Just about everybody had an opinion in late August after Cracker Barrel revealed its new logo, and not a lot of them were positive. Almost anybody asked talked about the brand’s “mistakes” and how it “underestimated” its audience. Many of which may be true.
But Cracker Barrel didn’t make a mistake so much as it got hit by a bus.
As a reminder: The company hired Julie Felss Masino, a former Taco Bell executive, to be CEO two years ago. She has since driven a $700 million transformation plan that was to include upgrades to its restaurants, marketing, menu and kitchen operations.
It’s the type of transformation plan deployed by companies like Starbucks, McDonald’s, Burger King, multiple Yum Brands concepts and many others. There’s almost nothing in there we haven’t seen many, many times.
In August, Cracker Barrel revealed the new logo as part of the transformation. The logo was publicized by mainstream publications like Morning Brew and, of all things, the gaming and culture site Dexerto.
Social media took over from there, and decided that it didn’t like the new logo, which scrapped the image of “Herschel” next to a barrel, never mind that for years the company frequently used similar, person-free versions of the logo. Mainstream media piled on over and over again and the result was an absolute furor.
One of the worst parts about living in the current era is the way mobs form on social media to take down people, businesses or products. Influential social media users decide something is bad and fan the flames. These uproars take on a life of their own, often trampling any opposing viewpoint or question.
These uproars are almost impossible to predict and are difficult to fully control. Some of the targets deserve it. Others do not. But once they get going, they are notoriously difficult to stop. Several chains over the years have been targets. All of them lost sales afterward.
In Cracker Barrel’s case, the company’s stock tanked almost immediately. One week later, the company opted not to change its logo and said it would stop remodeling its locations, after President Trump himself commented on the issue.
Cracker Barrel had no choice. The uproar cost the company considerable sales and traffic that will take a year—and probably more—to recover from. Traffic was down 1% in the first half of August. After Aug. 19, its traffic was down 8%. The company expects traffic to be down 7% to 8% in the current period.
Before the uproar, the company was showing real progress. Its stock price had been up 30% in the 12 months leading up to the logo introduction.
Its same-store sales had been outperforming both full-service and family-dining chains. Its 5.4% same-store sales last quarter outperformed every other family-dining concept and beat the sector average by 310 basis points, and the full-service sector by 340 basis points.
Only five restaurant chains outperformed that figure: Chili’s, Dutch Bros, Olive Garden, Texas Roadhouse and LongHorn Steakhouse.
Cracker Barrel has been outperforming its family-dining rivals on both a one- and a two-year basis for the past year, at least.
Some of the pushback online came from sources that had a previous bone to pick with Cracker Barrel.
Much of the uproar was fueled by social media accounts pushing back against the company over its DEI initiatives, which had been in place before the current CEO took over. Cracker Barrel in July was targeted by a right-wing legal group over its policies on diversity, equity and inclusion. The same group has also targeted Texas Roadhouse.
They certainly do not need to agree with their DEI policies. But we have a tough time understanding what a mediocre logo has to do with that. It’s not as if the company’s new color scheme was a rainbow.
Maybe the biggest and most aggressive social media account pushing back on the whole thing was Steak n Shake, which has taken an unusual interest in the controversy involving Cracker Barrel.
Since Aug. 19, Steak n Shake has sent out 43 posts through its account on X.com, not including reposts of other accounts. Only nine of those did not have anything to do with Cracker Barrel in one form or the other. That’s an almost obsessive level of interest in one restaurant chain by another restaurant chain with which it doesn’t really compete.
Steak n Shake has aligned itself closely with conservative interests, which has apparently worked wonders for its same-store sales.
The chain is selling Make America Great Again-style hats saying, “Fire the CEO.” Biglari Holdings has put up a billboard with that same phrase in the design of the now-killed logo. And, right on cue, Biglari has officially called for Masino’s head.
SURPRISE BONUS to all who recently bought a hat with a free gift card to Steak n Shake! The EXTRA BONUS CONTINUES this week! It's an insanely great deal. Get your hat and gift card while this deal lasts.
— Steak 'n Shake (@SteaknShake) September 9, 2025
The surprise is that we have doubled the gift card bonus from $20 to… pic.twitter.com/0ZynQ2Iio3
Steak n Shake’s interest has nothing to do with competitive dynamics and everything to do with the chairman of its owner, Biglari Holdings. Sardar Biglari has engineered numerous campaigns against Cracker Barrel dating back years and has the clearest and most obvious agenda of anybody involved in the controversy.
His proxy fight this time is calling for votes against Masino and her fellow director, Gilbert Dávila. He is not actually trying for seats on the board this time. It’s likely too late for that, anyway. Instead, he calls the effort “a referendum on a company that we fear has completely lost its way and, in the process, precipitated an entirely avoidable destruction of shareholder value.”
Regardless, Biglari’s actions on social media and the subsequent timing of the proxy fight have raised more than a few eyebrows and some speculation that this has been a paid influencer campaign to put pressure on Cracker Barrel. We’re not sure about that, but there’s no question that Biglari has a long-established agenda and is taking full advantage of the uproar.
It's worth pointing out, however, that Biglari is no longer that big a Cracker Barrel shareholder. He controls less than 3% of the company stock. At one point he had 20%.
None of this is to say that Cracker Barrel didn’t make mistakes. The company clearly missed something in its rebranding effort.
Yet the logo uproar hides a likely bigger issue in the struggles of its Maple Street Biscuit Co. brand, a concept that Cracker Barrel acquired before Masino arrived. The company closed 14 locations of the 68-unit brand and probably should consider selling it, which Biglari has been demanding for years.
But by all accounts Cracker Barrel itself was doing fine until social media decided it didn’t like a rebranding and then certain people with alternative agendas did everything they could to fan the flames. We’re not sure that a moderately-substandard logo was worth all of that.