Posted on 09/22/2023 7:08:43 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Retirees have lost their appetite for Cracker Barrel and Olive Garden since the pandemic — and it’s not clear when they’ll come back, according to the chains’ top brass.
No amount of biscuits and gravy or unlimited pasta refills seems to be enough to entice the 65-and-older crowd as they continue to pinch pennies amid high inflation and duck the coronavirus, according to Rick Cardenas, chief executive of Darden Restaurants, which owns Olive Garden.
“I do believe that they were a little bit more spooked on the COVID side,” Cardenas told analysts on a Thursday conference call. “We’d love to see them come back more frequently.” Indeed, seniors are heading to the budget-friendly pasta chain less often than they had before the pandemic, added chief financial officer Raj Vennam on a conference call on Thursday with Wall Street analysts.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
There is a lot of truth to what you say about not being able to afford eating out. We ask for restaurant gift cards for holiday/birthday gifts, just so we feel we can go out to eat once in awhile.
Olive Garden like most chain restaurants, heat up and/or microwave meals. They get huge premade bags of all the sauces and pastas, and bags of premix salads. They don’t make/cook a dam thing.
That and...Cracker Barrel went gay with their Pride Rocking Chair.
Yes.
Plus I can cook better than I can buy from them.
We slowed way down on going anywhere since the election. I figure a lot of the people I see now voted for xiden and I hate them. Since I don’t know who they are everyone is suspect and I see just about every lower class person as a thief on the dole. Then there are the loaf from home gang out on the town mid-day when they are supposed to be working. More thieves. Makes it hard not to be mad all the time so I stay home as much as I can. Then there are the illegals that put me in a whole other range of anger to rage.
That's why it doesn't taste good.
Hey Cracker Barrel!
This also may be a clue!
“Cracker Barrel Slammed for ‘Woke’ Rainbow Rocking Chair Honoring Pride Month”
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4184373/posts
Seniors are broke, but when they do have a few extra bucks to eat out, maybe they do not want to spend those bucks at a place that pushes rainbow “wokeness” at their customers.
Who does Cracker Barrel think is their core customer base? Soy boy pretend teen girl Mulvaney?
Maybe they should put out a MAGA flag and a conservative on staff to answer any questions about why we want America first... (If the gay community didn't show up, would they act surprised?)
Maybe they should put out a MAGA flag and a conservative on staff to answer any questions about why we want America first... (If the gay community didn't show up, would they act surprised?)
Or better yet, maybe NOT put out any flags and just serve food...
“Both of these restaurants are CRAP and overpriced..”
I ate at Cracker Barrel once. I’ll never go back. It was crowded, noisy, the food wasn’t even mediocre and the prices were way too high.
Wild horses couldn’t drag me to one for a free meal.
Thanks for the nightmare! I managed 30+ people (full and part-time) during the ‘0bamacare Nightmare’ and had to tell long-term employees that they were basically screwed. :(
My loathing of Socialist Democrats continues, unabated.
Seriously. I hate them. Hate. Them.
But somehow we managed to make all of our sales goals and still raked in $2M and above each year and beyond. We kind of pulled together to prove that we could do it...and no one lost their jobs...me included! :)
I made phone calls one election year for the R party at a building just east of that Paneras.
I think the year Palin was on VP ticket.
I work not far from there, need to stop in there for a sandwhich
Very nice work, Diana!
That IS a YUGE accomplishment.
Now.....lets do Bidenomics 😱 😩
0blaminomics 1 was a piker, compared to 02 😭
Agreed Cracker Barrel food is NOTHING to write home about, anyone who thinks what they serve is “down home southern cooking” has never ever in their life had down home southern cooking, and it is grotesquely overpriced.
Same with Olive Garden, everything they sell is simply reheated in a microwave, and it grotesquely overpriced for what it is.
I took my family of 4 to Olive Garden for dinner 4 years ago or more now, Myself and my daughter only had soup and salad, my wife and my other daughter had something off the kids menu and an entree.... With tip the bill was over $70.
A kids meal, 2 soups and salads, and 1 entree...
>>I would gain three pounds every time I went there
It’s not the butter. It’s the salt causing water retention.
Love your idea...but, first they would have to recover from the pink mafia, joined with Auntie Fa, BML, etc., destroying their property.
More rainbow rocking chairs on the porch at the Cracker joint would surely win back the oldsters.
Biden’s high gas prices have busted my budget.
Home, car and groceries take all this retired Cracker’s monthly income.
Dining out is history.
Thanks, Joe, for making each month a worry.
Newsome/Hochul 2024! Free abortions for all Men and Women and Things! No Borders! Peace in our Time!
I’ve eaten exactly ONCE at CB in my 72 years. I am striving to go another 70 years without returning. So far, I am on plan.
Exactly. VERY HAPPY not to be ‘in charge’ of the livelihoods of so many others these days! Just trying to keep our heads above water out here on the farm is hard enough!
I was a teen (17) during The Carter Years, so I knew what to expect to some extent. I joined the Army to pay for college as my folks had no spare change for me at the time.
It does NOT need to be this way in America! It. Does. Not.
@#$%^&* Socialists!
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