Cracker Barrel loses almost $100 million
in value as stock plunges after new logo release
CBS News,
by
Aimee Picchi
Original Article
Posted By: JoElla Bee,
8/22/2025 1:06:06 AM
Cracker Barrel shed almost $100 million in market value after its stock plunged Thursday following the release of a new logo. The new design eliminates a longstanding drawing of an overall-clad man leaning against a barrel, in favor of a cleaner logo featuring just the chain's name. Shares of Cracker Barrel fell $4.22, or 7.2%, to $54.80 in Thursday trading, shedding $94 million in market value. The stock had dipped to a low of $50.27 earlier in the day, representing a loss of almost $200 billion in its capitalization.
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Reply 1 - Posted by:
SALady 8/22/2025 1:09:31 AM (No. 1993821)
Bud Light: We will commit brand suicide faster than any company in history by going woke!!!!
Jaquar: Hold on just a second, we got you beat!!!
Cracker Barrel: Both of you, hold my beer...
64 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Catherine 8/22/2025 1:27:48 AM (No. 1993826)
All they really needed to do was hire a better cook. The food had really gone downhill.
45 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
HisHandmaiden 8/22/2025 1:47:47 AM (No. 1993832)
Cracker Barrel was a great place to stop for breakfast, lunch or dinner years ago when driving below the Mason Dixon line, particularly with children, as there was quick food and inexpensive gifts to keep kiddos busy while driving. The front porch white rocking chairs were a welcome call. Son still has one on his front porch!
However, food on the other hand not so healthy. Gave myself cancer twice, learned the hard way. Now I just fast after dinner at 7pm, with brunch at about 1 or 2pm. Only black coffee with my morning prayers, then our usual Yorkie walk around the block, by colorful rose bushes near our historic Rose Garden.
TBIYTC
24 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
JimBob 8/22/2025 4:15:26 AM (No. 1993837)
#1, ya beat me to it!
12 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
anniebc 8/22/2025 4:50:24 AM (No. 1993843)
Mediocre is the name of the game. America's not great; it's just average. Public education and DEI. You can bet someone in the company is trying to make a name for themselves or there are consultants involved. Business is full of non-practicing consultants and undeserving and unqualified c-suites across the board, not just DEI.
15 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
kdog 8/22/2025 5:02:31 AM (No. 1993846)
I really don't get the issue here. Companies modernize, "freshen their look", and logos regularly. What's so special about this one?
15 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
sunnyday 8/22/2025 5:28:39 AM (No. 1993851)
#6, Americans have a need for familiarity. It's comforting. It's a welcome mat at the front door. We are weary of all of the people who think they know what we need without consulting us. Now they have to come to terms with what they have done.
41 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
DCGIRL 8/22/2025 6:05:58 AM (No. 1993856)
The CEO's actions were a slap in the Cracker Barrel customer's face. Her actions were so destructive. What the h#ll was she thinking. Did she not see what happened to Bud Light? My bet, she is fired within the next week and they will apologize to their loyal customers.
27 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Californian 8/22/2025 6:12:52 AM (No. 1993858)
6, they took a unique and memorable logo and in store style and turned it into unmemorable generic mush.
With that logo they could be selling school supplies, sports gear, or golf carts.
We do t have any near me but numerous reports online about bad food. They should fave fixed the core product issue not smeared the pig with lipstick.
40 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
rfr46 8/22/2025 6:16:09 AM (No. 1993860)
Board of directors should be removed or sued or both. Then the new branding eliminated immediately with "We're sorry" promotion.
27 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
jeffkinnh 8/22/2025 6:22:16 AM (No. 1993862)
It comes from the arrogance of the people in charge trying to stamp the company with the impression of THEM being in charge.
To be fair, often a company needs a refocusing and some changes but it needs to be done carefully and without ego and with strong appreciation for what is valuable and recognizable from the past. And paramount is, you don't want to tick off your loyal customers. You need them to keep paying the bills while you try to seek new customers. The whole process is a delicate balancing act of sometimes opposing choices.
28 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Strike3 8/22/2025 6:58:21 AM (No. 1993887)
Let that silly blonde CEO laugh this news off in front of the stockholders. As Gomer Pyle used to say, "stupid, stupid, stupid!" On our many trips South we used to look for Cracker Barrels along the Interstate. Now, why bother?
25 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
southerngal 8/22/2025 7:10:41 AM (No. 1993897)
When Cracker Barrel was one of my favorite restaurants, pre Covid. Their food and service, like so many other businesses, went downhill. I pray that the attention this dim wit CEO is bringing to Cracker Barrel will let the organization return to Southern values and excellent food soon.
