THE PARADOX OF CRACKER BARREL: A CASE STUDY ON PLACE AND PLACELESSNESS

Abstract

Cracker Barrel restaurants are a fixture across the interstatelandscape of the United States. These sites cultivate a strongsense of place through careful theming, generating a distinctsense of rural America and nostalgia for home. At the same time,the uniformity of Cracker Barrel speaks to the notion ofplacelessness, the eradication of unique local features andhomogenization of experience. Cracker Barrel is thussimultaneously placeless and placefull. This research exploresthis paradoxical notion by utilizing semiotic analyses in ananalysis of user-generated Yelp! photos of Cracker Barrels acrossthe country. It is clear from this analysis that the number andwide variety of artifacts vary surprisingly little from store tostore. Together, this uniformity and intentional theming helpsuccessfully create a sense of place for Cracker Barrel stores as arural American, 19th century “home-away-from-home.”