![‘Nappy-Headed [N-word]’: Black Cracker Barrel Waitress Alleges 10 Years of Racist Abuse Before Being Fired for Reporting It, Lawsuit Claims](https://theblacknewsreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/nappy-headed-n-word-black-cracker-barrel-waitress-alleges-10-years-of-racist-abuse-before-being-fired-for-reporting-it-lawsuit-claims.webp "‘Nappy-Headed [N-word]’: Black Cracker Barrel Waitress Alleges 10 Years of Racist Abuse Before Being Fired for Reporting It, Lawsuit Claims")
A Black waitress at a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Tennessee said she faced heinous racial harassment during her 10 years on the job from white coworkers and supervisors who were never held accountable for their actions.
Roberta Mendez, who started working as a server at a Nashville-area Cracker Barrel in 2015, filed a federal lawsuit on Aug. 21, which detailed several instances in which her fellow wait staff would berate her with racist, derogatory statements.
According to the complaint cited by The Independent, Mendez claimed her white colleagues would call her “nappy headed [N-word,]” “burnt biscuit,” and “monkey.”
The complaint also recalls one of Mendez’s conversations with a shift leader last year, in which the supervisor plainly told her, “I don’t like Black people.”
Mendez alleged that she was “physically pushed and hit” by her co-workers, and claimed that management “segregated its Black workers from its Caucasian workers.”
Even after reporting these incidents to higher-ups, the complaint states that Mendez ended up suffering consequences instead of the staff members who were guilty of the racist misconduct.
In 2023, when Mendez filed a complaint against one coworker, her suit states that she was written up and reprimanded instead of the person she accused.
“When Mendez escalated her concerns to Human Resources, she was only told not to sign the write-up,” the complaint states, adding, “No remedial action was taken.”
Things came to a head in August 2024 when Mendez finally went up the chain of command and took a list of complaints to Cracker Barrel corporate. She told company officials about the treatment she and other Black employees suffered at her workplace.
The following month, Mendez was fired for “breaking company policy,” according to the complaint. None of her white colleagues were ever reprimanded or penalized for the behavior she listed in her complaints.
Cracker Barrel has faced its share of accusations of discrimination, which has cost it millions in legal settlements and damage to its brand and reputation.
In 2004, the company had to shell out $9 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by more than 40 plaintiffs in 16 states, who claimed Cracker Barrel had discriminated against Black customers and employees. The plaintiffs alleged that customers were denied service, seated away from white patrons, and served food that was destined for the trash.
In 1991, Cracker Barrel instituted a highly controversial policy that it would fire and no longer hire LGBTQ+ individuals. A company memo stated that the chain would refuse to employ individuals “whose sexual preference fails to demonstrate normal heterosexual values, which have been the foundation of families in our society.”
The chain quickly withdrew that policy after it became the target of swift and intense backlash from gay rights activists.
In a statement on the policy reversal, the company said, “Our recent position on the employment of homosexuals in a limited number of stores may have been a well-intentioned overreaction to the perceived values of our customers and their comfort levels with these individuals.”
In the last month, Cracker Barrel was lambasted by conservatives and right-wingers for changing its logo design and rebranding its stores. They quickly abandoned the rebrand once the backlash ensued and began drawing complaints from President Donald Trump.