20 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
billa57 8/22/2025 7:12:25 AM (No. 1993898)
Their whole alure was 'Come have a country family homestyle meal' in a ' country family homestyle' atmosphere. How did someone convince you to slice your own throat? I don't think adopting pro Transvestite, homosexual, and pedophilia policies will be a good look for you.
22 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Venturer 8/22/2025 7:13:59 AM (No. 1993901)
Well: There is always a Waffle House.
24 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 8/22/2025 7:15:53 AM (No. 1993905)
Went woke, going broke!
15 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
sw penn 8/22/2025 7:33:32 AM (No. 1993911)
Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Masino says that "Cracker Barrel needs to feel like the Cracker Barrel for today and for tomorrow."
https://www.lucianne.com/2025/08/21/cracker_barrel_ceo_responds_to_backlash_after_ridiculous_woke_rebrand_and_its_as_bad_as_you_imagine_155515.html
$100 Million dollar "fine" says that's wrong...
Money that could have been better spent paying workers
so that the economy doesn't tank.
15 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
franq 8/22/2025 7:55:08 AM (No. 1993920)
Why does it seem companies start a death spiral when a woman is put in charge?
39 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
Calvinesq 8/22/2025 8:11:25 AM (No. 1993929)
There needs to be a class action lawsuit brought by stockholders against the Board. With a loss of value like that, it’s only a matter of time.
18 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
chumley 8/22/2025 8:14:26 AM (No. 1993930)
Saw a funny picture this morning. It had Sydney Sweeney in a tight Cracker Barrel T shirt in a CB store. The caption was "The only thing that can save Cracker Barrel now."
17 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
bighambone 8/22/2025 8:26:01 AM (No. 1993934)
Well looks like taking the old “cracker” off the Cracker Barrel logo is simply a today’s effort to look more “diverse” which they obviously did not need to do. Every time I stop at a Cracker Barrel I see members of minority groups, especially African-Americans happily chowing down there. Will they recover?
15 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
happywarrior 8/22/2025 8:34:33 AM (No. 1993941)
X has a meme where President Trump is the man leaning against the barrel. It looks great! Lol
10 people like this.
So, Cracker Barrel's CEO is a woman. I will get hate for this, but putting a woman in charge of anything or giving women power seems to be the 21st century recipe for disaster.
33 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
Philipsonh 8/22/2025 9:04:13 AM (No. 1993960)
My wife LOVES C>B> I go with her occasionally. What the H*** is going on with their officials? Stupid is as stupid does. Ask Tom Hanks to give them a piece of his mind.
7 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
NorthernDog 8/22/2025 9:13:10 AM (No. 1993967)
Reminds me of how house flippers paint everything gray and off-white, install new but cheap appliances that are black with a veneer of stainless steel, and then gloat about their brilliance. They really just stripped away all the character. CB customers don't want a citified cafe.
16 people like this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
JHHolliday 8/22/2025 9:14:16 AM (No. 1993968)
New CEOs want to "prove themselves" to show how smart and take charge they are. In this case, CB probably needed a few tweaks here and there but changing the whole look of a successful company is stupid and mostly ego driven. I smell a stockholder lawsuit against the board on this debacle. I would dump my stock too if I owned any.
13 people like this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
Golden Goose 8/22/2025 9:17:44 AM (No. 1993971)
FTA: "Shares of Cracker Barrel fell $4.22, or 7.2%, to $54.80 in Thursday trading, shedding $94 million in market value. The stock had dipped to a low of $50.27 earlier in the day, representing a loss of almost $200 billion in its capitalization.”
Someone has either failed at math or editing.
8 people like this.
Reply 28 - Posted by:
Old Army Vet 8/22/2025 9:26:46 AM (No. 1993981)
Go woke, go broke. Why would you change what works. Leave things be. People like Cracker Barrel just the way it is.
10 people like this.
Reply 29 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 8/22/2025 9:29:28 AM (No. 1993986)
The CEO looks like Ann Coulter with bad glasses. Actually, those look like the glasses they gave you to wear in school plays for the "smartest student in the class," aka "Teacher's Pet."
I now believe Judges should have the power to remove CEO's, as well as entire Boards of Directors of publicly traded companies who have destroyed Shareholder Equity and Value and show a complete lack of understanding regarding how to get Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Instead, the Directors on Boards simply serve on other Corporate Boards themselves, etc., ad nauseum. IOW, publicly traded companies are nothing but a snake-mating-ball of incestuous cronyism which ultimately becomes a combo Chipper/Chopper/Composter/rinse-n-repeat for once great American companies. It goes something like this:
---------
Step One: Assume the CEO role from the retiring founder. ("Old man... never realized what he had here... A Wharton MBA and 5 years at Ernst & Young taught me all about finding value and seizing it.")
Step Two: Open a Corporate Flight Department and go shopping for a new jet. ("The old man never had one? Such a rube!")
