Farewell Cracker Barrel

Down home country corporate mega-breakfast joint leaves Bend

By Jack Harvel

In honor of this year’s Restaurant Guide issue, we mourn the loss of Bend’s only Cracker Barrel, a corporate approximation of an old country store serving microwaved approximations of old country dishes. Bend’s Cracker Barrel closed its doors on March 20, along with its locations in Beaverton and Tualatin, its departure devastating the local market for old Texaco signs, decommissioned black powder rifles and taxidermized deer heads.

We hardly got to know the location in Bend; it was open for just over a year before COVID mandates locked down restaurants, making the 10,000-squarefoot, 180-seat faux-cabin useless for years. Cracker Barrel is beloved by children, the elderly and seemingly nobody in between. As a child I would go there after baseball games and we’d play large checkers on the large checkerboard and buy candy from the restaurant’s gift shop. But as I grew, the large checkerboard slowly morphed into a normal sized checkerboard, the gift shop rock candy grew less sweet and the décor brought dark memories of my hoarder great uncle.

I arrived in Bend in April 2021, at the height of the pandemic, at the low of a closed Cracker Barrel. I did eat there once on accident. While craving fried chicken I Doordashed a restaurant called Chicken n’ Biscuit, only to later learn it was a ghost kitchen run out of Cracker Barrel. As I tore into the dry and flavorless chicken, I felt a familiar feeling that hadn’t happened since playing big checkers after Sunday rec games. A successful mediocrity, an imitated authenticity.

Now, Bendites will be forced to travel to one of the other 660 Cracker Barrels across the nation. The closest one is in Medford, or you could find one across the state line in Idaho. In Portland there’s a Cracker Barrel Grocery, which is a convenience store with no ties to the chain. But Cracker Barrel, the good ol’ country conglomerate, may never grace Bend again.

CHOOSE REUSE

CHOOSE REUSE

Rethink about it!

Rethink about it!

Ask for a “stay here” mug instead of a “to-go” cup at your favorite coffee shop. Because to-go paper cups are often lined with plastic film, they aren’t recyclable in Deschutes County. So just settle in, relax and give our earth a little love while you’re at it.

Ask for a “stay here” mug instead of a “to-go” cup at your favorite coffee shop. Because to-go paper cups are often lined with plastic film, they aren’t recyclable in Deschutes County. So just settle in, relax and give our earth a little love while you’re at it.