I saw the jokes about the name change a few times, and went looking for what the name even meant. I didn’t expect it to be so literal, it feels like an odd format to ship crackers in
The name specifically ties into the history of what Cracker Barrel is trying to replicate: An old country store. Back when small towns often only had a few businesses, country stores were not just for selling food and supplies; they were a community gathering place. During this time, soda crackers, which are another name for saltines, were shipped to these stores in big wooden barrels to prevent them from breaking during transit. After the crackers were taken out, the barrels would be repurposed as tables that locals could sit around as they socialized. They were even used to hold checkerboards, which remain a Cracker Barrel staple.
It’s also where the phrase “bottom of the barrel” came from - by the time you reached that, they got nasty!
Not specific to soda crackers
I think it refers to salted herrings, which were transported in barrels.
I used to watch The Food that Built America quite a bit and I could swear it was mentioned in the Nabisco/cracker episode. The reality is, there were probably quite a few foods in barrels, few of which would have been good by the time you reach the bottom.
Also, Cracker Barrel was founded in 1969. It was always fake nostalgia bait for white people. Who else was pining for the 1800s at that point? People are talking about the logo change erasing their culture or whatever, which I guess is true if your culture is a truckstop restaurant with knickknacks on the walls.
The Wild West was super popular around that time. Little House on the Prairie, was published in the 30’s/40’s, so the push for more old west stuff 30ish years later (when the adapted the books I to a show) kind of marks the end of the nostalgia driven media from that generation.
I had never thought about it, but cracker barrel being from that 60/70’s cowboy craze makes a shitload of sense.
Yea my great grandfather was born around 1930 and he was a really big John Wayne fan
hey, i’ll have you know some damn good food comes out of truck stops. best worst bbq chain i know started in one. best tacos next town over are served at one.
Tangentially related memory: In the early nineties, my grandparents took my sister and me to their favorite Cracker Barrel (and we went to a lot of Cracker Barrels with them), somewhere in or around Pennsylvania.
It was more or less the same, notably bigger, and right when you walked in, there was a big, old busted barrel, with a plaque that claimed this to be the cracker barrel for which the chain was named. It had several broken planks, and if you looked inside, you could see chewed-open boxes of crackers… And as soon as you looked, a mouse would zip out of the cracker box so fast it’d make you jump, and everybody in the gift shop would laugh their asses off.
Then they let you in on the joke, and the cashier showed you they press a button behind the counter that triggers the mechanical mouse, and you join the in-group of people in the gift shop waiting for the next unsuspecting victim to walk through the front door.
The chewed open boxes should have been a big clue. The barrel was the packaging. I’m also guessing they weren’t crawling with maggots, as would be found in a traditional cracker barrel.
Fun fact: most Cracker Barrel restaurants are built just off an interstate exit. They use GIS for planning and hope to catch travelers as they stop for gas and food.
That’s my main memory of Cracker Barrel. It was a place we’d sometimes stop and eat at when I was a kid during the family road trips. In that sense, I have some good memories associated with them, but I’m not particularly nostalgic for the brand and I’ve not been to one in years.
McDonalds are built on intersections to discourage people from walking in.
The idea was so only car owners would visit and discourage people who didn’t own cars.The franchise owners sometimes go the trouble of getting on councils and closing down roads and pedestrian crossings to discourage pedestrian access.
Why would they prefer drivers? The greater portion of drivers, the more they have to spend on car infrastructure, and even then there is a pretty limited max throughput
Sorry, isn’t that the plan for most food joints? I mean I understand they’re at other locations, but just off exits is big for this reason.
Most food joints just go for market saturation. Cracker Barrel specifically targets travelers.
The PR for Cracker Barrel is off the hooks as of lately. Previously I had no idea what Cracker Barrel was and I had never heard of it. But now… I still have no idea what it is, but I have heard of it.
Gift shop/restaurant with a country-ish theme. Like the restaurants have big wooden porches with big rocking chairs, if that tells you anything about the vibe.
Literally never seen a cracker barrel store in my life. Hope they go out of business before I get the chance, they sound like a shitty corporate restaurant.
The restaurant has a gift shop. I haven’t been in a very long time but it was always overpriced Americana crap made in China. And it’s not like a counter you can buy a tshirt at, it’s a whole ass store attached to the restaurant. They’re ultra proud of that bullshit.
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The name wasn’t ever changed though, just the logo.
Soda crackers/saltines have always just been called crackers here. Sometime people from out of town call them saltines but that just gets a small delay in response while we realize what they were referring to.
that restaurant is so boring i hate america
Crackers take, nothing more exciting than saltines
TIL Americans don’t know what crackers are, I thought all the white people comments were just jokes.
Nothing sounds worse to me than dusty crackers from an old wooden barrel. Beer, sure, but crackers is sailing coloniser bleak.
ugh dusty beer
also most of us don’t do christmas crackers, we just do food crackers like saltines
Any beer! Mostly metal nowadays.
yeah, statesian beer makes it so you can hardly taste the rohypnol and why even drink it then
Never been spiked, I’ve tried, but no luck so far
its less fun than youd think
Terrifying. Bless
