I love Cracker Barrel. Let me just say that outright from the start.
It seems that every driving trip that I took when I was growing up involved at least one meal every day of the trip at Cracker Barrel.
It got to be one of those things where over time one summer where we crisscrossed the country that I ended up memorizing the entire Cracker Barrel menu.
This of course was in the days before cell phones and most portable electronics. We grabbed the Cracker Barrel menu and memorized it.
Hell, there are so many moments in my life that revolve around eating at that restaurant I cannot even think of them all.
Even the last time I ate dinner with my mom before she died was at a Cracker Barrel.
However, it seems that in recent years things haven’t been kind to ol’ Barrel; but to be fair they haven’t been too kind to a lot of restaurant chains.
Cracker Barrel just announced that it is being forced to make a lot of changes after its most recent quarterly report showed that the company posted a loss.
Now, you would think that if you were going to need to get people coming back in the doors you would have to make some changes. Things like changes as far as the menu goes make complete sense.
I have seen plenty of restaurants turn things around from adding a new item to the menu.
But Cracker Barrel is going to go in a direction that is opposite of what would make sense. They are talking bout raising prices and out and out changing the look of the restaurant.
To be perfectly fair, they are not talking about an across-the-board price increase. There are some menu items that they are also planning on either keeping the same or lowering the price of.
It’s always good to give customers options of multiple price levels when it comes to eating out. In my less income-heavy days, when my wife and I first got married, we wouldn’t have been able to go out to eat period if it were not for lower-priced options.
But changing the look of the restaurants is something I hope Cracker Barrel stays far away from. It is one of the things that gives that place its charm.