Uncle Herschel’s Shell Game
> Read our previous coverage of Cracker Barrel from last year. <
Contrary to recent conventional wisdom, woke-ism is not the cause of Cracker Barrel’s long-term problems and increasing alienation from its base. It’s merely the most obvious symptom. From its rise in the 70s to the early 2000s, Cracker Barrel became an authentic Third Space inseparable from the identities of many middle and working class Southerners because it was more than a business.
Its very existence was built on flouting the cold corporate signifiers of fast food chains and the sit-down restaurants that always made smalltown Southerners a little uncomfortable. It wasn’t punk rock, but it fully embraced the renegade ethos of Cash, Haggard, Lynn, and Parton–a little bit outlaw, but with a downhome dedication to the truth of Southern life–one that has clearly resonated with multiple generations. Until now.
Unlike Parton, who has approached her Dollywood empire and licensing to brands from Duncan Hines to Lodge with a sense of Southern subversiveness, Cracker Barrel has fully embraced the corporate status quo. Beyond current CEO Julie Felss Masino, who, as we previously reported, apparently was still living in Los Angeles this time last year, slick corporate figures in the mold of the former Starbucks and Taco Bell exec occupy every seat on the company’s board.
Most of its members hail from Pennsylvania or coastal cities like Los Angeles. Those from the region such as former Wal Mart exec Gisel Ruiz and former Dollar General President John Garratt joined after tenures at utilitarian Southern companies that Cracker Barrel used to strive to avoid emulating at every turn. Such corporate types are nomads–just as happy in Kansas City or Nashville as Boston as long as they can increase the length of their LinkedIn profiles and mentions in The Wall Street Journal.
Most telling is that, even in the wake of the logo backlash and the company’s renunciation of DEI yesterday, Gilbert R. Dávila still retains a board seat. According to his bio on the restaurant’s webpage, Dávila is the former, “President and Chief Executive Officer of DMI Consulting — a leading multicultural marketing, diversity & inclusion and strategy firm in the United States” who held a previous position as, “the Vice President of Global Diversity and Multicultural Market Development at The Walt Disney Company.” One can only extrapolate how vital his experience was in navigating this week’s events and conservative activist Robby Starbuck’s campaign against the brand.
The result is that Cracker Barrel has gone from a self-reflexive riff on the real South to a cold Chipotle replica with a couple antiques staged on a white wall one would expect at a metropolitan museum during an exhibition of outsider art. Servers who wish to remain anonymous have railed against the restaurant’s recent mandate for them to achieve a 74-80% success rate of customer drink orders or face reduced hours or termination, a common complaint on a private Facebook group for employees. The curated vinyl records and other pop-culture collectibles are now indiscernible from the checkout displays at Best Buy or the back wall of a Wal-Mart.
From her stint at Starbucks, Masino should have learned to take a page from Howard Schultz’s empowerment of managers to make the decisions that best cater to their local customers. Such is the central tenet he discusses in his 2007 book Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life Without Losing Its Soul, which outlines how he turned the company around by returning as CEO in the wake of the Great Recession. It’s a strategy that has also led Barnes & Noble to a complete turnaround since 2019 as the bookseller got back to its core mission and empowered local teams to curate its events and featured offerings. What resulted was a rebuff to Amazon and its seeming inevitable dominance as well as to the crop of self-righteous indie bookstores that have popped up in the last decade and a half.
For years, Steak ‘n Shake CEO Sardar Biglari has fought to seize control of Cracker Barrel (internal sources with ties to Cracker Barrel’s corporate headquarters who wish to remain anonymous told The Pamphleteer this week they believe he may in part be involved in the brand’s recent logo fracas). The last thing Cracker Barrel needs is an activist investor governing from afar.
Another above-average corporate drone from outside our region won’t be key to Cracker Barrel’s long-term survival. Its future hinges on an influx of real Southern perspective, the type of customer-first transparency that has made Buc-ee’s brilliant mishmash of Chick-fil-a efficiency and Cracker Barrel charm the brand’s obvious successor in the hearts and minds of those who live in our region.
Cracker Barrel was once the most potent symbol of the South’s contributions to American culture. Its leaders were ambassadors for a way of life that merges corporate power and community-based ethos. As it goes, so goes America.