Biggest controversy of my lifetime...new Cracker Barrel logo

[samhexum]

Cracker Barrel quietly removes DEI and Pride pages from its website after logo upheaval

https://www.aol.com/finance/cracker-barrel-quietly-removes-dei-201039397.html

 

After backing away from a controversial logo rebrand loudly opposed by many right-wing influencers, Cracker Barrel also quietly made changes to its website this week.

The Tennessee-based roadside restaurant chain deleted a dedicated “Pride page” and scrubbed references to employee resource groups, including its LGBTQ+ and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging groups, from another part of its website.

“On behalf of Cracker Barrel’s LGBTQ+ Alliance & DEIB Team, we want to celebrate YOU for being YOU. It is our greatest Mission to ensure that Pleasing People means ‘all people,’” Cracker Barrel’s now-deleted Pride page read, according to a CNN review of the Wayback Machine.

The URL now redirects to the company’s “Culture and Belonging” page, which has also been revised, according to the Wayback Machine. The new version speaks more broadly about company culture but no longer lists its employee resource groups, which were publicly visible as recently as Tuesday, according to the archive.

In a statement to CNN, a Cracker Barrel spokesperson said the website updates reflected the removal of outdated content.

“In connection with the Company’s brand work, we have recently made updates to the Cracker Barrel website, including adding new content and removing out-of-date content,” the spokesperson said. “Several months ago, the Company also made changes to our Business Resource Groups that now focus all sponsorships or events on our corporate giving initiatives: addressing food insecurity, supporting community needs through food, and reducing food waste.”

[pubic_assistance]

24 minutes ago, samhexum said:

The Tennessee-based roadside restaurant chain deleted a dedicated “Pride page”

They had a Pride page ? 🤔 Weren't they giving money to anti-gay groups in the recent past ? When did the company start trying to appeal to gays ? 

[BuffaloKyle]

30 minutes ago, pubic_assistance said:

They had a Pride page ? 🤔 Weren't they giving money to anti-gay groups in the recent past ? When did the company start trying to appeal to gays ? 

Another logo that was considered:

[Simon Suraci]

1 hour ago, samhexum said:

Cracker Barrel quietly removes DEI and Pride pages from its website after logo upheaval

Yet another company kisses the ring. Cowards.

[pubic_assistance]

13 minutes ago, Simon Suraci said:

Yet another company kisses the ring. Cowards

No one's kissing any rings. Just appealing to their core customers.

Their investors thought they could take the company into a different demographic, but when you have more than 600 restaurants, you cant afford to piss off your existing customers while searching for new ones. 

 

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

Johnsons Tampa posted this potential new logo on its Facebook yesterday:

 

[+ BOZO T CLOWN]

Kudos to Cracker Barrel for returning to its previous logo, and removing all DEI references from its website.
The lame, feminazi CEO and pathetic Board of Directors finally realized that their primary function is to maximize profits for their shareholders, and NOT to engage in social activism. It was a $142 million blunder! Were they oblivious to the disaster that happened when Budweiser hired trans social activist Dylan Mulvaney to be the Bud Light spokesperson? It destroyed Bud's stock price, profits, and caused permanent damage to it's brand name. The CB Board and CEO should have known better than to try to dabble in social causes that they had to have known would be rejected by a significant portion, if not a majority, of its customers. 

What Cracker Barrel did to itself was to overrun everything they saw as traditional or "old-fashioned"/ they overreached! Now, the people have spoken, and spoken loudly. Let the backlash begin... Although it still may be too little, too late. They already exposed their hate, contempt, and disdain for its core customers. Who in their right mind wants to do business with a company whose management openly states that it hates customers like them? There is no atonement unless and until the entire management team is fired and publicly reprimanded. Ms. Three names and the entire Board of Directors must go.
If not, Cracker Barrel meet Bud Lite. RIP

Why should ANY business cater to ANY particular group of people? Peoples sexual orientation is on them. Not on a menu. Rodney King made a simple but lasting quote. Why can't we all just get along? Cracker Barrel customers have said loudly, "Stop pushing YOUR agenda my family!" Period. Get back to making fried chicken and waffles. Also, reinstall nostalgia themed decor and retain cooks to perform authentic dishes and not milquetoast renditions. Pass the grits and hush puppies....

