Lebanon, TN — Cracker Barrel, America’s favorite roadside museum of old Coke bottles, gingham, and latent nostalgia, has ignited a culinary civil war after announcing a “too woke” rebranding.
The new logo—stripped of the “cracker” and the barrel—was meant to modernize the restaurant but instead caused conservatives nationwide to choke on their buttermilk pancakes.
“We’re trying to evolve with the times,” explained Betty Beauregard, Cracker Barrel’s Chief Brand Officer and part-time quilting bee influencer. “We want to attract a younger, more diverse audience, while still honoring our roots. But apparently those roots are buried somewhere in a Confederate pet cemetery.”
Social media erupted into what’s now known as the “Cracker Outcry,” with one tweet reading, “If they take Uncle Herschel off the sign, how will I know where to buy country fried steak and racially ambiguous nostalgia?”
Bubba Dean Butterchurn, lifelong Cracker Barrel diner and founder of the Facebook group “Cracker Barrel Forever (and Ever, Amen),” called the redesign “an attack on my white heritage and my cholesterol.”
“We didn’t ask for a woke redesign,” Butterchurn fumed. “We want our fried okra and sweet tea served just like my great-grandpappy got while sitting under a portrait of Robert E. Lee knitting a Confederate quilt.”
“When they removed the overall-wearing Uncle Herschel and his barrel, they drew a line in our chicken n’ dumplins,” he continued. “That man has been posing next to that barrel since 1977, like a denim-clad model from one of those Sears and Roebuck cat-e-logs.”
Protests broke out at locations in Alabama and Tennessee. Patrons staged “rock-ins” by chaining themselves to porch rocking chairs. Some vowed to “rock until the barrel returns,” while others brought their own butter churns to “make protest grits.”
James Crow, a former waiter turned full-time nostalgia activist, warned, “I’ll rock until I get splinters in my butt. These chairs are as tight as our minds.”
Conservative pundit Sean Insanity (Fox News’s “No Spin Zone but Plenty of Gravy” host) declared, “First they took Aunt Jemima, then the Confederate flag napkins, now this. What’s next—kale grits and tofu turkey legs?!”
Meanwhile, Beauregard announced a tentative rollout of new menu items: plant-based roast beef, vegan mac n’ cheese, and organic Pickett pickles. “Change is tough, just like our gluten-free hushpuppies.”
Despite the uproar, Cracker Barrel reassured customers the décor would remain a shrine to a simpler time: dusty knick-knacks, rusty antiques, Granny’s dentures in glass jars, and enough rusty signs to give you “lockjaw.” “Our guests want to feel like they’ve traveled back in time—somewhere between a friendly country fair and a mild Klan rally,” Beauregard added, deadpan.
Rumors of “gender-neutral restrooms” and the removal of “Antebellum Barbie” from the gift shop sent loyalists spiraling into PTSDD—Post-Traumatic Southern Dining Disorder.
“They think they’ve got us over the barrel,” Crow said, clutching a biscuit like a holy relic. “But the Cracker shall rise again—just like these buttery biscuits, praise be.”
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