Cracker Barrel fired the grapeshot on August 17th with a new logo and the presentation of a new, cleaner, more streamlined restaurant design. The likely corporate expectation was that a “shock and awe” move would subdue the old loyalists who treasured the nostalgic ethos of the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain. After all, in the 1970s and 80s, hadn’t the youthful managed to cow their elders into accepting all kinds of crazy newfangled things—computers, tofu, live-in boyfriends—by accusing the latter of resisting progress?
The new restaurant design looked clean and crisp, and like virtually any other high-end high-concept semi-fast food eatery. Cracker Barrel clearly was hoping that its restaurants would blend into the general mix of eateries and become more palatable to younger, more urban and suburban folks. The next step probably would have been to get rid of table service and have you order on a kiosk.
Instead of the jumble of antique and old posters and objects tacked to the walls, they would be organized in neat rows by category, thus unremarkable. If this reminds you of people who buy bushels of books by the color of their spines for decorative purposes, it should.
Cracker Barrel stock dropped 12 percent in the days after the announcement. For a week, the Cracker Barrel general staff (a.k.a. ‘management’) fended off the angry masses—the loyalists who saw their values under attack—before seeming to relent. They announced they would return to the beloved logo from 1977 that showed Uncle Herschel or “Old-Timer” next to a soda cracker barrel that was a mainstay of the quintessentially American general store. Given that the new logo reminded many of us of a discount tire store, this was a sound artistic move. The trend to minimalism in branding has not worked well for brands whose character truly is distinctive, such as Cracker Barrel and Jaguar.
As tempting as it might be to characterize the episode as wokism gone wild, there was a clear business imperative behind the Cracker Barrel campaign. Cracker Barrel’s stock price had reached a record high in 2018, but the pandemic dealt a serious blow to the chain and the stock price has plummeted even before the logo fiasco. Store growth, robust in the 1990’s, has slowed in recent years.
Understandably then, Cracker Barrel wants to expand its customer base. The customers who appreciated the old-timey ethos and the free but not gluten-free muffins and biscuits, who like the friendly reliable service and the non-trendy entrees, are aging out. Travelers like Cracker Barrel too, and are willing to give up a full hour to dine there, but even those travelers tend not to be young. If you go to a Cracker Barrel on a Sunday night, you will see older people, black and white, and larger, multigenerational blue-collar families. You can see why Cracker Barrel wanted to experiment. The kind of people they wanted to win over think it’s great that a restaurant supports LGBTQ causes and fights climate change, and don’t see any problem with restaurant chains promoting both along with fried chicken baskets.
This is suggested by the comments made by the Cracker Barrel Board Chairman when Julie Feiss Masino became CEO last year. “We believe Julie ‘s track record as an innovator and a leader, together with her strategic thinking and passion for growth, will ensure that Cracker Barrel remains a place where people feel welcomed and cared for like family as we extend our hospitality to an even broader array of guests.”
If Cracker Barrel wants to appeal to younger, hipper folks, a.k.a. “yippers,” the branding that had been so successful since 1969 was an obstacle. Yippers want fast food, and would just as soon not use forks and knives. They want to be cool, and old wooden furniture like what their parents want to hand down to them, a giant chess board in front of a fireplace, and stuff hanging on walls that just remind them of times that as their teachers told them, represented old, racist America, will not do it. Few in that demographic are saying, “hey, let’s go to Cracker Barrel.”
Here indeed is an interesting but not unknown marketing challenge. I am sure that some managers were asking, “can we get rid of that word ‘cracker’ altogether’? ‘Barrel’s’ a problem too. Who uses a barrel?” but that was a bridge too far. Indeed, nobody likely realized that the vaunted “cracker” referred to soda crackers. At least they stopped short of changing the chain’s name, which could have ended up as “Fried Apple Hut ‘n what’s up.”
Cracker Barrel could have been tactically savvier by conducting a more stealth campaign that did not invite PR disaster and stock plunges. Perhaps it would have served the company better to begin by quietly redecorating individual restaurants, overhaul cute gift shop kitsch; beef up the takeout business; sneak a few healthier options onto the menu (but wasn’t that supposed to be the pecan-encrusted trout, which is very good?), and see whether it made the demographics move. The boldness of the move angered the loyal customers, who suspected they were being eased into the dining equivalent of assisted living, while not winning over the yippers. You cannot seem to be dissing your loyal customer base. Winning over yippers is a longterm project. The key is to affirm your loyal customers while attracting new ones.
The shock and awe campaign also fed the widespread conviction that the woke have sought to take over corporate America, and are targeting beloved brands that are identified with a retrograde constituency (cf. “Bud Light”). Brands that were identified with the past or with a male, blue-collar constituency were targeted for reform. Cracker Barrel’s website admits its own leftward shift: “In 2020, we took additional steps to deepen our approach on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.” Hmm, did something important happen in 2020 to prompt this change? And did Cracker Barrel wait too long to change that logo? Uncle Herschel could have been sent years ago to wherever Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, and the Land O’ Lakes Indian maiden are hanging out, with minimal blowback. Too late.
More rightwing patrons on social media are charging that Cracker Barrel food and service quality had been declining for several years, allegedly while its management pursued “Environmental, Social, and Governance” (ESG) objectives. I have to admit this has not been my family’s experience at our usual locations in Front Royal, VA and Sturbridge, MA, although it was a bit of a shock when they dropped the pot roast entrée without any explanation, and twice we had to ask for the biscuit basket. Was it an animal rights issue? A supplier issue? Did they decide that yippers were uninterested in pot roast? None of our waiters could tell us.
In addition to restoring the logo, Cracker Barrel quietly removed the LGBTQ+ Pride and DEI pages from its website, although one will find plenty of virtue signaling in the “sustainability” reports and its continued allegiance to ESG. Cracker Barrel has kept all the ESG statements back to 2020 on its website, so if you want to check out the DEIB pages, you can. The environmental and social posturing is still there, and you will learn that 40 percent of the company Board is female, and 40 percent “diverse,” as opposed to “non-diverse.”
With all the furor about the logo—even President Trump weighed in—Cracker Barrel made no promises about the restaurant design except to agree to keep the rocking chairs on the porch for now. All in all, it seems that Cracker Barrel has lost a skirmish, but still occupies the heights. Wouldn’t you like to hear what their general staff is discussing in the war room? I do not think my pot roast is coming back.
Paula T. Weiss is the author of The Antifan Girlfriend and The Deplorable Underground.