A Word from the Man in the Cracker Barrel Logo

You’ve probably heard by now that Cracker Barrel has brought its old logo back. Long story short, first I was in it, then I wasn’t, now I am again.

After they removed me last week, certain folks got so mad you’d have thought the second amendment had been repealed by a drag queen.

But I wasn’t mad. Far from it.

Crack Bar has been making money from my likeness hand over fist for decades. Guess how much of that I’ve seen. Not one red cent.

That whole “Uncle Herschel” story they tell? It’s bullshit. Dan Evins, the founder, concocted it after I confronted him.

Here’s the backstory. In 1968, I was a poor college student in Tennessee. I lived next door to Dan. He was putting together a presentation for investors in a new restaurant and needed some photos. The old guy he’d lined up died at the last minute, so he offered me five bucks to do it.

It was easy. Slap on a pair of overalls, sit in a chair, and lean on a barrel. He gave me the money and I forgot all about it.

About a year later, my now-wife Cheryl and I were on our way to see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when she pointed out the window and said, “Hey, that looks like an older version of you! How funny!”

I pulled over in shock. There I was on a restaurant sign looking for all the world like an extra from Hee Haw. They aged me up, but there was no mistaking it: that illustration was me. Just put a blade of grass between my lips and a couple of spoons in my hands and I’m ready for the hoedown.

I’ll spare you the details, but things got ugly between Dan and me. We almost came to blows over it, but unfortunately, he had me over the proverbial barrel. I couldn’t prove anything.

As Crack Bar has grown, it’s made my life a nightmare. It gets worse with each passing year as I look more and more like the sign.

Cheryl thinks it’s funny, but she’s not the one taking the abuse. Everyone within a hundred-mile radius knows about it, so everywhere I go, I hear things like:

• Hey, cracker! Where’s your barrel?

• Oh hi, I didn’t recognize you without your overalls.

• What up, Homestyle?

• C.B. in the house!

It’s gone on so long that some people think my name is actually C.B.

It’s Dave. My name is David Mathers. I’m an award-winning thoracic surgeon, for Christ’s sake.

Then, a week ago, a miracle: Crack Bar changed the logo. I was out.

I could barely contain myself. This was going to be the beginning of a new era for me. But before I knew it, the backlash started.

There were all these indignant speeches from certain elected officials and talking heads about how this was a radical attack on traditional American values. I’m sorry, removing an illustration of a man in a chair is part of a culture war? It’s not like they replaced me with an immigrant murdering a bald eagle while getting a free Covid vaccine.

It was almost like a bunch of disingenuous shit-stirrers took a company’s ordinary logo refresh and cynically stoked people’s anger about an imagined threat. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear the politicalization of this restaurant rebranding was ginned up as a distraction. If I were given to flights of fancy, I’d posit that none of those outraged pearl-clutchers would ever set foot in a Cracker Barrel outside of a catastrophic intestinal emergency.

But what do I know? I’m just a simple, country doctor.

I may be speaking out of turn when I say that a slew of companies have recently adapted their logos with a more modern, minimal design for the digital age. And that the most common type of logo features an uncluttered, stylized name. To the latter point, if I knew what I was talking about, I’d suggest that people compare the new Cracker Barrel logo to those of IHOP, Waffle House, Denny’s, Applebee’s, Olive Garden, Chili’s, Outback, and a million others.

But that’s not my area of expertise. I’m just an old sawbones.

I don’t have an MBA, but I’m told that the company’s traffic was down 16% in the past five years. And that surveyed customers said the brand was worse than its competitors in virtually every area. And that that’s why they’ve been modernizing their restaurants in lots of different ways.

But who am I to speak of such things? I’m just a redneck scalpel jockey.

Don’t get me wrong. The new logo was terrible. If there’s anything to be offended by, it’s that it had all the allure of an “Employees Must Wash Hands” sign.

Anyway, none of that matters now. The most egregious corporate misdeed of the year has been rectified. The old logo is back.

You know what else is back, or rather, never had time to go away? The comments. The “cracker” jokes. The people calling me C.B. My high blood pressure.

So, excuse me if I seem a little miffed, but there’s something I’d like to say to the soulless muckrakers who manufactured this controversy, as well as to Cracker Barrel for caving in: kiss my country-fried ass.

Hey, it’s a long weekend. There’s plenty of time to check out past episodes of “Funny Story,” the Substack Live I do with the hilarious

Shelly Mazzanoble

. And be sure to catch the next one on Tuesday, September 9, at 3 pm Eastern/12 pm Pacific.