InspectLens
Breakfast and family

Cracker Barrel

Cracker Barrel's Florida stores average +0.14 high-priority violations per routine inspection relative to their county baseline (95% interval -0.05 to +0.34), above the county baseline. Rank 2 of 9 breakfast and family brands, counted from furthest below the baseline.

+0.14vs county baseline, 95% interval -0.05 to +0.34
1.31 vs 1.17raw high-priority violations per routine inspection vs the baseline its stores face
60stores in 34 counties, 317 routine inspections, FY2023-24 to FY2025-26

The food: where these dishes come from

Cracker Barrel is known for biscuits, chicken-fried steak and grits. The stories are about the dishes, not the brand, and live on PlateTales.

By fiscal year

0-0.31+0.24FY2016-17: -0.31 (n = 93)16-17FY2017-18: -0.25 (n = 92)17-18FY2018-19: -0.13 (n = 109)18-19FY2019-20: -0.15 (n = 110)19-20FY2020-21: 0.12 (n = 111)20-21FY2021-22: 0.13 (n = 112)21-22FY2022-23: 0.05 (n = 107)22-23FY2023-24: 0.11 (n = 102)23-24FY2024-25: 0.24 (n = 107)24-25FY2025-26: 0.06 (n = 108)25-26FY2026-27: -0.28 (n = 40) partial year26-27*

Relative to the county baseline, first visits of routine inspections. Open circle and * = fiscal year in progress (data as of 2026-11-09). Hover a point for n.

Most-cited violation codes

Citations per 100 routine inspections, Cracker Barrel vs all Florida inspections, FY2023-24 to FY2025-26 (n = 317). Descriptions are DBPR's.
CodeDBPR descriptionCracker BarrelFloridaRatio
36Floors properly constructed, clean, drained, coved88.039.92.21x
22Food contact surfaces of equipment and utensils clean64.743.61.48x
14Food contact surfaces designed, constructed, maintained, installed, located62.146.91.32x
23Non-food contact surfaces clean50.223.62.12x
03Food Out of Temperature46.735.01.33x

Outcomes

18.3% vs 19.6%routine inspections that needed a callback visit, vs all Florida (raw)
0.32% vs 1.01%routine inspections ending in an emergency order recommendation, vs all Florida (raw)
42%of 60 stores with 2+ inspections score below their county baseline after shrinkage toward the brand mean

Emergency closures

No Cracker Barrel store appears in DBPR's weekly closure extracts (2025-12-29 to 2026-11-06).

Other breakfast and family brands

Ranked breakfast and family brands, FY2023-24 to FY2025-26.
RankBrandvs county95% intervalStores
1First Watch-0.27-0.36 to -0.17143
2Cracker Barrel+0.14-0.05 to +0.3460
3Bob Evans+0.17-0.01 to +0.3738
4Waffle House+0.21+0.10 to +0.31191
5Denny's+0.25+0.12 to +0.39123
6Golden Corral+0.29-0.04 to +0.6332
7IHOP+0.31+0.15 to +0.4884
8Perkins+0.79+0.48 to +1.1130
9Keke's Breakfast Cafe+0.79+0.53 to +1.0668
Look up a single Cracker Barrel location

Store-level matching: a store counts for Cracker Barrel when its DBPR business name matches the reviewed aliases in InspectLens's brand list. Co-branded units (for example KFC with Taco Bell) are not counted for either brand.