The Josh Innes Show - Cracker Barrel Remodel Has Folks Shook

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

For some reason, Cracker Barrel decided to go for the younger crowd. How did they do this? They have remodeled some locations and have gone for a brighter, more contemporary look. Who asked for this? What young person is all of the sudden gonna go "Hey, I wanna start eating at Cracker Barrel."? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, let's see here. Headline reads, some Cracker Barrel fans share distaste with remodeled restaurants. Thanks, I hate it. Some of the quotes in here, good. I had no idea that they were remodeling Cracker Barrel restaurants, and that really upsets me because Cracker Barrel rules. I don't understand why it's the case. I don't know how Cracker Barrel struggling at all. Like usually you make a move like this because business is down, or you're trying to

bring in a new clientele or whatever. Now, granted, the current decor, the current look of Cracker Barrel is, you know, plantation chic. So I understand that, okay? I get where like the vibe of it is. I want to go back to the old days before. I want to go back to the times before blacks and women could vote. Come into Cracker Barrel. I'm fully aware of what the look of Cracker Barrel is. And I can also understand, that if I were a black dude that walked in there, perhaps I'd be like, eh, this is a little weird, but who gives a shit? Although, I've never really heard that unless you're really reaching, unless you're really stretching.

Do I really think that it's a racist motif? No, it's just, it's kind of like the same concept as the, what was it, splash mountain or whatever part of Disneyland it was that they had to close down and remodel because it was associated with Song of the South. And Song of the South was a movie about the happy people on the plantation singing zippity dood despite getting their asses kicked. You know, Uncle Remus type shit. So, of course, that's a little different.

But I've never walked into Cracker Barrel and thought, Dadgum, this takes me back to the good old days before desegregation. Before we started integrating the schools, before Jackie Robinson became a Major League Baseball player. Like, I never think that. I just think, boy, this Coca-Cola chocolate cake is really freaking good, right? And I also wonder, like, what is the reason that they're flopping this around or flipping this around? Because I've never been to a cracker barrel when it wasn't filled with people.

Bus loads of people. The only thing I can imagine is they're trying to make it more youthful and make it more accepting to the youthful people. Anyway, let me play a couple of commercials and let's get into the redevelopment of Cracker Barrel. Get to Toronto's main venues like Budweiser Stage and the new Roger Stadium. with Go Transit. Thanks to Go Transit's special online e-ticket fairs, a $10 one-day weekend pass offers unlimited travel on any weekend day or holiday anywhere along the Go Network, and the weekday group passes offer the same weekday travel flexibility across the network, starting

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Shop now at IKEA.ca. So here's what I would think, having not read this story, and we'll read it here in a second. We'll read it together. We'll learn together. My thought here is that much like in radio or anything, like you try to get younger. You've got something that's successful, but you feel like your demo is aging out or in the case of Cracker Barrel dying out. Because, I mean, when you go to Cracker Barrel, you see a lot of old motherfuckers at Cracker Barrel.

So I would imagine that's part of the reason why you try to do a rebrand. And, you know, in this era where everything is considered racist, everything is considered misogynistic, everything is homophobic. I would imagine that, you know, Prairie Sheik is not exactly something that, you know, a focus group looked at, and I'm assuming it didn't test well, right? If a focus group looked at Cracker Barrel and they asked them 20 questions about what could be done to improve their image, I would imagine most of those people, if they were younger people, probably brought up that it's sleepy and tired. And the word racist probably popped up a bunch, even though there's nothing about it that's racist, that would be the whole thing, the general store and just the overall vibe of it and the rocking chairs and the giant checkers and the fireplace.

why it needed to be remodeled, I don't know, but we see this a lot. A lot of things that don't need a remodeling get remodeled, like Burger King. No one asked Burger King to change the colors and make everything blue and orange, right? Old school Burger King was like the dull colors, the red and like the brown, right? And they went to that blue and orange for a long time at Burger King, and then they went back to OG Burger King look because that's why people like, that's Burger King. That whole color change sucked. But people are always looking to innovate and change things, even though they may not need changed. But let's read the story.

Cracker Barrel is getting a facelift, and some fans of the Southern-style restaurant chain aren't too happy. Out of its 660 mixed restaurant stores, Cracker Barrel announced in March, it would be remodeling 25 to 30 locations and, quote, refreshing another 25 to 30 with an aim to attract younger crowds. Look, younger people are not going to go to Cracker Barrow. barrel no matter what you do. Like, you could put ASAP Rocky and you could put, put Kendrick Lamar in Cracker Barrel. They're not going to go to Cracker Barrel if they don't want the food. Like, look, and I'm still a younger guy. I'm 39, right?

So, as a still younger guy, I'm usually the guy that is brought in to try to youthen up things, right? Kishi 95, Old Peopleville, USA, bring in Josh Ennis to make things a little bit younger. We'll try to bring in a younger demographic. What do you learn? The younger demographic doesn't give two shits about KC-G-95. The younger demographic is not there to listen to Steve Miller band. The younger demographic will go elsewhere. Just fish where the fish are and super serve your audience and super serve the old people with shitty old music that they can get anywhere.

