s 5 cracker barrels in California…
I suppose I should have updated my information before saying that… last I checked, there weren’t, but I don’t know how old that information is.
They probably just haven’t seen them since they tend to be just on the edge of civilization. Their schtick is to be a stop on a road trip, so if you don’t go on roadtrips, you probably wouldn’t see them.
Yeah but you’d think someone would at least double check before they wrote a whole ass paragraph about why there aren’t Cracker Barrels in California when there are in fact Cracker Barrels in California lol
Yeah, I don’t know why you’d assume something like that when it takes seconds to check.
They do hire women, and people of color, which is a great start for a restaurant so steeped in “Southern values,”
I’d say that having women and people of color cook for you has been a Southern value for a long time.
