Cracker Barrel faces boycott over 'woke' post celebrating Pride month, pushing DEI initiatives with LGBTQ+ alliance



Cracker Barrel is the latest brand facing a boycott over celebrating Pride month. Cracker Barrel received backlash for proudly announcing that the restaurant chain with southern comfort food was vowing to push DEI initiatives with an LGBTQ+ alliance.

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store shared a post honoring Pride month on its official social media accounts on Thursday. The post featured a photo of a rainbow-colored version of the chain's iconic rocking chair sitting on the porch. The photo had the caption: "We are excited to celebrate Pride month with our employees and guests. Everyone is always welcome at our table (and our rainbow rocker). Happy Pride!"

The post was shared on the company's Instagram and Facebook accounts. A majority of the reactions on Facebook approved of the post; however, there were thousands of social media users who railed against the Pride month messaging. Dozens of users vowed to boycott the restaurant chain.

Users asked that the restaurant chain stay out of politics and "stick to biscuits and gravy." Others threatened to boycott Cracker Barrel and never eat at the restaurant again for promoting "woke" ideologies.

On the Cracker Barrel website, the southern restaurant chain boasted about the company's "LGBTQ+ Alliance" and "Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Team."

On behalf of Cracker Barrel’s LGBTQ+ Alliance & DEIB Team, we want to celebrate YOU for being YOU. It is our greatest Mission to ensure that Pleasing People means “all people.” LGBTQ+ Pride month each June is an important time to reflect on the Stonewall Riots that began on June 28, 1969, evoking activists to demand change for the LGBTQ+ community in America. As June prompts us to reflect on the core values of PRIDE: People/Professionalism, Respect, Integrity, Diversity, and Excellence, Cracker Barrel believes these are core pillars that should guide our decisions year-round.

The restaurant added, "This year Cracker Barrel's focus was to be part of the Pride experience."

\u201cWe take no pleasure in reporting that @CrackerBarrel has fallen.\n\nA once family friendly establishment has caved to the mob.\u201d
— Texas Family Project (@Texas Family Project) 1686251239

The Tennessee-based restaurant touts the company's "Business Resource Groups" which "allow employees to come together with common interests, perspectives, and experiences around topics such as race, ethnicity, gender identity, and other special interests, space to be a community."

Cracker Barrel has several special interest groups within the organization, including:

  • LGBTQ+ Alliance: "Supporting Home Office and Field employees to bring their whole selves to work while strengthening Cracker Barrel's relationship to the LGBTQ+ community."
  • Be Bold: "The mission of Be Bold is to cultivate and develop Black Leaders within the Cracker Barrel organization utilizing allyship, mentorship, and education to create a path to continued excellence as well as a vibrant and diverse community."
  • HOLA: "HOLA's mission is to promote Hispanic and Latino culture through hiring, developing, and retaining talent within Cracker Barrel. To create a culture of inclusivity and awareness through community outreach."
  • Women's Connect: "Our mission & goal is to inspire the women of Cracker Barrel by empowering, educating and engaging to achieve the strategic initiatives of Cracker Barrel."

In 1991, Cracker Barrel faced another controversy when at least nine homosexual employees were fired for their sexual orientation.

The Los Angeles Times previously reported, "The chain recently issued a policy that cited 'traditional American values' and declared that it '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.'"

Cracker Barrel later admitted that the decision may have been an "overreaction to the perceived values of our customers." The restaurant chain brought back the employees who had been terminated.

Recent boycotts relating to the current culture wars have been directed at Bud Light, Target, and Chick-fil-A.

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Hero grandmother and Cracker Barrel manager fatally shot saving an employee from an armed mugger



A 59-year-old Texas woman is being hailed a hero after valiantly saving the life of one of her employees who was targeted by an armed robbery suspect.

What are the details?

Robin Baucom, the 59-year-old manager of a Houston-area Cracker Barrel, was inside the restaurant in the early hours of Saturday morning when she saw two men in a Dodge Charger pull up in the front of the store and attempt to rob an employee who was trying to get inside the store.

Baucom immediately jumped into action and ran to unlock the door for the employee while shoving one of the male suspects, who was trying to force his way into the restaurant.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said that it was that moment that the suspect pulled out his firearm and shot Baucom in the chest. She was rushed to a local hospital and sent directly into surgery, but she succumbed to her injuries.

