The Cracker Barrel Restaurant chain which began in 1969 and has some 657 stores in 43 states is undergoing a $700 million dollar renovation both inside and out. The thrust has come about by its new female CEO of Cracker Barrel, Julie Masino who took the helm of the corporation in 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee.
To outsiders who have never dined at a Cracker Barrel the only thing they will see different is the logo and outdoor signage. The Cracker Barrel logo includes a pinto bean shape behind the company’s name, a reference to the original sides offered when the restaurant first opened. The name “Cracker Barrel” itself comes from the cracker barrels found in early 1900s stores where people would gather to chat and features a man sitting on a wood frame chair next to a cracker barrel.
To diners who regularly visit inside, the interior has always been a very homey dark brown adorned by vintage antiques and paraphernalia hanging on the walls. But now, the interiors are being repainted in either a brighter white or gray with the original décor gone for a more simplified sparse appearance. As a college professor of architecture, I would teach my students some places have good feng shui which is a Japanese design term meaning a place with good harmony or a positive environment. In America we often simply say “The place feels homey,” instead. A place that offers American “comfort food” should feel and look homey!
Well, as anyone with a normally functioning brain can imagine, two things immediately happened as the changes to Cracker Barrel stores began; CB stock values began to crater reminiscent of the Bud Light fiasco led by transvestite Dylan Mulvaney in 2023 as it truly became a déjà vu (French for “already seen”) moment in 2025. All of this is leading to the second thing going wrong for Cracker Barrel, which is outrage on the internet along with calls for boycotts.
CEO of Cracker Barrel, Julie Masino immediately took to ABC’s GMA with news personality Michael Strahan to assume damage control.
According to Masino people are loving the changes but that is clearly not true. People are screaming for her to “Change it back!”
The impetus of her change was caused by the fact Cracker Barrel has had trouble recovering from the economic hit that began with the toll taken by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic when the restaurant chain had to abruptly change their business model to carry out and home delivery only. The subsequent presidency of Joe Biden and his “Bidenomics” policy which led to skyrocketing food prices from 2020 to 2024 of 23.6% (USDA Economic Research Service) further helped to destroy the restaurant food service industry.
These two elderly white Democrat men Tony Fauci and Joe Biden clearly delivered a one-two punch to the food service industry of America.
It is too bad Masino did not have the brains to talk to a babyboomer, like myself, who they rely on so much to help them financially. I would have told her the truths of my life which happen to be the truths of the lives of many others Americans today:
- Lower prices since I am on a fixed income.
- Healthier dining options (lower sugar, sodium, and cholesterol).
- Smaller portions for lower prices and healthier eating (42% of America is obese).
- Music playing that does not patronize me for my age (I like country music now).
- Things left for my eyesight as they have always been.
CONCLUSION:
As I have mentioned many times before, like it or not, the old adage “the customer is always right” still remains true in retail businesses today. This truth holds true regardless of whether people like CEO Julie Masino opt to respect it and follow it or not. Her attitude, like the attitudes of other progressive liberal women like Alissa Heinerscheid (Bud Light) and Heather Malenshek (Harley Davidson), have led major Fortune 500 Companies down dead end roads to Wokeville.
What all these women sought to do was to try to manipulate a tried and true customer base to a place there they wanted to take them. That destination could be termed “Wokeville”. As a customer I truly do not care about trendy new topics of the globalists like Climate Change, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI), Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG), and LGBTQ+!
Like the COVID pandemic itself, I see these new thrusts as less about management science and more about societal compliance. I can honestly hear my late great father yelling at CEO Masino as he would have us his own children, “You take that woke sh*t back to your room and stick it in the back of your closet! I’m trying to eat here!”
I will conclude this little fiasco with an X post that made me laugh so hard. The famous celebrity actress and singer Miley Cyrus apparently decided to get a makeover recently and by most accounts from the public, “She looks awful!” People are hoping it is for a new music video or big screen movie production she may be doing rather than a permanent life change. So this one X account decided to draw the obvious parallel between Cyrus’ new look and the new look of Cracker Barrel. My logical response, “Nailed it!”
— Brian Skellenger on all Platforms (@brianskellenger) August 21, 2025
There is a nasty post we are seeing more and more on social media that is turning out to be a truism, “Everything liberals touch turns to sh*t!” Cracker Barrel’s 2025 makeover is just the latest example.
Two parting thoughts I am left with from my college teaching days teaching design…
There was a time when the clothing store The GAP changed their logo and that change lasted all of about 48 hours before it was changed back. One can only hope now…
One of my wife’s favorite television shows is HGTV. A popular fashion design trend now is to paint all woodwork and trim light colors like white and gray. When I see beautiful old natural grain wood such as oak, walnut, and mahogany getting painted over, I honestly have to leave the room. This practice is a national disgrace! Pull these woods off the house and sell it to an architectural restoration shop and replace it with plastic!
© 2025 by Mark S. Schwendau
