(FiveNation.com)- Yet another nationwide business has announced that it would be leaving Portland, Oregon, due to the untenable climate in the ultra-liberal city.
Cracker Barrel announced this week that it would be closing all of its locations in the Portland metro area. While the company didn’t have the same public safety and theft concerns that other companies such as Walmart have with Portland, the restaurant chain said the economy after the pandemic is to blame.
A spokesman for Cracker Barrel commented:
“As a standard course of business, we continually evaluate the performance of our stores, using various criteria to ensure we are meeting the needs of our guests and our business. With that, we are saddened that we have been unable to overcome the impact the pandemic had on our business and have made the difficult decision to close the Beaverton, Tualatin and Bend locations.”
While Cracker Barrel didn’t specifically mention that crime was a factor that their business was struggling in the Portland area, many other companies have. Crime has been on the huge upswing in the liberal city since back in 2020.
In addition to multiple businesses leaving the city that’s been overrun by riots, plenty of residents have also fled Portland due to the rapidly and continually deteriorating living and safety conditions.
The Cracker Barrel spokesman continued:
“The decision to close a store is never one we take lightly, and our focus right now is in assisting our impacted employees during this transition. We extend our sincere thanks to our employees who worked so hard to keep our fireplace glowing and to the guests who have dined with us, celebrated with us, and made us part of their community.
“We look forward to reconnecting with them at other times at nearby Cracker Barrels in the future.”
Late last year, the CEO of Walmart, Doug McMillon, predicted that there would be a mass exodus from Portland due to the overwhelming crime in the region. As he said while appearing on CNBC:
“Theft is an issue. It’s higher than what it has historically been.”
The Oregonian newspaper has tried to report that the fact that national chains have departed from Oregon as the retail trend in the progressive city is due to the culture shift that’s happening toward more mom-and-pop businesses.
The problem with that line of thinking is that outlets created in the city known as The Green Zebra were created in that mode, but even they’re closing their doors after being in business for 10 years.
In a statement, the company’s CEO, Lisa Sedlar said they “fought the good fight” but aren’t able to survive anymore. She said:
“We have been holding on by a thread since the pandemic started and have been in austerity mode since then. We experienced nine straight quarters of increases to our cost of goods, packaging, fuel, insurance, taxes, freight charges and, well, pretty much everything.
“Combine that with supply chain and staffing shortages and razor-thin grocery margins, we just couldn’t overcome all the obstacles.”