Step Three: Elevate Human Resources to an Executive Level Position. Hire someone unafraid to shake things up and kick sum butz. ("We have fun discussing who next to terminate during our corporate jet getaways!")
Step Four: Convince the new MBA credentialed CFO to establish year over year sales growth targets and financial performance goals across the board that no company in America today can meet. ("Yes, it may look tough, but we're better!")
Step Five: Create a "Thou Shalt Not List" for employees, including the wearing any of that schlocky "TGI Fridays 'flair'," especially obnoxious "years of service" lapel pins that no one cares about. ("Older employees drive our insurance costs trough the roof, we want to attract a younger, more diverse clientele. So go ahead and retire already!")
(cont'd below)
8 people like this.
Reply 30 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 8/22/2025 9:58:26 AM (No. 1993997)
Step Six: First year's financials are worse than ever. ("Hey, wait, it's not MY FAULT! It's THEM!")
Everyone is put on notice until the situation improves. Begin plans to shutter "underperforming operations" and facilities in "declining growth-rate" areas, whatever that means. By the end of the evening the "Company Map" is mostly red-x's.
Step Seven: Drastic cost-cutting and census reductions (firings) have resulted in the founder ("Old meddler!") offering to come in part time to help with morale and consumer outreach. He receives no response from HR.
Step Eight: The Company is now "intubated" and on critical life-support. The CEO tells employees, "This is survivable." The CEO tells the Board of Directors, "We need a 'White Knight' to step-in and purchase this company I was tricked into taking... I mean, everyone knows this isn't my fault. Don't you?"
More corporate jet flight-hours logged to Barbados, Cancun, Hamburg, London, Paris, and Madrid in search of "Ms. White Knight")
Step Nine: The Board of Directors begins the search for a new CEO... but selling the company to an outside consortium will bring some really nice bonuses. Besides, the new owner will boot their putrid CEO.
Step Ten: The founder dies. More show up for his funeral than remain at the company headquarters. There's still no buyer for the company. The failed CEO is working for a top management consulting firm dispensing sage advice to companies seeking business opportunities in China. ("I really like travelling to China in the corporate jet!")
Note: That failed CEO, who presided over the total destruction of a great little company, received more compensation in 6 years than did the company founder over his 45 years building a company he loved to go to work at every morning, priding himself on knowing every employee's name.
7 people like this.
Reply 31 - Posted by:
cor-vet 8/22/2025 10:01:29 AM (No. 1993998)
It used to be a good place to enjoy a homestead meal, at a reasonable price. I used to enjoy looking at the memorabilia on the walls, but I guess it was a bear to keep clean and dust free. Changing the logo is no big deal, to me, but the lowering of food quality and value is. IHOP food went down in quality, so we've been catching breakfast at Waffle House. It's quick and reasonable and definitely not fancy!
8 people like this.
Reply 32 - Posted by:
DougTN 8/22/2025 10:08:33 AM (No. 1994000)
Who the heck did the Marketing department use as a focus group? Definitely not CB’s customer base. Funniest scene I’ve ever seen was the Cracker Barrel in Cave City Kentucky. It was not unusual to see Amish buggies in the parking lot. Wish I’d taken pictures.
5 people like this.
Reply 33 - Posted by:
mossley 8/22/2025 10:18:48 AM (No. 1994006)
Cracker Barrel's business has been going down lately, and they need to fix the problem. But the problem is the quality of their food has cratered while prices increased. Their first solution was to add rainbow rocking chairs for Pride month one year. Then they added alcohol to the menu. And now they've removed all the things that were unique to Cracker Barrel. But they haven't addressed the food and prices. Y'all ever get the feeling the CEOs have never been a customer of their business?
9 people like this.
Reply 34 - Posted by:
bighambone 8/22/2025 10:29:58 AM (No. 1994010)
As a old time Cracker Barrel customer I have been wondering if they have not reverted to heating up prepackaged food items and then serving that food to customers who think that the food is cooked and baked in the restaurant. I used to like their meatloaf dinners, but now that plate is hit or miss. Recently I ordered such a dinner and when it was served included just a small piece of the end of a meatloaf and not the substantial portions that they used to serve. During my working life I was away from home quite a lot and we used to eat Cracker Barrel breakfasts and dinners, but never at lunchtime, as their lunches were too big and it took too long to be served. Hopefully they will figure out their quality issues and survive, if not surely some other such business will take their place.
6 people like this.
Reply 35 - Posted by:
paral04 8/22/2025 10:44:38 AM (No. 1994019)
Do these marketing geniuses ever do any customer interviews to see why people go to their restaurants? I would say that people go to Cracker Barrel because they know what to expect. After driving a long way they want the consistency of that place. Not a "woke" surprise.
8 people like this.
