Why Conservatives Care So Much About Cracker Barrel

The chain, in all its corporate kitsch, represents a disappearing America

The number one concern for conservative media right now is Cracker Barrel’s brand change. The folksy restaurant chain altered its logo to eliminate the cracker and the barrel, leaving a generic yellow stamp in its place. The move is part of a broader rebrand for the company famous for its heartland kitsch and down-home meals.

The change hasn’t gone over well. Cracker Barrel’s stock plunged as conservatives set their sights on the chain, vowing to fight back against its vulgar display of woke. It’s not obvious that this is a woke move. The company didn’t turn the white guy in its logo into a trans black woman. It’s more a move to a sterile, generic type, an expression of what the writer Paul Skallas calls “refinement culture.” Most American corporations have eliminated distinguishing characteristics in favor of homogenized logos and aesthetics. It’s driven more by market research rather than human intuition and creativity. It comes across as lame and dull, but, for the most part, it doesn’t alienate customers.

Cracker Barrel’s change is a notable exception.

Conservatives see this as more than an idiotic rebrand. Cracker Barrel stands for rural white America. Its kitsch is beloved in deep red areas and it symbolizes Americana, albeit through the prism of a corporate chain. For a lot of people, this is their only direct connection to that old-timey America. The mom-and-pop restaurants Cracker Barrel modeled itself on are a rarity. The chain presents the best meal option in many rural areas. It’s either the Barrel or a McDonald’s. Cracker Barrel acts as a stand-in for Heritage American culture in the absence of organic expressions of it. In many ways, it’s already a corporate sterilization of traditional Americana. But that’s all many Americans have, so they’re mad at the thought Cracker Barrel will turn into just another Chili’s.

Cracker Barrel is now the American equivalent to British pubs and German beer halls. These are local establishments that are perceived to offer a taste traditional culture. The difference is that those European establishments are genuinely local and have been around for generations, if not centuries. Cracker Barrel has only been around since 1969, is not genuinely local, and offers an artifice rather than organic culture. But to Middle Americans, it’s much better than the alternatives and is one of the few establishments that they can claim as their own.

Conservative activist Robby Starbuck expressed this attitude in a Fox News interview, claiming the CB brand change represents a dire threat to “our culture and heritage.”

"The American people are sick of having our culture and heritage stripped from us," Starbuck told Fox News Digital.

"All these things that are nostalgic Americana are constantly being stomped on, and we're being told that there's something wrong with it, that we should be ashamed of it in some way, that it needs to be replaced with something more inclusive or more driven by these DEI characteristics," he continued. "I think people are just sick of it. We've had enough, and we don't want our whole country stripped down to where we have no semblance of, you know, that sort of nostalgic Americana culture."

It makes one wince to see a kitschy chain referred to as our “heritage,” but it is to many of its customers.

Starbuck points to the nostalgia element in Cracker Barrel and how its brand name threatens that. But one has to be pretty old to remember the America CB evokes. Hardly anyone under 50 experienced the country stores the restaurant chain emulates. Their nostalgia is tied to ‘90s suburbia, with its Pizza Huts and Blockbusters. Cracker Barrel represents the nostalgia of the parents and grandparents of Gen Xers and millennials. The memories associated with Cracker Barrel solely lie with the restaurant, not the old-timey places it apes.

Middle Americans seem to have stronger feelings about Cracker Barrel than genuine expressions of American heritage. There is far more backlash over the CB logo change than there was over the erasure of Confederate heritage in the South. The rebrand elicited more outrage than statue removals and name displacements directed against the Founding Fathers. That’s our actual history and culture, but it doesn’t stir the emotions in the same way that the Cracker Barrel change does.

This reinforces the idea that Americans are a people without a past. Of course, we do have a history, but it weighs less heavily on the individual American than it does for other peoples. For most Americans, their past extends just to their childhoods and nothing beyond it. The time periods we’re nostalgic for are when we were young. Unlike Merrie England, which evokes a longing for pre-industrial Britain, Merry America changes every thirty years or so. In the late 20th century, it was the 1950s, the decade in which boomers and the silent generation were young. It’s now the 1990s, when Gen Xers and Millennials were young. Some day, Merry America will be the 2010s. Longings for the past are connected to individual experience rather than ancestral memory.

Cracker Barrel exemplifies this. Much of its customer base is too young to remember the Americana it evokes. They’re tied to the chain due to the fond memories of eating there with their grandparents. The logo change symbolizes a threat to that individual experience in the same way that Blockbuster closures did over a decade ago. This cherished memory from their youth will now vanish like tears in the rain. They want these changes to stop so they can live out their youthful nostalgia whenever they feel like it. Cracker Barrel turning into another run-of-the-mill chain threatens that.

However, that nostalgia struggles to sell now. Cracker Barrel was already hurting prior to the rebrand. It has closed locations around the country as its consumer base ages or decides to go with other options. Its corporate execs did the rebrand because it thought it would boost business. They were gravely mistaken. However, in spite of the immensity of the backlash, it does seem there isn’t as much of a market for Cracker Barrel’s Americana as there was once.

This battle may seem silly. Conservatives appear to be fighting tooth and nail to defend corporate kitsch, proclaiming the garish knickknacks hawked in the gift shop as their heritage. It’s also disappointing to see this over-the-top reaction when conservatives were passive in the face of actual threats to American heritage.

But the apparent silliness of this culture battle shouldn’t undermine the merits of this struggle. Conservative influencers want to make an example out of Cracker Barrel to send a message to corporations. Despite its conservative-coded, the Barrel has adopted DEI policies and elevated women and minorities to important positions simply because they’re women and minorities. CB’s idiotic rebrand was the brilliant idea of its libtarded female CEO. It’s worth punishing Cracker Barrel to make a point and demonstrate the power of right-wing pressure campaigns.

It is cringe to see Cracker Barrel as a noble expression of heritage American culture. But Middle Americans don’t have many other options. Besides, it’s always right to strike back at corporate DEI, even when it’s not obvious.

But one shouldn’t believe the effort will restore the Americana the chain tries to recreate in its gift shop.