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 ...
I feel the same way about Panera. Used to enjoy going in and having coffee and a pastry and looking at the old-fashioned
pictures on the walls. They got rid of charming and put in modernistic, boring . . . pictures.
It may not be advertised, but if you have a 100% self contained RV, you can stay in their parking lots overnight at no charge. We’ve stayed at plenty of them. (Some of the stores don’t allow it, but we’ve never found any of them.)
They’re happy to have you, as most likely you’ll be spending money in the restaurant and/or store.
If I walk into a Cracker Barrel that looks like that, I will turn around and walk out. Just because.
I have never been to a Cracker Barrel. They don’t have them where I live.
The picture make is look too clean and sterile. I don’t think Cracker Barrel is a Michelin star restaraunt.
I would not not eat at a Cracker Barrel because of the decor. It’s the food that keeps us away. Used to be relatively good value, good, plain southern comfort food. Now it’s expensive and odd, and mostly lousy. I don’t mind paying a little more if it’s good, but expensive and bad breaks the deal.
My favorite example is their hamburger steak - it used to taste like sirloin steak, and was a favorite. Now it tastes like a hamburger patty.
Agreed. Looks ridiculous. Everyone wants a cracker barrel that looks more homey like Grandma’s house.
Agree. I haven’t been to one lately but I always enjoyed the down home ambience, browsing around the country store. You nailed the new style just right. Like an empty institutional kitchen instead of grandma’s house.
You really don’t know or is this an attempt at humor?
Had to close down after the drought of 2011 when the towns of Midland & Odessa drain their lake down to just brine water.
Water lines set from two other towns made the cost of business too expensive and they closed.
I have mentioned this Cracker Barrel before when I had taken my grandmother out of the nursing home and she did not want to go to Abilene or Angelo to eat lunch.
We had somehow or another had ordered KC For Two twice and spent 1.5 hours eating 5 pounds of steak with baked potato’s and fix’ins ’till gone.
I tried to eat at a Cracker Barrel once, years ago. I liked the decor, inside and out... In fact that’s why I thought I’d give it a try.
But the line was too long to get seated...
Despite it being out in the middle of nowhere at a gas stop off the freeway in the middle of a desert.
I’ll bet that the “New Cracker Barrel” restaurants won’t have the problem of long lines to get seated.
*Note that KC For Two is 2.5 lbs of steak and is a single meal.
Well. I like the new look.
The last time I was in one, years ago, they had a cool little store too.
Hohner harmonicas, little guys but only three bucks. I bought a half dozen.
Maybe they should change their name to The Barrel. Change it back.
IF IT AIN’T BROKE-—DO NOT “FIX IT”
No. The term is used in reference to Florida ranchers who use whip cracks to herd cattle. Has nothing to do with racism. Seminoles, Cubans, Spanish, blacks and whites all herded cattle.
Yes, quality of the food at Cracker Barrel has rapidly gone downhill. Did away with most of the salad options and preparation and presentation was below par last time we ate there.
Born and raised in Nashville, Cracker Barrel was always around, and was “good”. Now I live in Washington state, and the nearest one was about 20 minutes away just over the bridge in Oregon. I went as often as I could because it reminded me of home. Then they announced that they were closing all the Oregon locations. (Portland because of the crime, and other BS, and the one down south because Oregon just sucks to do business in). A couple of years ago we went to Boise for a weekend trip, went to CB there. A little over a year ago we went to Vegas, went to CB there.
I assume that’s my new pattern. “If you go someplace that has a CB, eat there”.
Now, all that being said, I am just a breakfast eater there. The lunch/dinner is hit or miss. (Turnip greens and pinto beans are good though). And this after they removed my favorite breakfast combo plate that I had been eating since the 80’s. Bastages. Turned it into something more like a Chinese restaurant with “Column A”, and “Column B”. Pushed me back to the country boy breakfast.
Rant over.
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