Cracker Barrel co-founder Tommy Lowe, 93, says the corporate’s new management doesn’t perceive the model’s roots or the shoppers who constructed it.
Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino informed an investing convention on Tuesday that the corporate up to date its brand in order that it was extra seen on freeway billboards.
She famous that the transfer wasn’t meant to be ideological, in line with The Wall Road Journal.
“A part of this transformation is establishing success for the long run,” Masino mentioned throughout the 13D Monitor Energetic-Passive Investor Summit in New York Metropolis on Tuesday.
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These plans rapidly got here to a halt after public outcry compelled the corporate to reverse the transfer.
FOX Enterprise reached out to Cracker Barrel for remark.
The brand new Cracker Barrel brand on a menu inside a restaurant Aug. 21, 2025, in Pembroke Pines, Fla. (Joe Raedle/Getty Photos)
In mid-August, Cracker Barrel launched a brand new brand, changing the acquainted illustration of “Uncle Herschel” with a contemporary design that includes solely the corporate’s identify. It confronted an onslaught of backlash, together with from President Donald Trump, who posted on Reality Social that the corporate ought to admit it made a mistake and “handle the corporate higher.”
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Its inventory additionally took a success, and finally it prompted the restaurant chain to reverse course only a week later.
A Cracker Barrel restaurant in Dumfries, Va., Could 21, 2024. (Nathan Howard/Bloomberg/Getty Photos)
The corporate initially defended its resolution to vary its brand, saying the Uncle Herschel character “will nonetheless be on our menu (welcome again Uncle Herschel’s Favourite Breakfast Platter), on our street indicators and featured in our nation retailer. He’s not going wherever — he’s household.”
The corporate additionally admitted it might have accomplished a “higher job sharing who we’re and who we’ll at all times be” after prospects expressed outrage over the restaurant chain’s new brand. Nevertheless, it wasn’t sufficient to vary the general public sentiment.
Throughout the convention, Felss Masino additionally mentioned what it has been like being focused by an activist investor for over a decade, in line with the Journal.
Sardar Biglari has taken purpose on the restaurant chain since 2011. Biglari, founding father of Biglari Capital Corp., which owns 2.9% of Cracker Barrel’s widespread inventory, has run seven proxy contests on the chain.
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A Cracker Barrel Nation Retailer in Fishkill, N.Y., Aug. 25, 2025. (Richard Beetham for Fox Information Digital)
Biglari can also be the CEO of Biglari Holdings Inc., which is the mum or dad firm that owns restaurant chains comparable to Steak ’n Shake and Western Sizzlin.
Simply final month, Biglari tried to persuade the board to overtake its management for allegedly destroying shareholder worth.
“We’re looking for shareholder assist to vote towards these administrators not solely because of the severe destruction of shareholder value but additionally a deeper failure to grasp the model, its prospects, and its heritage, and a failure to meet the Board’s most essential job, deciding on the fitting CEO,” Biglari Capital wrote within the proxy submitting.
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Biglari Capital mentioned the board and administration each “betrayed the corporate’s heritage, alienated loyal prospects and undermined investor confidence” via their methods.
