Cracker Barrel is home to southern-cooked food, a perfect pit stop on long road trips complete with handy knick-knacks and retro candies, and the recipient of endless lawsuits, scandals, and controversies. The chain restaurant continues to garner complaints and concerns about the rocky environment from past customers, former employees, and current patrons. From racially targeted lawsuits to salmonella outbreaks, Cracker Barrel continues to hide serious scandals.
1. Racial Discrimination Lawsuit
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Cracker Barrel came under fire after countless lawsuits detailing racial harassment came out in the early 2000s. When the first wave of lawsuits hit the company, they refused to take the blame and circumnavigated paying fines. Instead, they hired auditors and private eyes to track their progress after they instituted human rights laws into their guidebooks. A bit later, the company failed its test and ended up settling for 8.7 million with a slew of racially motivated lawsuits.
2. Salmonella
A Kalamazoo, Michigan-based Cracker Barrel could not identify the cause of recurring salmonella outbreaks in 2018. Flooded with salmonella cases, the restaurant closed for an investigation. When the restaurant reopened, they believed the outbreak ceased until other customers reported symptoms of the illness. The restaurant couldn’t pinpoint where the salmonella originated and why it continued to infect food, so they closed the Kalamazoo location.
3. Discrimination Against a Black Veteran
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Cracker Barrel is no stranger to racial discrimination lawsuits, so it should come as no shock that another one arose in 2018 after a motor coach owner took his tour to a Cracker Barrel in West Virginia. Randy Freeman ordered with his server, but she refused to comply and argued. The server told her manager about the verbal accusations Freeman yelled at her, so he left without fighting back. Though this was disproven, the company never owned up to the server or the manager’s erratic behavior.
4. Black Customers Served Food From Trash
Among numerous racist allegations against the Southern food chain came one describing workers pulling food out of the trash to serve to black customers. In a 2001 lawsuit, black customers reported their food came out of the garbage, and while the company did not confirm these actions, the restaurant settled the claims.
5. Segregated Seating
In other lawsuits against the corporation, black patrons claim they were segregated in sections utilized for smoking (where white guests were never placed), and they were separated from white customers. Again, the company never admitted their business performed these racist allegations, but they settled the suits.
6. Black Customers Served After White Customers
Before Cracker Barrel received legal papers and information regarding lawsuits against the company, customers denoted that servers took white customers’ food out before they delivered black customers their food. Not a good look.
7. Refused Service to Black Customers
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This company suffered an inundation of lawsuits related to its treatment of black customers. One of many lawsuits reported the ill-treatment of customers by servers. The lawsuits suggested Cracker Barrel allowed their white staff to refuse service to black customers if they chose.
8. Only Hiring Straight Employees
![24 Scandals Cracker Barrel Wants You To Forget About 9 Pride rainbow lgbt gay flag being waved in the breeze against a sunset sky.](https://wealthofgeeks.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Shutterstock_1917623231-1-e1701558500101.jpg)
Thirty-two years ago, Cracker Barrel instituted a rule that the company would forbid hiring LGBTQ+ workers. The policy lasted for a few weeks, during which Cracker Barrels across the country refused to give jobs to LGBTQ+ people and fired LGBTQ+ workers from their positions.
9. Cheryl Summerville
During the 1991 scandal that saw Cracker Barrel fire gay employees and restrict hiring to straight-passing people, the company fired Cheryl Summerville over her sexuality. Cheryl stated, in an interview with a Georgia-based paper, that she didn’t shout her sexuality through the kitchen, but she didn’t hide her partner either. Two years after Cracker Barrel hired her as a cook, they rescinded her position, blaming her sexuality for her layoff.
10. George Jones
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George Jones promised a producer (Earl Montgomery) that he’d receive a recorded but unreleased album after his death as a sort of parting gift. When Jones passed on, his wife sold his assets to Concord Music without informing Montgomery, which led to a lawsuit against Concord Music and Jones’ wife, Nancy. After selling the assets, Cracker Barrel and Concord Music joint-released the album in 2017.
11. Shooting in Ohio
Kerri Allen’s family took her to Cracker Barrel for her 10th birthday dinner. Kerri, her parents, and her sister sat down for the celebratory meal, but Kerri did not know that her mother, Kate, planned to inform her father, Kevin, that she wanted to leave him. He did not take the news well and retreated from the restaurant to grab something from the car. The husband grabbed a gun and returned to the restaurant to shoot his family. Kate pleaded with the restaurant to let her hide in the restaurant, away from her raving husband, but they did not oblige. Then, a lawsuit came up.
12. Harassment Lawsuit
Of 51 former and current employees speaking out about harassment prevalent at their workplace in 2006, doesn’t churn your stomach; I don’t know what will. These workers banded together to serve Cracker Barrel with papers regarding the way they handled harassment claims within the workplace. The lawsuit also outlined employees suffered racial discrimination as well as mistreatment. The company agreed to pay out $2 million to settle the lawsuit.
13. Corporate Isn’t Serious
Cracker Barrel distributed $2 million to those affected in 2006 and soon faced another lawsuit in 2007 and 2009, both regarding harassment and racial profiling. The company agreed to pay out $255,000, and in the lawsuit, the plaintiffs wrote the company ignored their claims, made fun of them, and moved them to areas with lower tips.