The two suspects fled the scene in a grey Dodge Charger believed to be from the model's 2018 line. The suspect accused of shooting Baucom is described as wearing a black hoodie, black pants, and black shoes.

Baucom worked at the Cracker Barrel location for 34 years before her untimely death.

In a statement on her death, Baucom's daughter Tina said that her mother "would have done anything in the world to protect her employees or any of us."

“When I was starting kindergarten, she started at Cracker Barrel part-time. She would buy me back-to-school clothes,” Tina recalled. “It was supposed to be a couple of months. Thirty-four years later, a heartache, and here we are.”

Baucom's sister Gail added, "She is our hero, and we hope she will be remembered as a hero because she lost her life trying to protect her employees and Cracker Barrel."

Her brother Billy said, "The greatest love a person can have is giving their life for another person — and that’s exactly what she did. ... She was a protector. Not only with her family but with the ones she worked with. She protected the workers and gave her life for them."

In a statement on Baucom's death, a spokesperson for Cracker Barrel said that the company is solely focused on "supporting our manager's family, her fellow employees, and local law enforcement as we grapple with this tragedy and grieve."

Anyone with information on the incident has asked to reach out to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office Homicide Unit at (713) 274-9100 or Crimestoppers at (713) 222-8477.

Dads tackle, detain registered sex offender accused of peeping at 15-year-old girl under restroom stall



A 15-year-old girl said that when she was in the women's restroom at a South Carolina Cracker Barrel on Sunday morning, she noticed something moving at her feet, WSPA-TV reported.

Image source: WSPA-TV video screenshot

Turns out it was a man's head coming from the adjacent stall — and the man was looking at her, the girl told Duncan Police, according to the station.

What happened next?

When the girl left the restroom, WSPA said she told her father, who then got a female employee to remove the man from the restroom.

Witnesses said the 15-year-old wasn't the only girl in the restroom: "I'll never forget the way they looked after," one noted to the station. "They were traumatized."

Police Chief Carl Long told WSPA the girl's father confronted the man at the restroom entrance. And the dad apparently had a special greeting for him

"The guy came running, sprinting out the front door with a very bloody nose," a witness told the station.

A witness told WYFF-TV he heard a commotion that sounded like a fight and heard people say, "Get him! He's getting away!"

Long added to WSPA that other fathers aware of what happened reportedly helped tackle the man in the parking lot and restrained him until police arrived.

The witness who spoke to WYFF said he and his his son saw people hit the man, and then the witness handed off his son to his wife and went outside and recorded video.

Image source: WSPA-TV video screenshot

That same witness added to the station that his son asked him a lot of questions about what happened, and he told his boy that "there was a bad guy, and a lot of good guys took down the bad guy."

Image source: WSPA-TV video screenshot

Long told WYFF that the parents were in town for a girls' softball tournament.

Who is the suspect?

Police identified the suspect as 53-year-old registered sex offender Douglas Lane of Charlotte, North Carolina, WSPA reported. Lane's phone was found on the bathroom floor and was taken by police, the station said.

Douglas LaneImage source: Spartanburg Co. (South Carolina) Detention Center

Long told the station that Lane was charged with voyeurism and possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia in connection with Sunday's incident.

Lane was charged for peeping at least eight previous times, WSPA reported.

During Monday's bond hearing, a court official said Lane told authorities he didn't realize he was in the women's restroom until he sat down, WYFF reported.

WSPA said Lane received a $2,000 surety bond and will be monitored by GPS. The judge also ordered that he move to South Carolina but must have no contact with the victim or her family, the station added. Lane's initial court hearing will be 9 a.m. Nov. 12, WSPA reported.

Additional charges could be possible at the conclusion of the investigation, the station said.

More from WYFF:

The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations says Lane was registered as a sex offender in 2008.

He was convicted of secretly peeping into an occupied room in 2004 in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, records show. The record says the victims were 8 and 9 years old.

In 2008, records show Lane was convicted of secretly peeping into an occupied room, also in Mecklenburg County. The victim in this case was 18 years or older, records show.

The South Carolina sex offender registry says Lane was convicted of peeping, voyeurism or aggravated voyeurism in South Carolina in 1997 and failure to register in 1999.