"Yes, the point of going to Cracker Barrel is like you're going to Grandma's. Now it's like you're going to her nursing home. " Tweet by Joe Perrone
Cracker Barrel created a firestorm of controversy this week when it announced it was changing the logo as many complained the company replaced a beloved logo with corporate blandness.
Even worse, Cracker Barrel announced it was "updating" its restaurants from this:
to this:
National Review's Jim Geraghty called the so-called modernization a "corporate misfire":
The good news is that the newly redesigned Cracker Barrel logo doesn’t really qualify as “woke.” The bad news is that it is painfully generic and boring, and you can’t begrudge anybody who liked the restaurant chain from recoiling at a redesign that removes the sitting grandfatherly figure and leaves Generic Country Font Number Seven atop some half-melted Velveeta. I might not be that far off with the Velveeta metaphor. The company’s press release stated the following: “Its more popular menu offerings like farm fresh scrambled eggs and buttermilk biscuits even serve as inspiration behind the hues of a refreshed color palette featured in the new campaign. Anchored in Cracker Barrel’s signature gold and brown tones, the updated visuals will appear across menus and marketing collateral, including the fifth evolution of the brand’s logo, which is now rooted even more closely to the iconic barrel shape and word mark that started it all.” This comes after the chain redesigned its interiors to give them a “brighter, more contemporary look,” which some fans of the restaurant didn’t welcome at all. The chain’s interiors were well known for dark woods and the walls being covered in near-antique signs and tchotchkes, designed to emulate a combination of your grandmother’s kitchen and the back of your grandfather’s garage. The new look is indeed lighter and brighter; one person who liked it said, “It’s like Joanna Gaines [of HGTV] was here.” Of course, this makes the interior of a Cracker Barrel look a lot more like most other restaurants out there. You might be asking, “Who cares?” But this was a big enough deal to Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino to announce the changes on ABC’s Good Morning America Tuesday..... Note that this isn’t really a struggling brand. Cracker Barrel is currently the 34th biggest restaurant chain in the United States, bigger than the Cheesecake Factory, Five Guys, and Waffle House.... People are resistant to change in general, but it is understandable that they’re particularly resistant to change in a restaurant chain whose appeal has always included an element of nostalgia. And perhaps there is an ideological or sensibility aspect to the reactions; the people who are most inclined to dislike sudden drastic changes are the ones inclined to try to conserve things they like. Cracker Barrel isn’t supposed to be “modernized,” and it isn’t supposed to be hip or cool or edgy. The bland new logo — which looks like it could be an app on your phone — imitates lots of other corporate logos by shifting toward abstract minimalism. (Mr. Pringle doesn’t even have an oval for a face anymore, he’s just some floating disembodied eyes, eyebrows, and a mustache, a sort of Eldritch Lovecraftian horror staring at you unnervingly as you eat your chips.)... Masino was named president and CEO of Cracker Barrel in July 2023, so she’s been in that role for a bit more than two years. She was previously the president of Taco Bell international from 2020 to 2023, and before that, the president of the taco chain’s North American operations. Prior to that, she’d served as corporate president at toymaker Mattel, Sprinkles Cupcakes, and other roles at Starbucks. We’ve seen this happen a lot at a lot of brands: The appetite to attract new customers spurs the company to change the product, but in the process, the changes drive away the existing customers who liked the product just the way it was. Cracker Barrel had a very clear identity. As Mary Katharine Ham put it, “This seems almost like intentional sabotage. No one wants a minimalist Cracker Barrel. We want Hoarders: Southern Grandma Edition. If it doesn’t look like Meemaw and Peepaw’s, with the only concession to modernity is removing ashtrays, I’m out.” I also liked the comment, “The point of going to Cracker Barrel is like you’re going to Grandma’s. Now it’s like you’re going to her nursing home.” A new CEO has arrived and is attempting to modernize the look of the brand. Now, it doesn’t look all that different from First Watch.