14. Illegal Wage Lawsuit
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Servers live off of tips. When business is slow, servers may struggle to pay bills or make enough money to feed themselves. One lawsuit explained that Cracker Barrel breached a policy where employees received proper pay and tips. The company asked workers to complete a portion of their shift doing mundane tasks without tip compensation, alleging the company underpaid staff.
15. “Canadians”
A former Arizona Cracker Barrel employee came clean on TikTok, detailing the codewords shared between her former coworkers.
“A waitress used to complain SO MUCH if I sat ‘Canadians’ in her section, and I was so confused because I thought Canadians were stereotyped as nice.”
The video shows the woman with a caption stating, “Me, a hostess at Cracker Barrel, wondering how every employee knew a table was full of Canadians even though they didn’t have a telling accent.”
A few moments later, the woman explained that Canadian was a codeword for black customers at her restaurant.
16. Noose on Ceiling
A Cracker Barrel location in East Windsor, Connecticut, allegedly hung a decoration bearing an eerie resemblance to a noose in its dining room. After a customer posted proof of the noose-esque decoration on X, formerly Twitter, he tagged Cracker Barrel and asked, “Someone at Cracker Barrel in East Windsor needs to explain why there are nooses on the ceiling.”
Cracker Barrel responded to the tweet with an apology, “This antique electric soldering iron has an original wrapped cord that should not have been displayed.”
17. Bloodied Food
![24 Scandals Cracker Barrel Wants You To Forget About 18 Refusing food, not hungry, food allergy](https://wealthofgeeks.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Refusing-food-not-hungry-e1695050111660.jpg)
Receiving a plate full of good old southern cooking paired with bloodied human fingerprints is not on anyone’s bucket list. After Susan Mosher’s server brought out her food, she noticed an uncanny sight of bloodied fingerprints decorating her fries and plate. Her server’s face grew aghast when she spotted the blood on the plate, and she rushed away to the kitchen to check with the cooks. One cook confirmed he cut himself while preparing food, and the blood belonged to him. This would’ve settled Mosher’s stomach if Cracker Barrel agreed to run a blood test on the cook and the blood, but they refused.
18. Chemical Water
Imagine ordering a tall glass of tap water and instead receiving a tall cup filled with a chemical cleaner. William Cronnon sat down at his local Cracker Barrel in Tennessee when a server gave him a mixture of bleach and water for a beverage. Upon ingesting the concoction, Cronnon rushed to the hospital for medical treatment, and he sued Cracker Barrel for $9 million.
19. You Can’t Have That Muffin
One gregarious 73-year-old employee offered a hungry individual a group of condiments and a muffin to satiate his stomach. A man waltzed into a Cracker Barrel and asked for some ketchup and mustard, and the host of the Venice Beach, Florida Cracker Barrel, Joe Klobenzer, assembled a bag with the condiments and a muffin. Later, Cracker Barrel attacked Klobenzer’s character, claiming he violated company policy by eating and donating food without payment. Klobenzer replied that he paid for his food and gave the man a muffin to help him, unaware of the grave repercussions.
20. Duck Dynasty Merch
![24 Scandals Cracker Barrel Wants You To Forget About 21 Duck Dynasty](https://wealthofgeeks.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/IMG_3465-e1701623359164.jpeg)
Cracker Barrel sold Duck Dynasty merch, but when the leader of the show announced homophobic rhetoric and beliefs, they pulled the goods. This decision lasted one day as many customers took to social media to express their decision to protest Cracker Barrel if they refused to restock the Duck Dynasty merchandise.
21. Why Did You Fire Brad’s Wife?
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But why did they fire Brad’s wife? In 2011, Brad Reid Byrd posted a Facebook status update targeted at Cracker Barrel, stating, “Why did you fire my wife?” The post gained viral traction, reaching fans from Australia and worldwide, all asking Cracker Barrel the same question: why did you fire Brad’s wife? According to Brad, his wife devoted 11 years of her life to the Southern food chain before they let her go without probable cause.
22. Belinda Jones
Twenty-one years of devotion to a company shouldn’t warrant a quick firing, but in Belinda Jones’ case, it did. The woman enjoyed sharing her company perks, such as discounted food for friends and family. However, the company believed she used too much grace with the discounts. According to Wells, she obeyed company guidelines with discounts, yet she felt the company let her go after disclosing information about her husband’s medical conditions. Wells thought the manager fired her to avoid contributing to her husband’s expensive cancer treatment.
23. Razor Blade in Burger
![24 Scandals Cracker Barrel Wants You To Forget About 24 Razor Blades](https://wealthofgeeks.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/IMG_3467.jpeg)
The Cracker Barrel razor blade scandal spans back to 2007 when a customer in Myrtle Beach, Irene Grann, bit into a burger infested with blades. Grann cut her mouth and went to the hospital but did not require surgery or stitches from the incident. Three hundred thirteen different Cracker Barrels discarded burgers supplied by Cargill Meat Solutions from their kitchens.
24. Kodak Black Finds Staple in Scrambled Eggs
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Nothing brings mass media attention to a food chain more than a famous rapper finding a household item in his food. American rapper Kodak Black posted a picture of his Cracker Barrel breakfast (sausage, bacon, and eggs) containing a visible metal staple hanging out in the eggs. Kodak Black’s lawyer, Bradford Cohen, reposted the picture on Instagram, captioning it,” Staples in the eggs? I will expect a call.”