(LifeSiteNews) — More than an unpopular redesign is driving the public backlash against American breakfast chain Cracker Barrel, as a new video of a LGBT event sponsored by the company reveals.
As previously covered by LifeSiteNews, Cracker Barrel drew national attention recently by unveiling a new logo and revamped interior decoration that was widely seen as casting off its original homespun, heartland aesthetic for a more generic look. The backlash quickly became something of a proxy for the culture wars, with the change being seen as an attempt to disassociate from traditional values, and, before long, Cracker Barrel reverted to its original logo.
While many dismissed the logo battle as undue agitation over something trivial, more substantive issues were going on with the company at the same time.
On August 26, conservative activist Robby Starbuck published a video of highlights from an “all ages” “Nashville Pride” event, for which Cracker Barrel was one of the corporate sponsors. It shows garish drag queens and semi-nude men and women dancing provocatively. “There were little kids at this event,” Starbuck said.
The website of “Nashville Pride” currently does not have information about its normal events but has been replaced with a landing page asking for donations and declaring a “state of emergency” over a “sudden withdrawal” of “longtime” corporate sponsors placing the event’s future at risk.
Amid all this backlash, several outlets are reporting that Cracker Barrel has removed its website’s “Pride” and “Diversity and Inclusion” pages and that its “Culture of Belonging” page “appears to have removed a list of employee-led business resource groups offering opportunities to Black, Hispanic, LGBTQ+ and neurodivergent employees, among other groups,” per The Hill.
Cracker Barrel management is cracking. Today they’ve removed the LGBTQ Pride page off of the Cracker Barrel website. First 3 screenshots below show what that page used to look like and the 4th shows how it looks now. The backlash against them for going woke has them in a panic. pic.twitter.com/MIde4dvv1w
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) August 26, 2025
In recent years, left-wing activists have used diversity, equity, & inclusion (DEI) and environment, societal, & governance (ESG) standards to pressure major U.S. corporations to take favorable stands on political and cultural issues such as homosexuality, transgenderism, race relations, the environment, and abortion.
Political and customer backlashes to such activism has translated to business woes for companies such as Disney and Bud Light. President Donald Trump’s defeat in November of Vice President Kamala Harris for the White House has also been seen by many as further evidence of the general public rejecting woke ideology, further signaling to corporations and activists alike the lack of popular receptiveness to such projects.
The backlash has gotten companies such as Amazon, Walmart, Target, McDonald’s, Jack Daniel’s, John Deere, Tractor Supply, Lowe’s, Toyota, Coors, and even Disney to back off from “woke” corporate policies.
