It happened again. Another legendary American institution has been targeted by woke leftists. This time it is the popular family restaurant chain, Cracker Barrel, founded in 1969.
This is the restaurant people love visiting for its old-fashioned flavor, wholesome Americana in the gift store and great comfort food. It is a welcome respite for travelers who need a break after hours on the highway.
Unfortunately, this successful restaurant chain has been targeted by leftists unhappy with anything that reflects Southern hospitality. The woke CEO of Cracker Barrel, Julie Masino, has announced a new logo. Gone is the image of the elderly gentleman, along with the barrel, and the phrase “Old Country Store.” The replacement is the antiseptic wording “Cracker Barrel” with no images.
Unfortunately, it is not just the logo that Masino and the Board of Directors are changing. The interior of the restaurants will be revamped. The dark wood and relaxing atmosphere will be gone. It will be replaced with lighter paneling and a more modern décor. Henceforth, Cracker Barrel will appear like countless other forgettable restaurant chains. The originality, the uniqueness and the Southern charm will be gone, replaced by the look of a hospital cafeteria.
Obviously, fans of the restaurant chain have expressed their anger at these ill-advised changes. After abandoning their roots, Cracker Barrel suffered a financial setback with a loss of $200 million in market value.
Why did the CEO find it imperative to change the logo? It was for the same reason the marketing geniuses at Bud Light hired Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender celebrity, to pitch beer to a conservative customer base.
These so-called experts want to freshen up the image, make it more “hip” and “modern,” while appealing to a more diverse base of consumers. The problem with this strategy is that it ignores the loyal clientele who have created the successful brand in the first place.
As corporate brand expert Andrew Beck explained to The Daily Wire, “These rebrands are meant to signal a positive change, but because of the lack of imagination and ingenuity on the part of their consultants who are supposed to be ‘experts’ on these matters, the sanitized, sterile aesthetics of their environments and communications become reminders to the customer that the company’s better days are behind it.”
As longtime Cracker Barrel employee Erik Russell explained to conservative commentator Benny Johnson, the initial changes were significant, but not as noticeable. It started with changing the menus and the uniforms and replacing real antiques with “generic reproductions.” Corporate leaders also decided to allow the sale of alcohol inside the restaurants, which changed the “family atmosphere” of Cracker Barrel.
Russell noted, “The logo and store redesign is simply the last step in total brand destruction by corporate vandals who seemed to despise the Cracker Barrel core culture. He continued, “I felt like I was part of something truly American, full of nostalgia and tradition...replaced with just another bland, soulless corporate chain.”
Competitors of Cracker Barrel are taking advantage of this turmoil by emphasizing a contrasting vision. Steak ‘n Shake posted on their social media that Cracker Barrel’s new “goal is to just delete the personality altogether. Hence, the elimination of the ‘old-timer’ from the signage.”
It also claimed that the “CEO wants to just scrape” the “heritage” “all away.” Steak ‘n Shake stressed that their restaurants take “pride in our history, our families, and American values. All are welcome. We will never market ourselves away from our past in a cheap effort to gain the approval of trend seekers.”
Yes, the truth hurts, but the author of this disaster is not just the CEO, but also board members. As conservative commentator Robby Starbuck noted, Gilbert Davila, a promoter of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), is a member of the board.
Davila “owned a DEI consulting and strategy firm for 15 years that focuses on pushing DEI and DEI advertising,” said Starbuck. Davila is also a member of the Association of National Advertisers. He is a director and co-founder of the group’s Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing. In addition, Starbuck revealed that Davila was “one of the people responsible for DEI at Disney,” serving as their “vice president of global diversity and multicultural market development from 2003 to 2010.”
Furthermore, Starbuck revealed the stunning connections between Cracker Barrel and the far left. It has sponsored events for the Human Rights Campaign, Nashville Pride and Third River City Pride. On their website, Cracker Barrel boasts of their commitment to the “core values of PRIDE: People/Exceptionalism, Respect, Integrity, Diversity, and Excellence” and claims these values “guide their decisions year-round.”
All this news is very disturbing to the loyal customers of Cracker Barrel who made the restaurant chain so successful. Sadly, the corporate leadership is antagonistic toward such “little people.” For example, the rebranding was unveiled in New York City, even though there are no Cracker Barrel restaurants in the Big Apple.
This sideshow prompted Sean Davis of The Federalist to tweet, “It tells you EVERYTHING about who that company’s executives want to impress.” In his column at The Federalist, Davis wrote, “Cracker Barrel is done. Woke executives killed it, wrapped the corpse in a rainbow flag, and then made it do a little puppet show in New York City for the entertainment of…woke little friends. Cracker Barrel’s new logo — and its miserable attempt to reinvent itself — is obviously a complete disaster, whether in terms of customer backlash or the company’s stock price.”
Despite the backlash, Masino claims the response to the radical changes and $700 million rebranding campaign has been “overwhelmingly positive.” While the transformation may be anathema to the average customer, it will surely be well received by the largest investors.
According to the latest financial reports, two of the three largest shareholders of Cracker Barrel stock are Blackrock, Inc. and the Vanguard Group, Inc., the champions of woke capitalism, who obviously control this iconic restaurant chain lock, stock and barrel.
Jeff Crouere is a native New Orleanian and his award-winning program, “Ringside Politics,” airs Saturdays from Noon until 1 p.m. CT nationally on Real America's Voice TV Network & AmericasVoice.News and weekdays from 7-9 a.m. & 6-7 p.m. CT on WGSO 990-AM & Wgso.com. He is a political columnist, the author of America's Last Chance, and provides regular commentaries on the Jeff Crouere YouTube channel and at Crouere.net. For more information, email him at jcrouere@gmail.com