The recent Cracker Barrel controversy with its woke CEO Julie Felss Masino, and her Board’s decision to remove Uncle Hershel and The Barrel from the Logo, had many running customers with pitchforks in the streets. The unorganized boycott was deserved by Masino’s actions, and whoever dreamed up the DEI bullcrap that was installed by the Rachel Maddow wannabe and her ilk, needs to be shown the door. You can’t take a great American company like Cracker Barrel and turn it into a woke-acceptable den of hogwash.
Last week, my good friend Billy Ray suggested we have lunch at the local Cracker Barrel in Conroe, which is not far from my house. And truth be told, with all the controversy, whenever I passed by, I only looked once, noticing fewer calls in the parking lot. So last Friday we met around 2pm at the restaurant, thankfully with the backlash about the CEO’s intentions having already corrected itself. Of course it will take some time to refresh the menus, and signs, to the restaurants, especially those who have been remodeled. As for Conroe, the only changes involving the logo were the menus, and a few smaller signs, but the sign outside the restaurant with Uncle Herschel was still intact.
Cracker Barrel for me, well, it’s a special place. I often took my Mother Angie before she passed away in spring 2021. It was in those many trips for breakfast early in the week that Angie sparked a friendship with Keisha, the most popular waitress there in my eyes. Keisha is so welcoming, with a great attitude, and is well loved by her regular customers. And although I’ve eaten there sparingly since my Mom passed away, I go every once in a while just to remember her, and Billy Ray’s invitation was timely, so I accepted.
During the controversy with the logo, I saw several videos of Cracker Barrel employees sharing the conditions on the ground where they worked, with some taking real bites to their newly untaxed tips. Customers really showed their disgust for the CEO, but it was the employees that I really felt sorry for, including Keisha at the Conroe Cracker Barrel. I don’t know what their hourly wage is, but the tips are so helpful in their yearly income, and essentially makes the job tolerable. And really, the employees are the real innocents in this whole nasty business. They’re not involved in the policy making of the company. All they wanna do is work to put food on the tables of not only their customers, but for their own families. They wanna do their shifts, go home, have a meal, some family time with their kids or parents, rest, do some activities, go to bed, and wake up for the next day. It’s simple, and for an idiotic CEO and Board to think that messing with the proven logo of Uncle Herschel, the real uncle of Co-Founder Dan Evins, who was a flour salesman who traveled to old country stores getting to know people. Well, it’s a story that should not be forgotten, and it’s very meaningful to the company.
The realization with the Cracker Barrel employees and the hardships they had to endure with the logo snafu, it reminded me of the Soviet soldiers after The Fall of the Berlin Wall, where I greatly softened my attitude towards the Russian personnel, who were selling their extra military insignias to raise money to send back home to family. Loathing the hardline government leaders, not their soldiers became my line, and that goes for woke CEOs and Boards. Naturally, you would think that someone who sits on the Board of a major corporation in America, would make the best decision possible for their brand, but when faced with unyielding logic thrust upon them, like with failures with Bud Light and Jaguar in their ads, and even before the pandemic with Nike’s campaign with Colin Kaepernick and Gillette’s ad on toxic masculinity; you’d think that such a massive change in the rebirth of Donald Trump, might make a few to many waves. Masino and her Board thought wrong, and now they’ve cost the company nearly a billion dollars, including lost tip wages to the employees.
The visit to Cracker Barrel with Billy Ray was pleasant, and thankfully the restaurant showed some life at 2pm, as customers filed in for a late lunch or early dinner. Our waitress, Brenda, was well versed in handling questions about the logo controversy. Our restaurant here has walls that are adorned with memorabilia of all types, and compared to pictures of other Cracker Barrel restaurants seen online, our eating locale, it can be said, has a lot more character. It turns out the restaurant was never scheduled for a ‘remodel,’ which would have taken away the current welcoming ambience that it currently sports, and changed the outside logo on the building’s facade.
Billy Ray and I traded Cracker Barrel stories. He has widely traveled west and east, and has visited many CB locations. He really appreciated visiting family in Columbus, Ohio, when his son lived there at the time, and his grandchildren would really love a trip to the restaurant there. I relayed the story of my Mom Angie’s passing and its Cracker Barrel’s connection. After her death, I visited the restaurant, and although I wasn’t served by Keisha, the hostess asked about my Mom. I told her of the sad news, as well as the memorial service information.
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The walls at the Conroe Cracker Barrel show the character of the restaurant with items from old country stores representative of the restaurants history |
During the Eulogy of my Mother, I noted to family and friends of our visits to Cracker Barrel, and the kind waitress who made Angie feel at home for breakfast. And it wasn’t until I neared the end of my speech, that I noticed a figure in a light blue Polo shirt. Now there are moments in people’s lives that are, um, special, or unexplainable. With my Father, one of the aides that was with us in his final hours in 2012, had been rerouted to my house. She knew the priest that ministered to me when I first presented with cancer, and whose visits were vital to my mental well-being, in giving me the strengthened attitude to survive. And as I walked back from the lectern, my short-sighted eyes finally recognized at first the Cracker Barrel logo on the shirt, then the fact that it was Keisha. It was remarkable. I mean, how many waitresses go to the funeral services of their customers? I know my Mother was an Angel, personable, and people loved her, and she made an impression on Keisha. And part of my personality is built from that. Probably the money giving part to strangers, I don’t know. But I was never the Angel like she was. That’s why Cracker Barrel is special to me, and it pained me to see the company in distress. Not for Uncle Herschel’s logo, but for Keisha and her fellow employees of the restaurant. She is that employee that I feel represents the entire corporation.
I read a report of the 93 year-old feisty co-founder, Tommy Lowe, who slammed Julie Masino’s efforts to take the life out of the company he founded, and he was right. And who can blame him? I mean, Cracker Barrel is a wonderful company, and has a great history, but all it takes is one bad apple, to mess up the recipe that made the company Tommy and Dan started in 1969, for Americans in over 40 states who want good homestyle country cooking, for families and especially Moms to get away from the kitchen for dinner every once in a while.
I know Cracker Barrel will recover from this, hopefully soon, and without all the woke non-sense nor the leaders that brought about its revelation. It’s just something that could have been easily avoided if reasonable and sensible people had been in charge, armed with common sense instead of leftist ideals that they want to push on reasonable people. And it makes you wonder, which corporation who still embraces woke initiatives will be next?
Ruben can be reached at: ruben@montgomerycountynews.net