But apparently they don't know that. So just give them the music that they want and tell Josh to get fucking lost, right? I'm still at that age where I'm the young guy that comes in to try to youthen things up. the people who eat at Cracker Barrel don't give a fuck if a teenager or a 25-year-old or a 30-year-old comes into Cracker Barrel. They just want to eat the delicious Cracker Barrel food. And I get that from a business standpoint, you're trying to survive, right? Because I would imagine that Cracker Barrel has a lot of old customers, and those old customers will die soon. And then what?

I totally get that. But there's nothing Cracker Barrel can do. It's called fucking Cracker Barrel. The store is called Cracker Barrel. Find me some sort of progressive, young, blue-haired liberal chick that's going to talk to her they-them girlfriend and be like, hey, what do you want to do for dinner tonight? I don't know. Let's go to fucking Cracker Barrel. It's never going to happen.

So you're kind of in a stuck position where you just need to root for people to keep getting old and keep feeding old people. Because young people are not going to go to Cracker Barrel if they don't already go to Cracker Barrel. And it doesn't matter if you take a fucking jigsaw off the wall. It doesn't matter if you take a cutting board or like a sawhorse off the floor. That doesn't matter. On August 8th, Cracker Barrel posted a TikTok video featuring district manager Brent Smith, welcoming followers to the remodeled restaurant in Mount Julianian. That's my, you sons of bitches, you remodeled my Cracker Barrel. I like that Cracker Barrel.

Actually, Mount Juliet, if I'm not. not mistaken. I think Mountain Juliet or that area out there was the home of the OG Cracker Barrel. And I want to say they used to have the OG, like the original gangster Cracker Barrel, out at the state fair for people to see. I think. It was somewhere out there. It was what town actually had it? Lebanon maybe? I want to say the OG Cracker Barrel was in Lebanon. Where was the first Cracker Barrel? And I'm fairly certain it was Lebanon, Tennessee. Yep. The first Cracker Barrel ever, Highway 109 in Lebanon, Tennessee in 1969, and now there's, you know, 660 Cracker Barrels. So bang, baby.

Look, I know my Cracker Barrel history. Don't step to me like you know something about anything because you don't know shit, particularly about Cracker Barrel. And I've been to that Cracker Barrel many times. We might have refreshed some things and updated a little bit, but don't you worry, we're still Cracker Barrel. then stay fucking Cracker Barrel. But public comments indicate hesitancy to embrace the new look. Quote, listen, if I can't struggle to read the trifold paper menu by the light of a kerosene lamp on my wobbly table in the most uncomfy wood chair, I don't want it. One of the top comments.

Oh, I wonder if they got rid of the peg game. Oh, boy. Which sounds odd to say, but I wonder if they got rid of the peg game. I'm worried about that. another user commented a swing and a miss we eat here for a reason i get what you tried i don't want bright and open i want grandma's house back okay who's who's grandma's house looked like a like how old are you if your grandma lived in a fucking cabin i never walked into cracker barrel and thought hey this is like my grandma's house my grandma's house had linoleum floors and shitty fake wood

table that she played cards on and smelled like cigarettes and tea and my grandma's house smelled like cigarettes and scratch off dust my grandma's house looked nothing like that like are you like did you time travel if you think that your grandma's house looked like that more sarcastically one user wrote okay i see what y'all did nice work now undo it all and put it back like it was viral post on X conveyed a similar sentiment. They ruined Cracker Barrel, stated popular meme account Midwest versus everybody. A Cracker Barrel statement shared with USA Today stated that guests and staff have been overwhelmingly positive, enthusiastic about the remodels. As with any change, we recognize that there may be a vocal minority who feel differently.

However, the strong performance of these locations affirms that we are moving in the right direction. I'm pretty confident that the Cracker Barrel in Mount Julian. Tennessee was doing well with or without putting new white walls in the fucking Cracker Barrel. In March, a TikTok video user shared a walkthrough of a remodeled restaurant in Tennessee. He described the gift shop as brighter, less crowded, and full of more elevated clothing. Who's going to Cracker Barrel for elevated clothing? You're going to Cracker Barrel for Chicken Soup for the Hillbilly Soul Books and

and Dolly Parton CDs. That's why you go to Cracker Barrel. That said, now, if there could be one thing that could be better about Cracker Barrel, it's asses to nuts when you're in that fucking store. So if that made a change, then that's good. I'm fine with that. I like that. Anywho, so I don't know.

I'm never a fan of when these places change shit that, like, I get that you're trying to go younger and I might sound like old man yells at Cloud. Like, I'm not going to not go to Cracker Barrel because they decided to brighten it up a little bit and make it look less like Uncle Tom's cabin, I guess. But I still can't get over the fact that someone said I want my grandma's house back. Whose grandma lived in a fucking cabin? Anywho, more to come.