I seriously stopped going to Cracker Barrel a number of years ago.
The food was going downhill plus, I had gotten food poison from one of their stores. We wound up at the ER. Two of us had eaten the same thing.
We switched to the Black Bear, but the last time we were there, well, it was disappointing.
So, why did they change?
Here is the economics behind the change, and yes, they chose the wrong person.
The CEO's glasses hurt the entire change, and don't tell me otherwise. She looks like a CEO of a chic restaurant chain based in New York City, not one based in Tennessee. Trust me, I wear round glasses because, it makes me look "teachery." Yes, I try often to look like I do, or in my case, taught school.
I wonder if she had even eaten at a Cracker Barrel before she went to work at Cracker Barrel?
She needed to go to a stylist from the South to help her media blitz.
Cracker Barrel's customer base has always been older folks, those with a rural background or wanting a rural background. Boomers mostly.
The customer base is starting to die off. Gen Z, heck Millennials generally do want to eat at Cracker Barrel.
So, Ms. Glasses was hired to change Cracker Barrel.
Trouble is, in her attempt to save the brand, she may have killed it. They have run off many of their old base in an attempt to "rebrand" and save the store. Make is more "hip."
It is a breakfast place. That has rural type dinners. It was built on older senior diners.
And say what you want, their traditional base is dying off. Literally.
They have simply in an attempt to save the product, sped up the death process.
Cracker Barrel is like many other restaurants. Sometimes, you have to close non-performing shops. Sometimes,, many times, restaurants go out of business.
My favorite hamburger chain of all time was a place called Burger Chef. There was one near Lamar out on what is now MLK across from the football stadium. When I was there, you put you lettuce, tomatoes, onion, mustard, mayo, catsup whatever on your burger yourself.
But its time like many other restaurants came to an end.
- We went out of town to celebrate a couple of milestone and chose a place we thought had some form of standards.
At one one time the restaurant had a former of a dress code.
And why we drove out of town.
And we expect to see whatever when we dine in Beaumont-Pt. Arthur, heck even Houston.....Men in shorts so short they may have holes in the butt of their jean shorts, tank tops, with your old nasty ass hair hang out. The last time I was at the Texas Roadhouse in our area, a women had so much chesticals hanging out, I moved because I knew nipplage was going to poke out at any time. More cleavage than at a Hooters. And I changed seats. This was a woman with kids with her and I assume her husband. If she was on a date, later in the evening, I could understand. There was no baby in site and I know babies get hungry.
And in truth, I don't expect fine dining from the roadhouse.
This was a nice place we were at. I remember when men were expect to be in a jacket and tie.
Not anymore. Hell, these guys could not even afford a nice polo shirt and khaki type slacks.
I walked by a guy who looked like and worse, smelled like he'd been cutting grass all day. Can't you catch a quick shower, a change of clothes before going out to a nice restaurant?
And here is the bad part, I expect it in the Golden Triangle. I shouldn't, but I do....
No comments:
Post a Comment