Cracker Barrel workers dish on skimpy pay and ‘frozen’ food that’s passed off as homestyle cooking

It's the New York Post. Right-wingers decided Cracker Barrel is their new enemy for doing something as simple as changing a logo

Now how many CB customers truly believed the kitchen was filled with elderly southern grandmothers secretly slaving away at hot stoves preparing fresh meat loaf, roasting chickens, and stuffing turkeys for you ? Then the moved over to the 'dessert table' and baked their home-made fresh apple pies and chocolate cake ?

This should shock no one.

R1 But do those right-wingers truly believe all the food is made fresh in the kitchens ? Seriously ?

Do they believe the seafood they eat at Red Lobster in Iowa is fresh off the boat, caught that morning ?

Almost all food at these chains is prepackaged and frozen and has been for years. If you want breakfast go to a place with an open kitchen and like cooks like a diner.

As I said in one of the controversy threads, the new logo sucked because it's boring and generic, but the real problem is the food quality.

R4 here...that should be LINE cooks.

[QUOTE] Now how many CB customers truly believed the kitchen was filled grandmothers preparing fresh meat loaf, roasting chickens, and stuffing turkeys for you ?

[QUOTE] But do those right-wingers truly believe all the food is made fresh in the kitchens ? Seriously ?

Did you goofs bother to read the article? Or you simply can’t look at things beyond these stupid left-right culture war popcorn fights? They used to actually cook the food fresh at Cracker Barrel until this CEO and the board came in slashing away at everything to gain more profits for the shareholders. Now they’ve ruined the company by trying to turn it into Applebees. Customers have complained about this drop in quality for years now and nobody paid attention until they took that redneck off the logo. This is the shit we should really be talking about. Oh wait, are we supposed to hold up Julie Masino as some kind of progressive girl boss hero cause Fox News hates her? Is MSNBC riding for her so now you’ve got your pom poms out? Fuck her and all these other CEOs.

[QUOTE] “I was told today we have a gag order and are not supposed to be speaking about how the food is being made,” the alleged employee claimed in the letter, adding that Masino fired cooks and prep cooks when she came to the company in 2023.

[QUOTE]Felkamp, who is based in the Chicago area, read the note in a Tuesday video without identifying the employee. She has since heard from other Cracker Barrel staffers, she told The Post.

[QUOTE]The fired kitchen workers “cooked our country homemade food,” and “now our food is like fast food,” the letter added. “It’s all frozen in a bag off of a truck. We are basically turning into a fast food restaurant.”

[QUOTE] The employee also griped about restaurant staff being cut back to part-time workers who can’t work more than 32 hours a week so “they don’t have to offer us health insurance.”

R7 Thank you--are Americans capable of discussing ANY topic at all under the sun without politicizing it (including DL'ers)? It's so tedious. What the fuckshit does a story about the devolving quality of a restaurant's food and treatment of its employees have to do with the left or right?

I assume all chain restaurants are serving frozen/reconstituted food. That's why I don't eat at them.

Did Bain Capital take over Cracker Barrel?

There aren’t any Cracker Barrels where I live so all this drama really makes me laugh.

It’s like if you read a thousand online posts that were all like

[bold]SCHMENDRICKS IS REMOVING THE DEAD SQUIRREL FROM THEIR LOGO,??? THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE WOKENESS[/bold]

You’d literally be all like, lol wtf sybau….

R7 Did you bother to read the article ?

Do you realize we are talking about present with the current CEO and not when the restaurant started in 1969 ? Currently, they've been serving frozen dinners - at least for the past five years. This is what's been reported in the article and what's being discussed here. Not 'what used to be 50+ years ago.

Most fast food restaurants who have 'chicken' on the menu that's used in salads, etc. prepare it from a bag of liquid that looks like egg. You heat it up on the grill and it congeals like scrambled eggs.

Why is R7 prattling on about a restaurant chain that, as usual once acquired by private equity, has destroyed itself in the name of corporate profits? Why is she trying to blame us here for discussing this ridiculously self-immolating MAGAt gripefest, as though we started it? As though we care about it beyond the amusement of watching poor people discuss a declining fast casual "restaurant" in their efforts to look, well, literate. I'm happy when the degenerates engage in meaningless attacks on each other; if they're bickering amongst themselves, they aren't coming for me and my family's rights.

Jesus R7, take a long hard look in the mirror.

I’m befuddled by the right wing outrage. Were they under the impression Cracker Barrel was some sort of uber Christian company based on the fact that only fellow elderly white trash slobs eat there?

Meanwhile, every chain restaurant in the country primarily serves frozen food from a bag off a truck

[QUOTE] Meanwhile, every chain restaurant in the country primarily serves frozen food from a bag off a truck

Well that’s why Cracker Barrel sucks now. Not only the food but the poor service due to understaffing and shitty pay. Yet that didn’t make any headlines because the corporate media just shrugs it off as “capitalism.” Everyone was fine with the brand being strangled to death until they tried to take the cracker out of Cracker Barrel.

