Unlike most restaurants, Cracker Barrel is both a restaurant and a retail store. Both sides of its down-home, country formula are significant for the brand, and the chain has rarely strayed from the format, save for experimenting with take-out-only locations in the 1990s.
Nostalgia has also always been a fundamental part of Cracker Barrel’s brand identity; even the restaurant’s name was inspired by old wooden barrels full of soda crackers that often sat outside country stores. The decor of locations, those quaint front porches with wooden rocking chairs and stone fireplaces, is meant to evoke the South of Cracker Barrel founder Dan Evins’ childhood.
When a brand is so steeped in nostalgia, making changes can be challenging and controversial, turning the exercise into a perilous high-wire act that requires tremendous skill to execute.
