Rave #33: Cracker Barrel

As most of my dear readers know, I'm currently on the Great College Search. And while I'm not considering schools too far from home (which of course I won't specify, since I've heard those Internet safety lectures and have a healthy amount of fear that Internet lurkers figure out where I live and start stalking me in real life and then become real stalkers and not just the Internet kind), I am considering some schools in rather obscure and unpopulated places; for example, in-the-middle-of-nowhere upstate New York, and all those great expanses of undeveloped, woodsy New England.

It turns out that when you're in the middle of nowhere your restaurant choices are limited. My family (and especially my mother, with whom I'm doing the majority of my college visits) has a staunch no-fast-food stance; therefore, the McDonalds and Burger Kings that litter the highway -- both literally and geographically -- aren't really options. Sometimes we do Friendly's, but my mother la jefe doesn't love 'em because she thinks the service is too slow. Somehow, that leaves Cracker Barrel as our go-to.

I'm don't remember how Cracker Barrel became our spot, but I'd wager that it was because we find it such high entertainment value. Not only is it entertainment, though, Cracker Barrel is an experience. An experience that I shall walk you through now.

When you walk in, you enter an enormous Old Country Store. You will know that it is an Old Country Store because it will say so on every t-shirt, bag, and fake decorative chicken egg. The Christmas decorations will be to your right, the giant display of Old Country Store stick candy in front of you, and the checkout counter and the maitre d' counter to your left. The restaurant piece of the experience will be nestled behind the checkout counter. Every single Cracker Barrel across America is organized like this. If you are a blind patron from Rhode Island you could walk into a Cracker Barrel in Tennessee and walk straight to the perpetually Christmas-themed votive candle display without hesitation. I can see how this would be marvelous for blind and very dedicated patrons; as for the rest of us, it's a smidge disconcerting to enter a Cracker Barrel and have an intense sense of deja vu, before remembering that this is just the corporate model of this Old Country Store.

Then the maitre d' will seat you. She will grin excitedly and ask if this is your first visit. You will struggle to remember if you've ever visited this exact location before, before giving up and shrugging, "oh, not my first visit to Cracker Barrel!". She will nod politely, but she will probably be internally judging you for not having committed this very special and once-in-a-lifetime experience to memory.

When you open the menu you will be blown away. Let me start by sharing the mission statement, taken directly from the official Cracker Barrel website:

"We aim to keep our prices fair and our portions hearty, making our fresh takes on traditional favorites some of the best values you'll find in any restaurant, at home or on the road. Whether you're craving meatloaf just like Mom used to make, our savory apple dumplins or the perfect breakfast at any time of day, Cracker Barrel is happy to bring you what you want, when you want it. After all, our mission statement is Pleasing People^®, and we're looking do do just that."

Now, they achieve their goal with aplomb. The portions are certainly hearty, and the restaurant's attitude is certainly enthusiastic. I'm all for Pleasing People^®, and appreciate a restaurants whose goal it is to Please Me^®.

The real comedic value comes in the menu. You will first notice a conspicuous lack of g's and the dismissal of superfluous letters. Peruse the menu, from "Fancy Fixin's^®" to "Vegetables 'n Sides" to "Beverages 'n Juices" and you'll find a remarkable number of letters dropped. Pick your meat, and then pick your vegetable (among your choices for vegetable are Macaroni 'n Cheese, Dumplins, and Steak Fries). And if you feel like it's all too much, you can go for lighter fare, like the Fried Chicken Salad.

Your waitress will come, and she will be zoftig and deeply knowledgeable about the menu; you will get the impression that she has not merely sampled everything on the menu but that she has tried everything in every possible combination. She will call you "babydoll", which seems so natural to your surroundings that you forget to roll your eyes. Then your waitress walks away, and you turn to your mother and ask "did she just call me babydoll?". Your mother will nod and wait, expressionless, for your incensed teenage response, but you will nod blankly and say "oh".

As you wait, you play the peg game, which I adore and am abysmal at. You will watch the people near you. There will be one southern family laughing exuberantly and squeezing each other's hands while shoving fried chicken liver down their throats, and there will be one family with a blond, coiffed mother with an expensive purse examining the menu and saying things like "God, have they ever considered a low-carb option?!". You will not be able to decide which family you identify with more; if you are a teenage girl you will leap into a brief and silent identity crisis before getting distracted by the peg game and forgetting about your angst.

Then, of course, a lot of food will come to your table. You will remark that the portions certainly are hearty. The food is not great, but there's a lot of it and you enjoy kvetching. You shouldn't order dessert, but you probably will. Your waitress claps her hands together and squeals "oooh, good choice!" when your order the pie.

You exit through the Old Country Store, and buy some stick candy for the road. Back on the road, you feel witty and clever, what with all those jokes you made about net carbs and "honest-to-goodness homestyle meals". Your belly is full and somehow the whole family is in a good mood.

Much better than Friendly's, I'd say.