Cracker Barrel restaurants are a southern phenomenon.
The chain was founded in Lebanon, Tennessee in 1969 and concentrated its growth below the Maxon-Dixon line for years before making a few tentative inroads into northern or border states.
Each store is designed to look like the prototypical country general store with a large front porch filled with solid wood rocking chairs.
These chairs and the accompanying checkers tables come in handy while patrons are waiting outside for their names to be called by the store host or hostess.
The Shannon side of this column collaboration has a great deal of Cracker Barrel experience. For decades our cars always contained a Cracker Barrel national map that shows the location of every barrel in the country.
Road trip breaks were planned based on the proximity of "Mama’s Pancake Breakfast."
We’ve even eaten at the original Cracker Barrel (in Lebanon, Tennessee) on one of our cross-country trips.
Locating your intended stop could be an adventure even with the map.
Cracker Barrel puts the restaurant location sign on the top of a very tall pole near the highway exit. Savvy diners know the sign is all that’s close.
The restaurant is not adjacent to the exit, probably due to real estate costs.
Hungry drivers navigate a twisty path off the highway to finally locate the restaurant a few tenths of a mile away.
Timing is crucial when planning a meal at Cracker Barrel. Too close to the noon hour and you will most likely find the parking lot full of tour buses filled with hungry riders occupying all the rocking chairs out front.
We learned from experience the best time to avoid a lengthy wait was 45 minutes before noon, or after 1:30 PM.
Once inside breakfast is served all day.
Patrons not in the mood for breakfast have a wide variety of southern cholesterol food — er . . . make that comfort food dishes from which to choose.
The Shannon family stuck by Cracker Barrel during all "racism" accusations and lawsuits over how Blacks were allegedly being served.
But we knew, from experience, that everyone must wait when the parking lot is full, regardless of skin color.
We admit our faith in the chain was shaken when some bean counter decided to replace 100 percent maple syrup with the ludicrously named 100 percent "Natural" syrup, but we got over it.
Our relationship with Cracker Barrel and that of hundreds of thousands of other conservative southerners who make up the chain’s customer base could have continued uninterrupted for decades into the future. (Assuming another accounting genius didn’t decide to replace the pecans in the pecan pancakes with a substitute!)
The Cracker Barrel marketing department had other ideas.
It watched the Bud Light transgender debacle and the Target grooming debacle and decided it wanted some of that, too.
Cracker Barrel surrendered to the Rainbow Reich without a shot being fired, and has now fully embraced PRIDE month.
The celebration of America’s new godless religion of sexual narcissism.
As the Texas Family Project said, "Cracker Barrel has fallen."
Cracker Barrel even went to far as to paint the upright slats on the back of the rocking chairs in the blasphemous rainbow colors!
That’s a saltine too far for us!
We have no idea why major corporation’s marketing departments have suddenly and uniformly decided that antagonizing the majority of your customer base to win favor with a sliver of the population that doesn’t particularly like your product is a winning strategy.
Maybe they are looking into the far future and counting on the success of the national grooming campaign our children are currently enduring in public (read government) schools.
We wrote earlier that conservatives are going to have to make personal sacrifices if we are serious about fighting back against woke and insulting corporate America.
Cracker Barrel is going to be our personal sacrifice. "No more Mama’s Pancake Breakfast."
Our boycott of Cracker Barrel has begun.
The only question now is: Are we strong and tough enough to eat at Waffle House?
Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Michael is an in-demand speaker with Premiere speaker's bureau. Read Michael Reagan's Reports — More Here.
Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher for the League of American Voters, and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian's Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!)" Read Michael Shannon's Reports — More Here.