BTC
🤡

[Vulgarii]

On 8/24/2025 at 8:19 AM, KensingtonHomo said:

I cannot imagine why anyone cares that a chain restaurant is rebranding. 

It is much more than simply rebranding.

[pubic_assistance]

7 hours ago, Simon Suraci said:

So yes, figuratively CB is kissing the ring when the leader of said core customers is behaving like a dictator.

Politics @Simon Suraci ?

Thats a no, no.

If you get to spew your political opinions then we all need to have that same right...which we don't. 

[pubic_assistance]

5 hours ago, BOZO T CLOWN said:

Rodney King made a simple but lasting quote. Why can't we all just get along? Cracker Barrel customers have said loudly, "Stop pushing YOUR agenda my family!" Period. Get back to making fried chicken and waffles.

Thank you !! @BOZO T CLOWN

 

Edited September 1 by pubic_assistance
spelling

[+ MikeThomas]

 

[BSR]

20 hours ago, Simon Suraci said:

They are, by capitulating to said core customers’ bigotry, racism, sexism, anti LGBTQ+ values (note the B in there applies to you, @pubic_assistance), and blind fealty to those hell bent on throwing human rights and progress toward a more equitable and democratic society out the window.

This isn’t about graphic design or old timey aesthetics, but rather brand identity. Core customers identify with the brand; they feel it reflects who they are, and what they value. It’s not just a logo, but now a symbol of CB sticking to its history of devotion to old timey values. Old timey seems benign enough on the surface, but it’s not. Baked into CB’s historically held values are ideas that women shouldn’t vote, non white people exist to serve white people, and LGBTQ+ people shouldn’t exist at all, among many other horrible ideas. Now their core customers are regressing by embracing homogeneity, inequity, and exclusion. That’s what I mean with regard to CB quietly removing their DEI and Pride pages from their website.

Now more than ever, CB understands the coded message behind their old logo. It represents hate, intolerance, and now a fresh commitment to a movement that would force the other half of our nation to live in something akin to a post democracy Handmaid’s Tale. Showing deference to these core customers who identify with hateful messages is capitulation. So yes, figuratively CB is kissing the ring when the leader of said core customers is behaving like a dictator.

CB was trying to grow by expanding into new a market, appealing to different kinds of customers than their core base. By capitulating, CB is reaffirming that they are willing to forego attracting new customers in order to appease their existing ones. The existing core customer base wants to exclude others. The message is coded as follows:

“This is only a restaurant for X kind of people, and we (the existing core customer base of X people) don’t want Y kind of people eating here. By making a fuss, we want to pressure the company to embrace us (X people) at the emphatic EXCLUSION of Y people.”

In agreeing with the coded message, CB is reinforcing that their establishment is for people who fit the X criteria. It’s utter deference. The bully pulpit is very much on the side of X people. It’s ring kissing at the top as much as it is pandering to the bottom. Full spectrum capitulation.

There is no chic like victim chic.

[pubic_assistance]

16 minutes ago, BSR said:

There is no chic like victim chic.

The fake victimhood and fear-mongering is tiresome.

Edited September 1 by pubic_assistance
spelling

[pubic_assistance]

56 minutes ago, MikeThomas said:

 

The last time I was in a Cracker Barrel was outside Greensboro N.C. I was one of the FEW white people dining there. MOST of their clientele were black families. 

[+ MikeThomas]

Just now, pubic_assistance said:

The last time I was in a Cracker Barrel was outside Greensboro N.C. I was one of the FEW white people dining there. MOST of their clientele were black families. 

Did you watch the video all the way through?  It's pretty funny.

[+ BOZO T CLOWN]

10 minutes ago, pubic_assistance said:

The fake victimhood and fear-mongering is tiresome.

Spot on @pubic_assistance!
And the fake victimhood and fear mongering displayed in the truly bizarre, unhinged rant in a previous post, which disparaged the mindset and motives of loyal, patriotic Cracker Barrel customers with lies, distortions, and fake projections is beyond tiresome.
It's time for a new playbook. The script they've been reading from for 40 years is old and boring.

BTC
🤡
 

[pubic_assistance]

22 minutes ago, MikeThomas said:

Did you watch the video all the way through?  It's pretty funny.

Yes. I did. I was both funny and makes a great point of the prejudice that some people make against White Middle America. So I was following up to reinforce how silly it is for anyone to think Cracker Barrel is anything like the KKK meeting place that @Simon Suraci would have you believe. 

