The Future of Cracker Barrel

In 1991, in response to customer complaints, Lebanon-based Cracker Barrel distributed a memo ordering restaurant managers to fire anyone whose “sexual preferences [failed] to demonstrate normal heterosexual values.” Primarily targeted at effeminate men and masculine women who worked as servers, the order resulted in nine employees being fired. Caught in the crossfire was Cheryl Summerville, a 32-year-old lesbian cook from Douglasville, Georgia. There was no internet then, but news of the firings didn’t take long to spread.

As word of the memo circulated, Summerville reluctantly became the face of the controversy, appearing on 20/20, Larry King Live, and even Oprah. Meanwhile, a number of activist organizations, such as the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and Queer Nation, organized protests at Cracker Barrels throughout the Southeast. In Nashville, the NGLTF conducted a sit-in during the normally bustling Sunday brunch, ordering the minimum cup of coffee or soda and occupying 97 percent of the tables as they ground business to a halt.

“Cracker Barrel presumed they could get away with this policy because they thought we were just a bunch of ‘fags’ and ‘dykes’ and nobody would care,” said the NGLTF’s Ivy Young at the Nashville rally. “They got a huge shock when they discovered that lesbians, gays and people of good conscience around the country are speaking out and protesting their bigotry.”

At the time, there was nothing illegal about the policy. Nonetheless, the protests and negative media attention had their desired effect: Cracker Barrel rescinded the policy just a month after firing Summerville. Protests continued even after the company's official announcement, but beyond the activist community and the media who willingly amplified their message, the incident barely registered.

Customers did not seem bothered, revenues did not slump, and the stock price on the NYSE didn’t show any signs of disruption. In fact, over the next year, the stock price more than doubled. “Let’s face it,” said Summerville, reflecting on the incident in 2014. “We didn’t have a great deal of support from the customer base. It really took their shareholders to make a difference to bring them into the 20th century.”

Fast forward to 2024. Cracker Barrel has purportedly put its bigoted past behind it, signing on as one of the sponsors to Nashville Pride and engaging with several other LGBTQ organizations such as Out & Equal. Save last year’s rainbow-rocking chair gaffe (which has notably not been repeated this year), most of the chains' support for such organizations happens out of view of customers. You will not see Pride-themed merchandise or even rainbow flags flying at Cracker Barrel. Instead, the traditional American flag bunting continues to adorn the iconic front porches of locations across the country.

So, how did Cracker Barrel, a company that built its entire reputation on serving traditional Southern fare in a family-friendly, down-home setting, end up sponsoring Nashville Pride in 2024? That story begins in 2002 with the world’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group: the Human Rights Campaign.

🔄 Will They Shrink The Council? A month ago, a three-judge panel heard arguments for the lawsuit challenging the new state law set to shrink Metro Council. The council currently consists of 35 districted members, who represent around 15,000 to 17,000 residents each, and five at-large  members, who are representative of the entire county. Though the law, which caps all Tennessee Metropolitan councils at 20 members, went into effect in March of last year, the court granted to stay its implementation, and Nashville was able to hold council elections as usual.

 Though the ordinance applies to the entire state, Metro Legal maintains that the law targeted Nashville, violating the Tennessee Constitution's "home rule amendment." Rep. Lamberth begs to differ. During the bill’s final reading in the House last year, the majority leader cited the Dillon Rule in defense of the legislation: “This body creates both cities and Metro governments. That is part of our responsibility. . . The Tennessee Constitution provides that ‘the General Assembly shall, by general law, provide the exclusive method of which municipalities may be created, merged, consolidated, and dissolved and by which municipal boundaries may be changed’ is our responsibility.”

The state wasn’t the first to try and shrink Nashville’s uniquely large Metro council. Backed by a people’s petition in 2015, an amendment to reduce the body from 40 to 27 members appeared on the ballot; the initiative, said supporters at the time, was an effort to consolidate the power of the council in order to hold a stronger check against the mayor's office. The amendment failed, and Metro Council remains the third-largest city council in the country— for now. MEGAN PODSIEDLIK

⚡️ Taser Updates Spark Debate On Tuesday, the council passed a resolution to enter into a new agreement to extend and increase the value of Metro’s contract with Axon Enterprise— a move that would also update MNPD tasers. As you may recall, the council’s been wrestling with this change for months: just as the shot clock was about to run out on last year’s budget, the council pulled the trigger on the legislation— but not without the usual melodrama.