I've never been to one - and I see why - there are only like 6 in all of California. Way out in places I would never go to.

Found the menu. I'm confused. This looks like a diner menu? Almost like a Denny's? I don't understand what is so 'down-home' about any of this?

These are not my people, obviously. And I love diners - NY/NJ types.

LOL..99.9% of restaurants use pre-made, pre-packaged, and frozen foods.

Yes, even those highly praised, local, family owned indie restaurants with a loyal customer base and a reputation for making "real" food.

I ate at one of those places years ago and I thought the food was ok...didn't really live up to the raves but that's usually the case. Most people have really limited taste, especially when it comes to food. This is back in the days when I still smoked so I went out for a smoke at the side of the building, which was on a corner in a hip part of town. The dumpsters are right there and they were sort of overflowing and I noticed the name on the boxes....oh, I forgot to mention that this was a beloved Southern, "soul food" place with a cute origin story...started by two African American sisters who used family recipes to whip out delicious Southern treats like BBQ Ribs.

All the boxes in the recycling dumpster were labeled Hormel. All those "homemade meals made with love from our secret family recipes" came from a processing plant in Iowa.

Go to a dumpster outside most restaurants and you're gonna find the same boxes.

R18 - Hormel is one of the nation's largest meat processors. They bought meat from them - doesn't mean it was necessarily pre-made. You don't think people are slaughtering and butchering their own animals in the back, do you?

Sourcing local meat and vegetables is expensive and time-consuming. Most restaurants have to have a reliable food source and shipments.

Are most casual dining chain food pre-packaged? Sure - Applebees, Cracker Barrel, Olive Garden, etc.

But that doesn't mean 99% of restaurants are - not even close.

One of the restaurants my friend worked at several years ago in Indianapolis was actually serving Stouffer’s lasagna.

This may bring down the whole fast food industry

Fat chance!

My god, R1 - Is anything factual wrong with the information provided?

Congealed chicken! What's next? Dehydrated mashed potatoes where they just add water? I'm never eating out again and from now on all my meal plans will come from the DL What Are You Eating for Dinner Thread!

never been

never will

It's a shame they're doing themselves in with their substandard behavior. I was happy to take my parents there, because it reminded them of the food they grew up with, but I haven't been there since my parents died. And I wouldn't go there when they had anti-gay hiring practices, so there wasn't a great window then when I visited there. I still have nice memories with my folks.

R19 My bad...I forgot to specify that the boxes were for various Hormel meat products that were PRE-MADE like "Delicious Homestyle BBQ Ribs w/Sauce".

Again...VERY, VERY few restaurants are scratch only.

And, bougie bistros bragging about their homemade food do have to buy their meat from someone, but if they're actually really a bougie, foodie restaurant they're not fucking buying Hormel meat.

Watch the stock price. Joe Six Pack and the yokels can whine all day long but the fundamentals of their current biz model don't bode well for a long term survival

My pussy stinks!

A very good friend of mine was the manager of Outback Steakhouse not too far from where I live. He warned me back then (about 20 years ago) never to eat there. Had nothing to do with cleanliness (his restaurant was incredibly clean) or service - it was the quality of the food and where it came from (pre-prepared and frozen).

A few years later he gets a job as one of the managers of a newly opened Fleming's Steakhouse. Turns out (at the time - not sure if it's still true now) they were owned by the same corporation which owned Outback, and they were 'poaching' some of the top managers of the area Outback restaurants to manage their new Fleming's in the city.

They were serving the exact same steaks and vegetables as Outback (same bad quality, same pre-prepared and frozen, same supplier). Only difference was that they were plated more 'artistically' and the prices were two to three times higher than the same dinner at Outback. He couldn't believe how the Fleming's customers raved about the food, and said they were the most delicious steaks in the world. They could get the same crap at Outback and pay a third of the price.

I cook and I'm used to eating well. I only eat out if I have to, and for the very reasons posted here: the food today is mostly crap.

I now pretty much limit eating out to breakfast at my local diner. When I want to meet up with a friend, I prefer we go to breakfast.

They use fresh eggs and potatoes. Bacon is what it is. I know the brand of scrapple and pork roll they use. (yes, I'm in NJ). The packaged bread sucks but at least they serve it with real butter. The orange juice is crap, but I can substitute it with a V8.

I know of several nearby BBQ chicken places that do it from scratch. The chicken only though, not the ribs.

they wanted to save Uncle Cracker, but they ended up ripping the lid off of the can of worms

[quote]Were they under the impression Cracker Barrel was some sort of uber Christian company based on the fact that only fellow elderly white trash slobs eat there?

Years ago (like, the 1990s), Cracker Barrel was very vocally a Christian and anti-gay company. I think these days their management is hoping people have forgotten that, but I haven't. I assume a lot of their customers still go there for that reason.

R34 That's rather interesting because it looks like that is when they were most successful and started expanding. I guess they had a loyal following of ant-gay / Christian customers who kept their doors open and allowed them to expand. I'm not agreeing with their anti-gay attitude, but I hate to say it - it sounds like they did something right by focusing on this market.