Cracker Barrel shakes off legacy of discrimination
It was so bad at Cracker Barrel in the early aughts that the U.S. Justice Department forced the company into a plan to end discrimination that violated the Civil Rights Act, including turning away black customers.
Even as recently as the 2016 election season, political pundits used the company as shorthand, referring to Cracker Barrel vs. Whole Foods counties. The implication meant rural at best and backward or alienated at worst.
So it was a surprise to many last week when Cracker Barrel came out with a crystal-clear denunciation of LGBTQ discrimination, issuing a strongly worded statement about why it had banned Knoxville pastor Grayson Fritts and his church members from using a Tennessee Cracker Barrel as a meeting place.
“At Cracker Barrel, we work hard to foster a culture that is welcoming and inclusive — we have a zero-tolerance policy for discriminatory treatment or
harassment of any sort,” the release said. “We take pride in serving as a home away from home for all guests and in showing our communities and our country that the hospitality we practice is open to everyone.”
Fritts seized the national spotlight last week after the Knoxville News Sentinel reported about a sermon the Knox County sheriff’s detective delivered while off-duty that called for the government to arrest and execute members of the LGBTQ community.
The spotlight turned from Fritts to Cracker Barrel after the company’s swift response this week to his plans for a meeting at a Cleveland, Tennessee, location, and it illuminated a company that has made a surprising cultural turnaround that rejects discrimination of the sort it practiced in the 1990s and 2000s.
“We believe it’s crucially important to foster this environment for our employees for many reasons,” Cracker Barrel spokeswoman Janella Escobar told the News Sentinel on Thursday. “The guest experience should never exceed the employee experience, because our success begins with the employee experience.
“Happy employees create happy guests,” she added. “We want our employee community to reflect the diversity of the communities we serve.”
“We believe it’s crucially important to foster this environment for our employees for many reasons. The guest experience should never exceed the employee experience, because our success begins with the employee experience. Happy employees create happy guests.” – JANELLA ESCOBAR, CRACKER BARREL SPOKESWOMAN
DOLLARS FLOW AS DIVERSITY GROWS
Those aren’t just PR-friendly words. Since CEO Sandra Cochran took over in 2011, Cracker Barrel’s stock has skyrocketed from about $40 a share to around $170, an increase of about 325%. Cracker Barrel has opened 31 new stores in the past five years, including seven this year.
Some social media critics have pilloried the company for selling out to “political correctness,” but many more restaurant customers, political figures and even a soda company praised the restaurant for taking a stand.
In a letter to Cracker Barrel, state Democratic Party Chairwoman Mary Mancini praised the Lebanon, Tennessee-based chain’s progress under Cochran.
“Since you have taken over as CEO of Cracker Barrel, there has been a noticeable improvement in the culture,” Mancini wrote. “The restaurants have become a more hospitable place for all Tennesseans, regardless of who we are, what we look like, etc.”
Not long ago, Cracker Barrel would never have been held up as a model for inclusivity.
In 1991, the chain made headlines for ordering the dismissal of LGBTQ employees, according to a New York Times article. The company did not adopt language including the LGBTQ community into its anti-discrimination policy until 2002.
Former employees and customers sued Cracker Barrel several times for racial discrimination and racial and sexual harassment.
A 2004 Justice Department investigation found 50 of the restaurant chain’s stores were segregating customer seating by race, serving white customers ahead of black customers or altogether refusing service to black customers.
That led to the company’s five-year agreement with the Justice Department to implement nondiscrimination practices.
DIVERSITY SCORES
Now, each Cracker Barrel restaurant prominently displays nondiscrimination signs, and Escobar said the company “actively focuses” recruitment efforts on “ensuring a multicultural and diverse employee base at all levels of the company.”
The restaurant chain’s scores on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index have more than doubled, increasing from a score of 35 when Cochran joined the company to a score of 80 this year. In 2008, the company’s score was 15.
Cochran is the second woman in Tennessee to hold the office of CEO in a publicly traded company, and was named the National Organization for Workforce Diversity’s 2016 CEO of the Year.
Three of Cracker Barrel’s 10 board directors are women, and one is a person of color. Three women are also on the corporation’s executive team.
The company boasts several employee resource groups focusing on gender, cultural and generational diversity, veterans and LGBTQ awareness and inclusivity. The LGBTQ resource group was named Out & Equal’s 2018 LGBTQ Employee Resource Group of the Year.
At Cracker Barrel, management knows that when they take care of employees, employees take care of customers
DIVERSITY EFFORT INCLUDES SUPPLIERS, TOO
Cracker Barrel also advertises a supplier diversity program. Escobar said the company does not release specific data on its suppliers, but said it has increased its spending with female-owned businesses by 130% since 2013 through partnerships with women and multicultural-focused nonprofit supplier diversity groups.
The company sponsors conferences and summits for the NAACP and has been a partner for the Middle Tennessee Diversity forum.
Additionally, Escobar said, the company works with the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Conexión Américas, the National Urban League and the Nashville LGBT Chamber of Commerce.
The corporation participates annually in Nashville’s Pride Festival and supports the Out & Equal Workplace Summit, Escobar said.