When your favorite restaurant tweaks the menu, what's your response? Are you excited about the promise of new and exotic offerings from a beloved restaurant, or are you scared because you hate change?
It can really go either way, and in this case, fans of Cracker Barrel Old Country Store certainly have some complicated feelings about the restaurant adding plant-based sausage to its menu.
We've seen fast food giants like Burger King embrace the product with its Impossible Whopper, while the wider trend has seen plant-based 'meat' products hailed as a possible solution to at least some of our climate problems.
You know Cracker Barrel, right? It's a classic dining destination for families traveling along the interstate. There's something about its rustic gift shop aesthetic combined with big portions of hearty meals that's made it an American icon.
In announcements posted across its various social media channels, Cracker Barrel announced that it was adding something new to its menu: Impossible sausage patties.
It shouldn't be big news, really. It just means that you can order Impossible sausage instead of regular sausage with your meal if you'd like.
Cracker Barrel made a pretty big deal of the announcement, including this image. It apparently shows plant-based and meat-based sausages putting aside their differences and apparently uniting over what they have in common: the fact that they're both sausage (more or less).
Again, it isn't such a big deal. Plenty of places have added Impossible meat to their menu, and all it really means is that there's more selection. The old menu still exists for anyone who doesn't want plant-based meat.
On an Instagram post, Cracker Barrel's proud announcement was immediately countered by the top comment which called for the restaurant's management to be fired. This commenter thinks the restaurant needs entirely new management because they have a different type of sausage available now.
There's nothing wrong with ordering standard sausage, of course, but the way this commenter puts it is kind of hilarious. It's like he thinks he's owning Cracker Barrel by continuing to eat there.
While there was plenty of mockery of the sticks in the mud who can't accept Impossible sausage, there were also plenty of comments that were genuinely aggrieved at the move. It's weird that we're seeing this kind of reaction to Cracker Barrel adding these products, when Burger King made the same move with almost no controversy.
It's never a bad thing to have more selections at a restaurant, selections that might work better with a person's individual dietary requirements. The detractors have made themselves heard loud and clear, but the supporters are present as well.
Has Cracker Barrel become so woke that it'll soon be out of business, or is this a simple matter of a new type of sausage being added to the menu?
We want to know your thoughts, so feel free to weigh in.
