Dive Brief:
- Cracker Barrel launched its largest menu test in the brand’s history on Tuesday at 14 locations in Texas, the company said in a press release.
- The test includes about 20 new items and a redesign of the restaurant’s menu to make it easier for guests to navigate and to reduce complexities of recipes for staff, the company said.
- The menu test is part of the company’s larger transformation plan, announced in May, that includes refining its brand, improving the store and guest experience, bolstering digital and off-premise business and improving the employee experience.
Dive Insight:
Cracker Barrel’s fiscal third quarter traffic, which was weaker than expected, “underscores the need for our strategic transformation,” CEO Julie Felss Masino said during a May earnings call. Masino added that traffic is down 20% compared to 2019. CFO Craig Pommells said traffic was down by 4.9% during the third quarter, specifically.
As part of Cracker Barrel’s research into its transformation, the chain talked to guests across the country from all backgrounds, as well as its team members to figure out what needed to change to improve the overall experience.
“We heard from them that the experience in Cracker Barrel just isn’t relevant specifically at dinner,” Masino said.
Dinner sales, which make up about 35% of the sales mix, were down during the quarter.
“We’ve held up quite well at breakfast,” Masino said. “But what guests have told us is that [compared to] the Cracker Barrel experience, there are more relevant choices for them in the dinner daypart based on the experiential factors.”
Daily Specials will be included as part of the menu tests, giving guests specific meals only on certain nights of the week. Those items include Lemon Pepper Trout n’ classic Turnip Greens, Southern BBQ Ribs and Chicken n’ Rice. Other menu items offered daily include Hashbrown Casserole Shepherd’s Pie, Green Chile Cornbread, Chicken n’ Dumplin soup and Cinnamon Bread French Toast. A new dessert of banana pudding will also be part of the test.
The company will monitor sales performance, gather guest and employee feedback and review how efficiently its back-of-house staff handle preparation of the new dishes, Cracker Barrel said in an email to Restaurant Dive. The chain decide to focus its test in Texas since the state’s diverse population encompasses a broad spectrum of tastes. Texas also is a big market for the chain with many well-established locations.
“As we seek to balance menu innovation and simplification, we will take a strategic approach to rolling these items out to the full system over time,” Cracker Barrel said. “We saw success with early iterations of the test, so we plan to introduce several of these items to the full system this fall including savory Chicken and Rice, Pot Roast and Hashbrown Casserole Shepherd’s Pie, a new take on the guest favorite Hashbrown Casserole. We believe these dishes, in particular, resonate well with guests’ seasonal preferences and speak to the type of flavors they’re craving in the fall.”
Prices for these new items range from $3.99 for its Green Chile Cornbread to $17.99 for its Southern BBQ Ribs, which will be served Saturdays as a daily special, the company said.
In addition to menu changes, the company is looking at design elements, like tables, lighting, and paint, to improve the look and feel of the dining rooms, so that they feel “lighter, brighter, fresher, cleaner … place where I do want to have dinner,” Masino said. The company, which continues to test new prototypes, plans to complete 25 to 30 remodels in fiscal year 2025 that incorporate these elements.
Other chains, including Dave & Buster’s, Noodles & Company and Panera, have been overhauling their menus this year as the industry struggles slipping traffic. Menu additions can prove successful drivers of sales as seen at Subway, which added a snack category in January. Within two weeks of its Sidekicks launch, Subway sold 3.5 million of these items and about 30 million in the six months after launch.
