Posted on 08/12/2025 6:13:30 PM PDT by DoodleBob
It has been a year since Cracker Barrel started renovating its formerly knick-knack-ridden restaurants, and fans are still angry.
The Southern-inspired part-restaurant, part-store chain announced a 3-year plan to “evolve” in May 2024. Yet, more than a year later, fans are still commenting their complaints on an Aug. 5, 2024, Instagram post about the restaurant’s “new look.”
The video has a Cracker Barrel district manager walking followers through the space’s changes, like new lighting, seating and paint color. As of this story’s publication, there are more than 2,000 comments on the video. Many of the comments are complaints about the new “bland” appearance, while others are compliments on the “modern” look. The mundane video continues to get (positive or negative) comments more than one year after posting.
The 56-year-old chain is inspired by old country stores and used to be decorated with brown-colored walls covered in antique farm tools and historical family portraits. According to a 2022 Cracker Barrel blog post, each store averaged between 950 and 1,000 authentic antiques per location.
The new appearance, which 40 locations have received as of May, according to The Wall Street Journal, has a fresh coat of white paint on the walls, modern light fixtures and antiques organized into shadow boxes.
A spokesperson at Cracker Barrel told PEOPLE on Monday, Aug. 11, “We are 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. All of the elements of our remodels were informed by direct input from our guests and team members alike – these changes are for them.”
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
Ok, I love the old decor and think the new decor is awful.
That said, you may have won Post of the Thread.
AMEN!
My. How bland.
Brought to us by the same fools who pulled Duck Drynasty products.
lol.sure looks like it
The Machine Shed in Rockford, IL, is a much better implementation of the “old” Cracker Barrel motif.
I’ve never been to a Cracker Barrel, so I guess I’m not one to judge...
Crackers barrel sucks. My adopted home town is Bastrop, LA. Country hick town near the Ouchita River north of Monroe. 90% black. Mostly farmers and papermill workers. Trump votes at 60% or better. No cracker barrels, just good honest food.
They’ve turned it into HGTV-cutesy-vanilla hell.
Or has the world just gotten a whole lot less fun?
There is a place near by that has several chain places looking grey and somber and sitting in the middle, bright in it's red and green, is our independent place where the locals all go.
I dread the day when the old guy dies and the family decides to sell to Yum Brands.
Go woke go broke. They are probably done.
There is always Waffle House.....
Their food is at best kind of Southern. We have local diners that serve Southern food and Cracker Barrel is not even close.
What their marketing geniuses are missing is their modern restaurant design will not change the fact that the food they serve can be gotten in any of a dozen chain restaurants. The one thing they had that their competitors didn't is the ambiance they are getting rid of. Hell, you can go to any Golden Corral and find damn near all of the Cracker Barrel menu and the food is the same moderate quality fare.
Are you kidding me? This has got to be a joke right? Right?
These “flair” type restaurants all seem to follow the same life cycle, and what’s happening to Cracker Barrel is the final phase. Note that it’s not the terminal phase, because the restaurant doesn’t die. Instead it lives on as a zombie version of its old self.
I’ve eaten in Cracker Barrels from Miami to Flagstaff, including the ones around the home office in Lebanon, TN and used to love them. However, The ones we’ve stopped in recently have been filthy and the food not as well prepared. I filed a complaint last year with the corporate office about how filthy the one here in Jacksonville, NC is, and they offered me a free dessert. A remodel might be overdue.
The ceo is an idiot if that passes for better.
I could give a crap what’s on their walls. What silliness.
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