Right. I still remember in the 1980s when they earned an article in Newsweek magazine for some corporate policy. IIRC, it was about denying male employees the ability to wear (visible) piercings, which in those days was mostly (just) earrings.
The delicious quote (from a protestor’s sign?) my brothers and I cracked up over was, “there’s a bigot in my biscuit!”
Couldn’t rightly say. All i know is that a couple years back one opened up near me and a friend and I, both seventy at the time, decided to check it out.
I think we were the youngest folks there and between us had more teeth than the rest of the room combined.
I think I recall having one all out by itself on I-35 in Oklahoma back in the sixties. It was mostly a snack and novelty store back then. And a place to use the bathroom.
The first restaurant opened in '69 in Tennessee.
Ha! I like it!
Here’s some of what I referred to:
Gay Groups Protest Cracker Barrel Stores Decision to Fire Homosexuals
By Michael M. Phillips
States News Service
March 20, 1991WASHINGTON – Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores, a roadside restaurant chain that recently ordered all homosexual employees fired, is being targeted by gay rights groups for protests reminiscent of civil-rights sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in the 1960s.
Gay and lesbian activists in Tallahassee, Atlanta, Nashville and Charlotte have been demonstrating outside Cracker Barrel outlets, occupying tables, discouraging other diners, and demanding that the Tennessee-based chain retract its decision to dismiss gay employees.
“We’re starting to hit every store in town twice a week and basically informing the customers on why they should not be eating there,” said Max Ray, cochair of the Tennessee Gay and Lesbian Alliance, in Nashville. “I don’t think any restaurant wants that.”
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has set up a hotline enabling supporters to send prepared protest messages to company officials. And New York City officials – who control 89,000 shares of Cracker Barrel stock held by city pension funds – wrote company Chairman Dan Evins last week expressing concern over the policy, which was announced in a company statement in January.
“It is inconsistent with our concept and values, and is perceived to be inconsistent with those of our customer base, to continue to employ individuals in our operating units whose sexual preferences fail to demonstrate normal heterosexual values which have been the foundation of families in our society,” said the company. Cracker Barrel runs some 90 restaurant-shops in the Southeast and Midwest.
Gay activists estimate at least 10 employees lost their Cracker Barrel jobs solely due to their sexual orientation. For example, dismissal documents for one employee at a Cracker Barrel in Georgia read only, “This employee is being terminated due to violation of company policy. This employee is gay.”
Under pressure from gay rights groups, the company, whose Florida outlets are in Ft. Pierce, Tallahassee, Bradenton, Ocala, Lake City and Wesley Chapel, issued a second statement in February, saying the earlier release “may have been a well-intentioned overreaction to the perceived values of our customers and their comfort levels with these individuals.”
The company went on to say that it makes “good business sense” to continue employing “those folks who will provide the quality service our customers have come to expect from us. In the future, we will deal with any disruptions in our units, regardless of the cause, on a store-by-store basis.”
Cracker Barrel officials refer all inquiries to Evins, who did not respond to interview requests for this article. Gay rights activists say he has refused their invitations to meet.
Those activists charge that Cracker Barrel’s statement constitutes not a retraction or apology, but rather a decision to discriminate on a restaurant-by-restaurant basis.
“To use sexual orientation as a sole reason for dismissal is just an atrocious act for the 1990s,” said Ivy Young, director of the families project at the 17,000-member National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “One can only wonder how many other Cracker Barrels there are out there.”
Ray said activists want the company to apologize publicly for the policy, vow not to discriminate based on sexual orientation, and rehire and compensate dismissed gay employees. Young said no former employees have yet been rehired.
U.S. Rep. Ted Weiss, D-N.Y., and Sen. Alan Cranston, D-Calif., introduced legislation last week that would bar employment, housing and other discrimination based on sexual orientation. The House measure has 81 cosponsors, the most Weiss has been able to gather since he began pushing the bill in the late 1970s.
Referring to Cracker Barrel’s claim to upholding traditional family values, Weiss said: “What about the traditional American values of fairness and equality? What about the democratic principles of liberty and the constitutional right to privacy? The only tradition which this policy perpetuates is the poison of discrimination.”
But not to worry: I’m sure some apologist will come along to decry “the fallacy of presentism” – and bemoan the unfair application of today’s enlightened standards to those of 1991.
Politics makes strange bedfellows?
Betcha there’s a real freakout at Cracker Barrel HQ after today’s news!