13 Cracker Barrel Items We Miss: Discontinued Too Soon

The country-style restaurant known as Cracker Barrel is famous for its down-home traditional foods and nostalgic vibes. The restaurant opened in Tennessee in 1969 as a restaurant-gas station combo. Founder Danny Evins wanted to offer an alternative to the rise of fast food dining, especially along America’s highways. Unlike a drive-thru where travelers are in and out quickly, Cracker Barrel restaurants are meant to be lingered in. Today, there are over 600 Cracker Barrel locations, and though they no longer sell gas, they are often positioned conveniently off highway exits for weary travelers to grab a warm and comforting southern-style meal. 

Cracker Barrel customers tend to be passionate about the menu items they enjoy. When a beloved food gets discontinued, fans take to social media to clamor for its return. Sometimes, this can be successful, as is the case with Cracker Barrel’s popular campfire meals. The company announced in 2025 that it would be bringing back this fan favorite for a limited time. However, many discontinued Cracker Barrel items have been long gone without any signs of a comeback. Read on for 13 deeply missed Cracker Barrel fan favorites.

In 2015, Cracker Barrel offered a summer lineup that included Strawberries ‘N Cream French Toast. The dish was made with egg-battered sourdough bread and stuffed with sweetened cream cheese. It was topped with fresh strawberries, powdered sugar, and strawberry syrup. However, by late August of that year, the dish was gone. A comment by Cracker Barrel on a Facebook post explained that the summer menu ended on August 16th, and the Strawberries ‘N Cream French Toast was only around for a limited time.

The meal was such a fan favorite that it inspired many copycat recipes, even though it never appeared on the menu again. If you’re craving the Strawberries ‘N Cream French Toast, Cracker Barrel does currently have a somewhat similar French Berry Toast Bake. Although it’s not quite the same texture as French toast, it does contain cream cheese and is topped with strawberry sauce. In addition to strawberries, the French Berry Toast Bake also features blueberries.

Cracker Barrel is known for southern-style cooking, and you can’t get much more southern than red-eye gravy. Red-eye gravy is a simply made breakfast condiment that can be whipped up in just a few minutes. Also known as poor man’s gravy, this is a classic gravy that’s made with only two ingredients and doesn’t require making a roux. All that’s needed for red-eye gravy is the greasy leftover drippings from frying up a southern-style ham steak in a pan and black coffee. It’s traditionally served over ham, grits, and biscuits.

For a time, you could get this southern staple at a Cracker Barrel restaurant until it disappeared from the menu in 2017. We were unable to find an explanation as to why Cracker Barrel stopped selling this southern favorite. Though we did learn that the red-eye gravy wasn’t actually made with fresh ham drippings at the restaurant. Former employees discussing Cracker Barrel’s red-eye gravy on Reddit revealed that it wasn’t a mix of freshly brewed coffee and grease drippings, but was poured out of a packet. One former employee said, “It came in a little packet that we heated up when I was there.”

Cracker Barrel once offered a grilled sirloin steak that was cooked to order and smothered with a garlic butter glaze. You could get the meal with a choice of three sides. Cracker Barrel diners on Reddit remember it fondly, with one person saying, “The sirloin was top tier. One of the best steaks you could have gotten in my small town, actually. The New York strip does not compare at all.” 

Today, diners can no longer get the sirloin steak, although the restaurant does offer several meals that feature sirloin steak tips. Sirloin tips are bite-sized cuts of sirloin. Cracker Barrel adds a garlic butter sauce to their sirloin tips, similar to the former grilled sirloin, so you may find the sirloin tips offer a similar flavor if you are craving the discontinued sirloin steak. Alternatively, you could grill a sirloin steak at home. One Redditor said all you need to do is add garlic salt to the steak and drizzle garlic butter over that.

Cracker Barrel’s Facebook page contains an old post from 2014 advertising the former Baked Apple Dumplin. The post describes the dessert as made with sliced apples topped with a pecan streusel. It was served warm in a bowl with two generous scoops of vanilla ice cream and an apple topping. The entire thing sold for only $3.99 in 2014. Today, you can no longer find the Baked Apple Dumplin on Cracker Barrel’s menu. In fact, the only dessert Cracker Barrel currently has with fruit is a Peach Cobbler.