Much was made of the sudden dive in Cracker Barrel's stock price that immediately took place Thursday after the announcement was made. The stock price opened Thursday at $58.80 per share and plummeted to 50.77 but 11:30 AM. However, it rallied to 54.91 by market close. It rose slightly in after hours trading and closed at $54.40 yesterday.
Although no company likes losing $4 per share in one day, Cracker Barrel's stock price a year ago was $40 per share. However, the company reached a share price of $71 in July.
The Taco Bell Queen laughed off the criticism and said the company is moving full speed ahead with its new look.
Kingfish note: It appears Cracker Barrel is going to do what McDonald's did to its restaurants. You know, those grown and gray buildings resembling prisons.
48 comments:
Cracker Barrel has been declining in quality for years now. I remember going on road trips in the early 2000s and everything being good at pretty much every restaurant we went to. The past several years, it's been slow service, cold food, hard biscuits, and mediocre employees. The Cracker Barrel in Jackson closed a few years ago. I'm not sure how that happened to this day, though. It seemed really busy every day.
We are about to find out how many new customers they gain from this compared to the number of. Customers they lose.
Mister Rogers:
" Today Mister McFeely and I welcome back our special lil' neighbor
Miss Dylan Mulvany".
" Hello Miss Mulvany".
" Do you like the new Cracker Barrel .. .can you say Bud light stock price " ?
" I knew you could".
So the interior is changing from Cracker Barrel to Denny's?
Go woke, go broke! (I guess they didn't get the memo explaining that Woke is no longer fashionable).
Who cares? I don’t know a single person who goes to Cracker Barrel. How are people getting gaslit by this? Yes the new logo looks like prison Mcdonald’s. But again, WHO cares? Only people who let themselves get gaslit by people in the gaslighting business.
It's a sure bet that people making a big deal about this were not regular customers in the first place. Just the outrage du jour.
Pass me a Bud Lite
Water crisis
What Sardar Biglari doing?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CAGm8cRW_7s
please stop effin with my biscuits
I take all my restaurant advice from the National Review. That’s my first thought anytime I’m traveling and it’s a meal time. What does the National Review think?
Maybe you should try time magazine!
I know a lot of single people who eat there. Married couples too.
" So the interior is changing from Cracker Barrel to Denny's" ?
The new decor actually looks more like a 2003 Bed, Bath and Beyond store.
I don't know what the fuss is about - other than some folks who like to use the overworked "woke" moniker everytime something changes and it makes it to social media prominence.
As for me, only eaten at CB a couple of times over the past few years - but all this noise has made me want some of their blueberry pancakes. Heading out to Pearl next week for a stack - and don't give a damn what the interior looks like.
They just lost their personality.
Iconic gave way to bland and
utterly boring. Good job from corporate management. 🙁
https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/cracker-barrel-exec-went-sit-hrc-business-advisory-council The HRC worked extremely hard to elect Kamala and constantly attacks Republicans.
The HRC also supports sex changes for kids and men in women’s bathrooms/locker-rooms.
Why has Cracker Barrel been funding the HRC who seem to work against the values of the majority of Cracker Barrel customers?
3:04 is right. Their food and service is not good anymore. I remember having to wait for a seat at Jackson and Pearl - not anymore. This is corporate ignoring the root of the problem - substandard food and service - and pretending that the new look will draw in the customers they lost.
I've never understood why restaurants worry so much about branding and don't focus on the food and service. Mississippi is proof positive some of our best food comes from the least appealing buildings and places. FOCUS ON THE FOOD and quit trying to reinvent dining !!!!!!!!
CEO "If it's not broken, let's fix it."
If something works, don’t mess with it! I remember when the CEO of Coca-Cola changed the formula of the most consumed beverage on the planet so it wound taste more like Pepsi (the new formula was called New Coke).Within months he had to bring back the original, due to declining sales.
Looks like a Solution to an Imaginary Problem to me...but that's all some people have to do...Remember "New Coke?"
