This Cracker Is Praising The Barrel

Cracker Barrel
Highland Park Blvd - Wilkes Barre, PA
My wife and I both have come to appreciate Cracker Barrel more with each passing year.  The food is both reasonably priced and delicious, their store is fun to browse through while you're waiting to be seated or after you've finished eating, and best of all, the atmosphere has remained relatively unchanged since I first set foot in the place.

That last point about the atmosphere may seem like a silly thing to point out for a nationwide chain like Cracker Barrel, but it's a big deal to me.  When I was growing up in the 80's and 90's, every restaurant that I remember visiting made an effort to make their dining room feel pleasant and comfortable.  This is true even for fast food restaurants.  McDonald's and Burger King had dining rooms with dark wood, large booths that had a salt and pepper shaker on each table, a play area for children, and in some cases were decorated in such a way that set them apart from other restaurants in the chain.  I remember the McDonald's in Hazleton had their walls set up as three dimensional representations of the coal industry that once dominated Northeast PA.  That same restaurant today looks like just about every other fast food establishment in the 2020's, which is to say that it feels cold, empty, and lifeless - like something you'd find at an airport or a bus station.

I know that I'm not the only one who feels this way because I frequently see comparisons being made to the dining rooms of chain restaurants in the 80's and 90's to today.  The old Taco Bell dining room with it's southwest color scheme had a charm all of its own, as did Wendy's with their yellow and red design and their sunroom at the front of each restaurant, and Pizza Hut with their dark brick walls and Tiffany style lamps hanging from the ceiling above each table.  Go into any of these places today and the vibe feels more like a warehouse or something out of a dystopian fiction that, if it were to change tomorrow, would be missed by absolutely no one.

I'm sure there are some chain restaurants across the country with locations that haven't been remodeled to fit the modern aesthetic (if you could even call it that), or maybe a chain or two that I haven't been to who place more of an emphasis on making their dining rooms feel like a place that you'd want to relax for a half an hour or so.  There are also diners and small town restaurants that still feel warm and inviting, although they are far fewer and further between than they used to be.  However, the only chain restaurant that I've been to that have adhered to the principle of "if it's not broke, don't fix it" with their dining room atmosphere is Cracker Barrel.  I'm not going to go so far as to say that nothing at all has changed, but it feels exactly the same as it always has for the most part and I appreciate that.

The food here is also very good.  I had their pot roast dinner with hashbrown casserole on the side, and a glass of Sugar Plum iced tea to drink, and everything was delicious as it always has been.

 

Quite a few of our holiday decorations and Christmas tree ornaments have come from the Cracker Barrel store.  We have far too many decorations for the size of our house so we didn't pick up anything new, but it's still a lot of fun to look around and see what they've got.

We didn't walk away empty handed though.  There was a sign that advertised holiday pies to take home, and that Cinnamon Roll pie was calling my name!