The Facebook post has many comments lamenting the loss of the apple dumpling dessert. Cracker Barrel answered someone about a year ago, saying, “Thank you for your feedback. While Baked Apple Dumplin is currently not available on our menu, we’ll be sure to pass along your request to our Culinary Team for consideration.” As of today, we still haven’t seen the apple dessert return to the menu. You can, however, find many copycat recipes online if you’d like to try to make it yourself at home.

Chicken livers may not be a common menu offering today in America, but in the South, they are a timeless classic. In the past, southern mothers would serve up a steaming hot plate of crispy chicken livers to their family as a cheap and convenient meal. The livers were breaded with an egg batter and deep fried, leaving them crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Because they are so small, the livers don’t take long to cook, making it easy to serve up a plate of them to a large gathering quickly. 

Today, fried chicken livers can be hard to find on restaurant menus, even in the South. That’s why fans of this crispy bite-sized food were disappointed when Cracker Barrel discontinued the menu item. We can’t find much information about when the chicken livers went away, but we did discover a Cracker Barrel Facebook post for chicken tenders. In the post, a commenter asked what happened to the chicken liver dinner. Cracker Barrel responded, saying, “We appreciate your feedback. Although Chicken Livers are no longer on our menu, we will gladly share your request with our Culinary Team.”

When a discontinued menu item inspires copycat recipes and a change.org petition to bring it back, you know it was a fan favorite. Cracker Barrel’s beef stew was made with beef, potatoes, peas, carrots, and seasonings, and cooked in a thick gravy. Beef stew is more than a regional traditional food, it can be traced back to the Middle Ages. One of the first known recipes for beef stew comes from a manuscript written in 1420. This ancient recipe was made with cuts of beef cooked with cloves, mace, onions, parsley, sage, and saffron. 

We don’t know exactly when beef stew left the Cracker Barrel menu, although we did find a post on X formerly known as Twitter where one fan stated in November 2013, “I was craving Cracker Barrel’s beef stew. Stopped for some only to find they took it off the menu last month. Now I’m sobbing uncontrollably.” The closest thing Cracker Barrel has to its former beef stew is pot roast. This dish is made with slow-braised rib roast, onions, and carrots, served with a beef gravy.

Cracker Barrel’s Grilled Chicken n’ Strawberry Salad debuted on the spring menu back in 2012. The salad is made of grilled chicken tenderloins and fresh strawberries, atop a bed of fresh baby spinach. It also included pecans, apple slices, bacon pieces, red onion, blue cheese, and was served with a vinaigrette. We know the salad returned the following spring, but there hasn’t been a sign of it since that time. However, one Redditor hasn’t forgotten it, saying, “The summer strawberry spinach salad, was actually amazing.” 

The closest offering Cracker Barrel has to the  Grilled Chicken n’ Strawberry Salad is the Homestyle Grilled Chicken Salad. While this salad is also made with grilled chicken breast, it’s served with fresh greens instead of baby spinach. Other additions include a hard-boiled egg, cucumbers, tomatoes, and croutons.

In February 2012, Cracker Barrel announced on its Facebook page that it would be serving Sweet Potato Pancakes to celebrate National Sweet Potato Month. Guests could order the pancakes from the restaurant or buy a box of Sweet Potato Pancake mix to make at home. According to FSR Magazine, the pancakes were part of Cracker Barrel’s winter lineup. Cracker Barrel Chef Bill Kintzler told FSR, “The combination of sweet potatoes, brown sugar, and cinnamon is traditional and very comforting.”

At the time, Cracker Barrel served the sweet potatoes as part of a breakfast meal, which included three sweet potato pancakes, two eggs, and a choice of bacon or sausage. Unfortunately, the sweet potato pancakes were short-lived, and currently, Cracker Barrel only offers traditional pancakes and pancake mix. If you’re craving sweet potato pancakes, it’s a fairly easy recipe to make at home. Just add leftover sweet potatoes to your pancake batter. Additions such as maple syrup, cinnamon, and nutmeg will give it a warm and sweet flavor.

