Friday night dinner at the old Cracker Barrel

It’s 6 o’clock on Friday night and there’s a long line of unused rocking chairs on the porch outside the Cracker Barrel on Stewart Avenue in Ridley Park.

Inside, after passing through the gift shop (more of that later), we entered the high-ceilinged dining room that was one-third full. Not a cracker in sight, as far as we could tell. About one-quarter of the diners were nonwhite.

The “we” is me, plus prominent magazine writer Lisa DePaulo, my designated Cracker Barrellette, as she has been to many while on assignments across the South. (She said I was her “first,” I’ll explain later.) I was in one Cracker Barrel, some 50 years ago, when the chain was still new. (Cracker Barrel was launched in 1969 in Tennessee.) 

About the name, from the website: Founder Dan Evins “wanted to recreate the experience he loved in country stores from his childhood. Places along interstates and highways that gave travelers a comfortable spot to stop, relax, get a good country meal and feel at home. Crackers used to be delivered to those old country stores in barrels, and people would gather around them to discuss the news of the day—like a water cooler.”

The Ridley Park store had the familiar logo with the old man and the cracker barrel, while the menus bore the new, soulless, now discarded, unadorned chocolate type on a pumpkin background.

It’s obvious why I wanted to go — to check the place out in the wake of all the controversy following the logo change, and the almost immediate reversal by the corporate big wigs, bowing to their customers’ complaints.

Like other marketing disasters, such “new” Coke, and Bud Light that turned into a devastating boycott, the Cracker Barrel rebranding seemed remarkably tone deaf to its audience. Did they use focus groups? If so, who hired them — marketing eunuchs?

No doubt the CB idea was to appeal to younger consumers. Most of the customers eating at Ridley Park Friday night were older than the average American (38.7 years), but they ranged from grandparents to toddlers. The dining room was spotless, the walls decorated with all kinds of bric a brac for which the chain is known.

The menu? You better like fried food.

I do, but it doesn’t like me, but I took a small risk and shared the onion petals appetizer with Lisa. For $6.29, we got an ample serving of the lightly breaded (and fried) onion petals with the special “comeback” dipping sauce that to me tasted like Russian dressing with a spicy kick.

That was like a Cracker Barrel homecoming to Lisa, who chose the crispy tender dippers ($13.99), while I passed on the fried catfish and fried shrimp in favor of the lemon pepper grilled rainbow trout ($14.99), which came with two sides — soggy green beans and OK grits. We also “had” to have the biscuits, said Lisa, which were delicious. She dipped hers in honey.

What’s special about Cracker Barrel? I asked her. 

“Like the Palm,” said Lisa, “it’s consistent.”

This meal stood up against the ones she had outside of Carthage, Tenn., in 2000. She was covering the end of the Presidential race and shadowing one of Al Gore’s close friends. Then, she often took food back to the Microtel while she filed stories. Friday was the first time she ever ate in one with someone else. That’s how I was her “first.”

“It’s a great place for what it is,” said Lisa. “Everyone’s enjoying themselves.”

It is long on fried food, short on pretension.

Cracker Barrel is not fast food, in two ways. First, your order is taken by a server after you are seated. Second, it takes time to cook the entries. Ours arrived in 21 minutes, which was perfectly reasonable as we talked and munched on the onion petals.

Our server was a delightful teenager named London, who had been there just two months and didn’t know much about the logo controversy. She couldn’t have been more bubbly, solicitous and efficient.

Dinner for two was an entirely reasonable $48.44, and when we left around 8 p.m., the dining room was not quite half full.

But before you leave, you pass through the gift shop.

Jiminy Cricket!

The shop had Halloween and Christmas decorations, hard candy, T-shirts, syrup, cowboy boots for kids, Johnny Cash LPs, books, banners — too much to name.

As gift shops go, it reminded me of the former Spain’s chain, with a variety of merchandise that staggered the imagination. Lisa bought a couple of hair clips for herself, and a gag engagement ring for a friend. Can you say kitsch? 

We joked about what it must be like to be the merchandise buyer for Cracker Barrel.

I’m thinking it must be like the girl who just can’t say no.

Shopping there was fun, and the staff was all country friendly.

Sometimes the old ways are the best ways, as Cracker Barrel management has learned.