[pubic_assistance]

7 minutes ago, BOZO T CLOWN said:

The script they've been reading from for 40 years is old and boring.

Very much so. Its old and tired and I am SO sick of listening to these lies and gross exaggerations of Middle America.

I grew up there and I certainly witnessed homophobia and racism. IN THE 1970s !! Its 2025 and these crazies are STILL pretending its the 1970s..IT'S NOT.

Nobody cares that you're different from them as long as you STOP making it uncomfortable for them. You do you.

[Simon Suraci]

2 minutes ago, pubic_assistance said:

Cracker Barrel is … the KKK meeting place

I didn’t say this, and I don’t believe this.

[pubic_assistance]

1 minute ago, Simon Suraci said:

I didn’t say this, and I don’t believe this.

Yes you did. You claimed that Cracker Barrel was bringIng back homophobia as if there was an anti gay clan meeting in the dining room.

You modified your rant.

I read the FIRST version. 

 

[Simon Suraci]

12 minutes ago, pubic_assistance said:

Cracker Barrel was bringIng back homophobia

^Some version of this, yes, in the form of capitulation to their core customer base calling for CB to embrace such attitudes - homophobia being one of many such exclusionary attitudes.

13 minutes ago, pubic_assistance said:

as if there was an anti gay clan meeting in the dining room

^Definitely not this.

___________

I think what is getting lost here is the leap from CB expressing agreement with values I believe fundamentally oppress various marginalized groups of people (you don’t believe the same on that point, fine)…to hate groups using CB restaurants as a meeting venue. I do not make that leap.

I do call attention to the dangerous direction a company like CB takes when they capitulate to customers calling for homogeneity, inequity, and exclusion. Their support of such policies bolsters institutions that DO take more extreme leaps.

I can’t see CB hosting hate group rallies any time in the foreseeable future. Such groups need much larger spaces. Maybe catering would be more appropriate. At least CB retains some form of plausible deniability this way.

19 minutes ago, pubic_assistance said:

You modified your rant.

Yes I did, by your request, in your previous posts. I agree, we can’t be explicit about politics, so I removed the explicitly political content. If you want me to add it back, please say so.

 

[pubic_assistance]

30 minutes ago, Simon Suraci said:

If you want me to add it back, please say so.

I would like you to stop with the fear-mongering. Its unproductive and distracting from the real world.

But you ARE certainly free to post your opinions as long as you accept other here disagreeing with them. When you start with ridiculous political rants we can NOT officially respond without breaking the rules. So keep them to yourself and I will keep mine private too.

MY personal opinion about your recent rant about Cracker Barrel was that you feel NO obligation to consider mainstream Middle America customers in your viewpoint. You seem to think that by them enjoying a bit of nostalgia for simpler times when NONE of this stuff was shoved down their throats, that we are all immediately homophobic. I am personally happy to enjoy my mashed potatoes without a drag show. I dont NEED a restaurant to tell me "I am loved" in spite of my sexuality  I need them to make sure my cutlery is clean, my steak is medium-rare and my wait-person is friendly.  Leave the rest of this nonsense for your next gay pride parade. The righteous indignation over a restaurant choosing to NOT have a rainbow flag section on their website is tiresome and your anger misplaced.

[pubic_assistance]

[Text quoting removed content redacted]

Thank you for your opinion. Lets get back to the subject of Cracker Barrel 

[+ ApexNomad]

3 hours ago, pubic_assistance said:

Nobody cares that you're different from them as long as you STOP making it uncomfortable for them. You do you.

This is not acceptance. It’s called conditional tolerance. It says your rights only exist if you don’t challenge the majority. That’s the exact logic behind many restrictive laws: you can exist, but only quietly, invisibly, or on our terms.

Civil rights aren’t conditional on majority comfort. If they were, segregation would still be legal. Discomfort is not a defense for discrimination.

[pubic_assistance]

6 minutes ago, ApexNomad said:

It’s called conditional tolerance. It says your rights only exist if you don’t challenge the majority.

Modern society does its best to foster an environment that benefits the majority.

The minority cannot always be provided for when they insist on upsetting the majority as part of their perceived "rights'.

Cracker Barrel doesnt NEED to have a gay inclusive section on their web page to be able to serve you a plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes . The majority of their customers truly dont care if you sucked your boyfriend's cock last night as long as you dont feel the need to tell their kids about it.