Robbie Starbuck did a deep dive into this: https://notthebee.com/article/its-not-just-the-logo-watch-robby-starbuck-document-the-decade-long-slide-into-wokeness-by-cracker-barrel-corporate
All I know is the food has gotten horrible, clearly they aren't spending time learning to properly cook, I wouldn't go back just because the food is tasteless
My wife and I used to eat there. Always an ethnically diverse crowd. It was always just good southern food. But then, as others have said, the food got bad. The decor and service and patrons weren’t the issue. Maybe they started hiring illegals as chefs?
What does "woke" have to do with this change?
God forbid they update their decor
Blackrock and their type own these stores. The real estate is more valuable than the food sales. So if the chain dies new biz can be put in its place. Plus the people who eat here are on deaths door and not being replaced by anyone. So the 50 year old old school look is gone. Stores probably gone too. Had a good run.
Prediction: Cracker Barrel will have spent millions of dollars "updating" the brand and decor for zero net gain.
Crapper Barrel.
Never thought it was about being woke. Just continuing the current trend to corporate blandness. Looking around online, the most common complaint seems to be food and service. I went to one in Marietta several times this year. Crowd was a nice mix of ages. Majority were middle-aged with some young and old thrown in. IN other words, typical for a restaurant. Food was fine. However, the service sucked.
In this case, we will be able to see how it is going after two or three quarterly filings.
What is problematic is spending $700 million on rebrand when that could have been spent on improving the quality of the food and service.
9:30 - You nailed it, KF. Chick-fil-A has gone through all sorts of controversy based on the very factor that you don't want it to be about these days - religion and closing on Sundays. They still haven't budged off that one. If you see improvements that they've made and money they've spent on increased infrastructure at their locations (more drive-thru access, covered areas with shade and blowing fans for actual people outside taking your order and expediting), they've done it all to improve service. They didn't have to do anything with the food - it's just fucking delicious.
As did Chili's.
“Service sucked.”
Just one man’s theory about why service sucks more than it doesn’t at MOST restaurants he has visited in the last 5 years or so: (1) a usually rectangular shaped device known as a cell phone, (2) restaurants are hiring employees of lower character and responsibility, and (3) the mixture of both of which cause a lack of care about the diners who are there for a reason.
Whether chains or locally owned.
Put your money where your morals are
This is exactly what they did to Red Lobster....they want the land, not the "American" business.
I suspect Ms. Masino just couldn't stand having an old white guy in the logo of "her" company.
Instead of changing the brand to suit her sensibilities, perhaps she just isn't a good fit for this brand.
$700K to rebrand, only to remove an old, white guy from their logo while all the while leaving "cracker" in their name.
Changing the logo and what the restaurant looks like inside is easy, just spend the money and it's done.
Improving the quality and consistency of the food served is hard. It takes changing employee attitudes and work habits.
Improving customer service in a restaurant is also hard.
Red Lobster is making a comeback with there Seafood Boil Bags! Lobster, crab legs, dozen Shrimp, corn and potatoes . Their new CEO looks like a genius.
I looked up the “Early Life” of the Cracker Barrel CEO behind these changes and was not surprised by what I found.
Out of sheer curiosity, can someone please articulate what’s supposed to be woke about the rebrand?
Bacon so thin I can almost see through, as is Waffle House's. When I take Mama to the doctor, she always points out a Cracker Barrel. Old people do love them some Cracker Barrel.
Whining about everything being woke is being a thin-skinned beta. Don't like the changes-don't go. This is America. We aren't forced to eat anywhere we don't want to when we choose to go out.
Quality was already in the tank but with a rebrand comes something no one wants. HIGHER PRICES for crappy service.
Cracker Barrel used to be a favorite stop, but after multiple and I mean multiple visits with abysmal service and cold food, no more. The final straw was a 25 minute wait for a server to show up. The excuse was the previous server left and no one took her or his area. Sorry Cracker Barrel, a redesign of your sign wont bring us back. Maybe you should have put some of the redesign money toward hiring a training your staff.
I actually enjoyed meals there 20 years ago.
Since then, the few times i've bothered I have been so disappointed in the bland, lukewarm, Cisco level frozen food they serve.
Bold of them to think decor would fix the subpar under seasoned mush they serve.
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