Read the article again. They're not talking about a couple of bad apple local managers:

...The complaint alleges that Cracker Barrel, a unit of CBRL Group Inc., denied service to black diners in 200 cities nationwide, made them wait longer than white customers for service, and seated them in segregated areas, often the smoking section of the restaurant.

200 cities nationwide as a deliberate pattern is not plausible. Either one has to assume that they accidentally hired hundreds of racist managers, or that it is a deliberate corporate policy, transmitted nationwide to hundreds of separate managers who then accepted it without question, which is ludicrous. Sorry.

It's worth noting that, according to the corporate response, a lot of the same plaintiffs (82%) were involved in a previous wage-and-hour lawsuit against the same company by the same firm.

This is a shakedown, pure and simple.