Cracker Barrel set to give away free gas and food to lure customers back

Cracker Barrel is set to give away free gas and food to lure belt-tightening customers back to the chain restaurant.

As Americans struggle with soaring gas prices and high grocery bills, Cracker Barrel, known as a respite on family road trips, is offering a new promotion with prizes totaling $250,000 in food and gas.

The “Fuel Your Summer Road Trip” encourages Americans to hit the road and stop into a Cracker Barrel restaurant for a chance to win a $500 Cracker Barrel gift card and a $500 gas gift card.

A drawing will be held every week until July 26, where 25 lucky Cracker Barrel customers will each win $1,000 in gift cards. That’s a total of 250 winners during the promotion, which started May 19.

“Road trips are synonymous with summer and our goal is to help our guests take the trip, see the country and make new memories,” Sarah Moore, Chief Marketing Officer at Cracker Barrel, said in a press release.

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There are some caveats to the sweepstakes to keep in mind, including that a customer must be a member of Cracker Barrel’s free loyalty program to enter the giveaways.

Cracker Barrel customers also must earn entries into the sweepstakes. The easiest way to do this is by purchasing food and merchandise.

Customers get one entry per adult entree that they buy. They can also get additional entries by purchasing merchandise from Cracker Barrel’s gift shop.

Bonus entries are also available in select weeks. For example, from June 29 to July 6, customers who purchase Cracker Barrel’s “American Heritage” merchandise or pick an “All-American” menu item can get additional entries.

Customers may also enter the sweepstakes for free, but they must hand-print a postcard with the words “Fuel Your Summer Road Trip Sweepstakes” and the specific weekly drawing they want to enter.

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Several chain restaurants have recently launched promotions to get customers through the door, including Applebee’s “All You Can Eat” menu and Red Lobster’s “Endless Shrimp” offer.

But Cracker Barrel has taken it a step further by helping Americans at the gas pump. Gas prices have skyrocketed amid the Iran war that President Donald Trump started at the end of February.

While the national average cost of a gallon of gas is currently down 12 cents from last week, it’s still at $4.42, according to the AAA auto club. Gas was just $2.98 a gallon on the first day of the war, the Associated Press reported, citing AAA data.

Food prices are also up. The cost of groceries increased 0.7 percent and the cost of restaurant food was just up 0.2 percent in April, according to the Consumer Price Index, which the government uses to track the cost of goods and services over time.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who has been criticized for promoting a corporate-sponsored road trip reality show starring his family while Americans struggle to buy their own fuel, cheered on Cracker Barrel’s promotion.

“What a GREAT way to encourage Americans to see this beautiful country and spend quality time with their family,” Duffy wrote on X Wednesday.

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Cracker Barrel seems to be going back to its roots, after a disastrous and short-lived logo change last summer.

“So many of our guests have wonderful memories of their summer road trips with family and friends and Cracker Barrel has always been a favorite stop along the way,” Cracker Barrel executive Moore said.

“Fuel Your Summer Road Trip is our way of helping guests make those plans feel a little easier – both at the table and at the pump.”

In August, Cracker Barrel lost $94 million in one day after a rebrand bashed by Trump’s MAGA base as being “woke” and “boring.”

Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino insisted the logo had nothing to do with ideology, but rather with ensuring customers could read it from the road, per The Wall Street Journal.

The logo, which formerly featured a seated man in overalls leaning on a barrel, was simplified to just the name “Cracker Barrel,” with the classic gold background. Just days after announcing the redesign, Cracker Barrel said it would return to the old logo.