The Washington, D.C., law firm that two years ago joined the NAACP in alleging racial discrimination against black employees at Cracker Barrel Old Country Store restaurants on Thursday filed a $100 million lawsuit accusing the restaurant chain of widespread discrimination against black customers. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Rome, Ga., and seeks class-action status.

Cracker Barrel restaurants are accused of providing black customers with poor service, "segregating" them from white customers and giving them food taken from the trash in a lawsuit filed by Gordon, Silberman, Wiggin & Childs on behalf of 21 customers, 19 of them blacks and two whites.

"The descriptions of the treatment endured by African-American customers in these restaurants is appalling," said attorney David Sanford.

The lawsuit charges racial discrimination is pervasive throughout the 443 restaurants in 40 states operated by Lebanon, Tenn.-based CBRL Group Inc. South Florida locations are in Boynton Beach, Deerfield Beach, Pembroke Pines and West Palm Beach.

But company President Donald M. Turner strongly disputed claims of discrimination and said "our service is color blind."

"The allegations made today against Cracker Barrel are simply not true," Turner said. "Cracker Barrel treats its customers with dignity and respect. These baseless allegations insult the company and our 50,000 employees who work hard to give our customers courteous treatment."

He said the company, which last year had $1.96 billion in sales, would vigorously defend itself against the allegations.

Turner said the company had hoped to settle the employment discrimination lawsuit filed in 1999 on behalf of 12 employees by the Washington, D.C., law firm and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

"We were in mediation on that; now we're back in discovery," said Turner. "This new lawsuit today was a surprise to me. Maybe it's part of their strategy."

Lawyers say the accounts of discrimination against customers came as a result of their investigating charges of employment bias.

In the employment discrimination lawsuit, the NAACP said it spent more than three years documenting incidents of racial abuse against black employees.

That was not the first time the company was criticized for its employment practices.

In 1991, the company drew criticism for saying that it would not employ "individuals whose sexual preferences fail to demonstrate normal heterosexual values." Cracker Barrel later rescinded the statement.

Turner said the company's practice for the past six years is to have managers and employees receive diversity training to ensure that customers and workers are treated with respect.

Restaurant patrons, he said, have voted Cracker Barrel the "best family dining" restaurant for 11 years in a row in a survey by Restaurants and Institutions magazine.

"People keep coming back to see us because they like our food, they like our value -- and they like the way they are treated," Turner said.

But statements by 310 current and former Cracker Barrel employees, more than half of whom are white, back up the allegations of company-wide discrimination, the lawsuit says. One former employee alleges that he saw white staff members serving black diners food from the trash.

Combined, the employee and customer accounts detail discrimination against blacks in Cracker Barrel restaurants in 175 cities in 30 states, including Florida, the lawsuit contends.

Jacquelin Widzins, a white waitress who worked at Cracker Barrel in Boynton Beach in 1999, is among 19 former Florida employees whose testimony is part of the lawsuit.

Widzins told lawyers she witnessed "African-Americans receiving slower and less courteous service than white customers ... and being denied the Cracker Barrel-mandated free meal after complaining about the quality of food or service."

Another white waitress, Natalye James, who worked in the Pembroke Pines restaurant in 1999, said she witnessed slower and less courteous service to black customers. She also "routinely witnessed African-Americans being subject to racially derogatory remarks by Cracker Barrel staff."

Former employee Judith Robertson, who worked on the company's customer hotline, said that Cracker Barrel each month received about 300 calls alleging discrimination against minority customers.

The lawsuit seeks a court order blocking further acts of discrimination and compensation for customers along with punitive damages of $100 million.