Reply 36 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 8/22/2025 11:15:38 AM (No. 1994040)
Cracker Barrel's problem isn't wokeness. There's no transgender spokesperson. There are no rainbow colors. There problem is generic conformity to save money and somehow their critics are twisting that into Wokeness. If they are redefining Wokeness, they can knock themselves out. I do my own thinking, and think this is BS. The left loves to redefine things. Is the right now going to do the same? I know BS when I see it. When both sides are screwing up, don't take sides.
The problem is they have simplified their logo and their interior to CUT COSTS. In a competitive industry, some chose to compete while others milk their business like a cash cow until it dries up and dies. Guess which direction Cracker Barrell is going. Many corporations reached their peak decades ago and continue on life support slowly lurching towards oblivion.
I have been to Cracker Barrell maybe half a dozen times in my life. My experiences ranged from below average to terrible. There are so many other restaurants, it is easy to find better places.
1 person likes this.
Reply 37 - Posted by:
mossley 8/22/2025 11:35:37 AM (No. 1994056)
#36, read the company's "Culture and Inclusion" statement on their website. They are as woke as woke can be.
9 people like this.
Reply 38 - Posted by:
Bassman1911 8/22/2025 11:38:03 AM (No. 1994058)
These corporations hire marketing geniuses. It’s never a good idea to mess with brand recognition and success. I guess they hired the Bud Lite girl.
7 people like this.
Reply 39 - Posted by:
MickTurn 8/22/2025 12:12:33 PM (No. 1994084)
As the saying goes....WOKIE BROKIE!
4 people like this.
Reply 40 - Posted by:
navybrat 8/22/2025 1:10:25 PM (No. 1994111)
The new logo is not an improvement. I could have put it together on Microsoft word.
6 people like this.
Reply 41 - Posted by:
mc squared 8/22/2025 1:11:44 PM (No. 1994112)
. Logos change sometimes but CBS omitted the most important item:
"Cracker Barrel over the past decade has worked closely with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), changing its company culture to be more inclusive and LGBT-friendly ahead of its controversial store rebrand.
The restaurant chain’s former management and training leader, Steve Smotherman, who spearheaded an LGBT employee resource group at Cracker Barrel, went on to sit on the HRC’s Business Advisory Council, Upward News reported.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/cracker-barrel-exec-went-sit-hrc-business-advisory-council
9 people like this.
Reply 42 - Posted by:
JoElla Bee 8/22/2025 1:43:07 PM (No. 1994123)
Yes, thank you #41. Proving once again that it is best to base opinions on objective facts and knowledge, rather than subjective feelings and emotion.
5 people like this.
Cracker Barrel was always like going into my grandmother's house, snooping around her basement or me saying oh I remember that thing or I have one of those. It was a history lesson of how hard people had to work and little that they had.
But, history isn't taught well these days, so this generation hasn't a feel for the items on the wall or even what a cracker barrel really is. I guess they will be putting up pictures of early video games like PONG and He man toys on the wall or generic flower photos that include DEI details. It's nothing but the CB diner now. Another step in eliminating our history.
3 people like this.
Reply 44 - Posted by:
DVC 8/22/2025 5:37:06 PM (No. 1994189)
They started downhill when they started being homosexual and other sexual crazies 'friendly'. Nobody wants a prancing pervert as a waiter, or a sumo wrestler lesbian with metal in her face and purple hair, either.
Cracker Barrel was about NORMALCY, and bringing in the circus freaks does NOT attract customers.
7 people like this.
Reply 45 - Posted by:
Historybuff 8/22/2025 6:57:57 PM (No. 1994212)
They discarded Uncle Hershel The uncle of the founder of Cracker Barrel
Now without him explain what a Cracker Barrel is.
Don’t think she has any clue about the company history.
4 people like this.
Reply 46 - Posted by:
anniebc 8/22/2025 7:09:13 PM (No. 1994215)
Thank you poster 29-30. So, so true.
0 people like this.
Reply 47 - Posted by:
3XALADY 8/22/2025 7:34:05 PM (No. 1994223)
I had read that the CEO before the present one started the woke stuff and she just continued on. Poster says the earlier one's salary for 8 years was more than the founders' for his whole working life. I also read people didn't like the shopping area, it was too cluttered. I loved shopping there and always found something to buy. When I walk into a restaurant, I don't think 'well that wood collects dust.' I look forward to the good food. I will say I have seen comments that the food quality had fallen and that the fried apples were taken off the menu, along with another much loved item that I don't remember what was. Hold my beer, Cracker Barrel.
0 people like this.
Reply 48 - Posted by:
YorkieMom 8/22/2025 9:36:04 PM (No. 1994248)
I haven't been to Cracker Barrel for a long time, but I think it's sad that they got rid of Uncle Herschel.
3 people like this.