Cracker Barrel implemented a major rebrand including a flattened logo, removal of its barrel-sitting mascot, and an interior overhaul toward a bland "modern farmhouse" aesthetic. Customers began posting negative reactions as early as May, criticizing the new interiors as less inviting, warm, and unique. Online critics and everyday patrons called the redesign ugly, dreary, and cheap-looking. Conservatives framed the change as an attack on traditional (read: straight, white) culture. CEO Julie Masino publicly defended the changes, saying feedback was overwhelmingly positive and results affirmed the new direction, generating widespread controversy.
Our way of life (eating watery grits while staring at a rusty washboard hung up next to an old Texaco sign) is under attack! Cracker Barrel - the Tennessee-based chain restaurant famous for its kitschy old general-store aesthetic, rocking chairs out front, and convenient placement next to highway off-ramps - has become the latest brand to undergo complete self-immolation in a misguided grasp at streamlined modernity. As a result, it has pretty much pissed off the entire country in the process.
The backlash began earlier this summer when the chain rolled out its brand-new "refreshed look and feel": a new flattened, plain logo and disappearance of the "mascot," an old dude sitting next to a barrel. Far more egregious an affront to the overall guest experience is the drab, sterile gut job on the restaurant's iconic interior design. As early as May, visitors began posting about the new look.
This negative buzz turned into a full-blown national crisis for Cracker Barrel as a company and America at large when CEO Julie Masino went on Good Morning America to answer for her crimes address the controversy. "It's working. The results affirm that we're heading in the right direction," she told Michael Strahan. She said things like, "The feedback's been overwhelmingly positive that people like what we're doing," and, "The buzz is so good," in a way that seemed divorced f
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