Cracker Barrel’s Pecan Crusted Catfish was basted with an orange marmalade and coated with crushed pecans. It was then grilled until it was golden brown and served with steamed vegetables and a side. At 450 calories, the catfish was a relatively low-calorie meal, unlike many others on Cracker Barrel’s menu. By encrusting the catfish with pecans and grilling it, Cracker Barrel offered a much healthier alternative to the typical deep-fried and breaded southern staple. 

Aside from being healthy, the dish was well-liked. A post on Cracker Barrel’s Facebook page showed many positive reviews. It also inspired copycat recipes. However, today the Pecan Crusted Catfish is gone, and we can’t find evidence of exactly when it departed from the menu

Cracker Barrel still serves catfish, though. You can order it fried in a cornmeal crust or grilled for a healthier version. Both meals come with sides and a choice of buttermilk biscuits or cornbread. 

Cracker Barrel’s Chicken Tortilla Soup may be gone, but it’s not forgotten. A quick online search reveals many copycat recipes across the internet. Cracker Barrel’s soup was creamier than the traditional tomato-based version. Some copycat recipes have added heavy cream to replicate Cracker Barrel’s soup. One former employee who concocted a copycat recipe said on Reddit, “I was actually just informed by an old coworker that Cracker Barrel stopped selling their soup close to 8 years ago… glad I know how to replicate it.” 

When asked how Cracker Barrel’s chicken tortilla soup “stacks up” to a Mexican restaurant, the poster said, “It doesn’t…it’s super creamy and southern like everything else at Cracker Barrel.” Although one former employee on Reddit recalled that the Chicken Tortilla Soup used to be served daily, it’s been off the menu for some time now. The only soup on Cracker Barrel’s current menu is Chicken & Dumplin Soup.

Lima beans are not often found on restaurant menus these days. Cracker Barrel used to serve a smoky and spicy southern-style Lima Bean side that was seasoned with garlic, onion, red pepper flakes, and bacon. Lima beans are a common side dish to many southern-style meals. They can be bought frozen, dried, or canned. Canned lima beans are already cooked and only need to be warmed on the stovetop for about 10 minutes or so. 

We don’t know why Cracker Barrel removed this fan favorite from its menu, and the restaurant isn’t giving any reasons. In a Facebook post advertising Cracker Barrel’s Country Fried Turkey, someone commented, “i cant believe you got rid of lima beans. you broke my heart.” Cracker Barrel’s team gave its common response to someone lamenting a discontinued item by responding, “We appreciate your feedback. We will gladly share your request for Lima Beans with our Culinary Team.”

In 2015, Cracker Barrel promoted its Haddock Dinner on its Facebook page. The company described the meal as featuring “boneless white fish fillet dusted in a traditional cornmeal and flour mix and grilled until fork tender.” It was served with a choice of three sides and buttermilk biscuits or corn muffins. Many commenters to the post began asking what had happened to the Haddock Dinner and if it would return. One commenter said, “Bring back the Haddock! Please. It was the best meal on the menu. It was so nice to have a choice of a different and delicious fish, because most other restaurants offer only salmon or tilapia.”

We can trace the last time Cracker Barrel posted about the Haddock on Facebook to 2018. Although we don’t know the reasons, it’s possible the restaurant removed the fish from its menu due to supply issues. Haddock is a popular Atlantic fish, but is sometimes reported as being overfished. For example, in 2023, regulators lowered the catch limits of haddock to attempt to prevent its decline from overfishing.

Although frosty mugs are not a food item, this was such a popular option among Cracker Barrel customers that we felt it deserved a mention. Cracker Barrel used to offer cold drinks inside frosty mugs. They did this by simply putting glass mugs in freezers until they were very cold and frosted. This kept the beverage chilled without the need for adding ice, which dilutes the drink as it melts. Customers could order their beverages, such as soda, milk, orange juice, or specialty drinks, like the limited-time cold apple cider, in frosty mugs.

According to The U.S. Sun, Cracker Barrel’s frosty mugs were discontinued in 2018. According to The Sun, they reached out to Cracker Barrel for a comment, but Cracker Barrel has never explained why they discontinued this fan favorite. Getting rid of the frosty mugs was an unpopular move among Cracker Barrel customers. When asked how they would rate Cracker Barrel today, one Redditor had a list of suggestions for improvement. One of them was, “Bring back…root beer floats in frosted mugs.”