While Sponsor Delishia Porterfield motioned to defer the resolution in order to postpone its enactment, Councilmember Courtney Johnston warned the council that delaying would be wasteful. “This is the last meeting of this fiscal year,” she told her colleagues. “And so I think there's about a million dollars that's on this contract that will be spent on [the old taser model] sevens unless we approve this resolution to spend that money on [the updated taser model] tens.” 

It wasn’t long before Ginny Welsch jumped in. “Tasers are not de-escalation tools,” the councilwoman argued. “They are weapons.” Earlier in the meeting, Welsch’s defund-the-police approach to budgeting went ignored, but that didn’t stop her from hammering it home during the taser discussion. “MNPD is sitting on a lot of money. They can use their own money if they’d like to do this.”

Councilmember Olivia Hill refuted her claims. “....If I understand it,” she said, “they're only asking our permission to spend their money.” This assertion was confirmed by Metro Finance Assistant Director Mary Jo Wiggins, deflating Welsch’s earlier claims. In the end, the council voted to “arm” Nashville’s force with new tasers and passed the resolution with 29 votes in favor, 9 against, and one abstaining. MEGAN PODSIEDLIK

DEVELOPMENT

• California hospitality group buys another Music Row bar (NBJ)
• Images released for downtown church project (Post)

✹ REVIEW: COMA (2022)

The most disheartening aspect of life in Pandemica was the unified compliance of the arts community–-Rage Against the Machine requiring fans to wear masks and hand over their vaxx cards so they could scream along to, “Fuck you! I won’t do what you tell me,” as the story goes. But, if Bertrand Bonello’s 2022 film Coma is any indication, the contrarian views and subversive instincts that have kept France the center of the cinematic world made it through intact. Shot in his home and employing every loophole in the COVID restriction handbook, Bonello has crafted a revealing study of the adolescent psyche in a time of utter state control.

What separates Coma from the wave of intolerable lockdown romances and melodramas released during the last three years is Bonello’s dedication to isolating the totalitarian strains in society that made the whole thing possible. Coma never mentions COVID. It’s far more concerned with capturing a form of stagnancy that predated 2020. 

As “The Adolescent,” Louise Labèque lounges around her room in self-isolation from her parents. She gabs with the girls about her favorite serial killers. She makes a stop-motion sitcom with her Barbies that allows her to flirt with adult taboos like sex and Trumpian politics. She dreams about a misty forest straight from the original Brothers Grimm. Most importantly, she pledges fealty to Patricia Coma (Julia Faure), a celebrity influencer who demonstrates high-end blenders, sells decision-maker toys that resemble the Simon, and makes government mandates go down easily no matter how authoritarian in nature. 

For Bonello, the true pandemic is one of detachment and desensitization that’s been in the making for decades. Virus or not, The Adolescent never really had a future–one of the reasons she revels so much in violence via social media. 

When Bonello’s masterful new film The Beast opened in April, it proved the ultimate treatise on free will in the age of A.I. But there’s a reason it took Coma two years to find a release: it claims we’ve been the beasts all along–willfully refusing to hold ourselves accountable for the public and private worlds our compliance has unraveled. JEROD HOLLYFIELD

Coma screens today at The Belcourt.

THINGS TO DO

View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown here.

📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.

🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.

👨🏻‍🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide and yearly festival guide.

TONIGHT

🪕 Steep Canyon Rangers @ Ryman Auditorium, 7:30p, $38+, Info

🎸 Rui Gabriel @ DRKMTTR, 8p, $10, Info

🎻 Smokey Robinson with the Nashville Symphony @ Schermerhorn Symphony Center, 7:30p, $78+, Info

🎸 Adam Meisterhans Trio @ Vinyl Tap, 7p, Free, Info

🍀 Live Irish Music @ McNamara’s Irish Pub, 6p, Free, Info

🎸 Kelly’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info

🎸 Open Mic @ Fox & Locke, 6:30p, Free, Info
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