By Heather Haddon and Suzanne Vranica

It took just a week for Cracker Barrel to go back to its "Old Timer" logo after a new, streamlined version sparked a political firestorm.

Two months later, the recovery from the fiasco is far from over.

What started as a rebranding ballooned into a full-fledged crisis that spooked investors, shook employees, angered customers and rattled the marketing industry. The vitriol spread to just about every change Chief Executive Julie Felss Masino has made to revive the struggling restaurant chain, forcing her to review any adjustments -- down to the way it makes biscuits and green beans. And her challenge of turning sales around for the 56-year-old brand built on nostalgia has only grown more daunting.

It's a cautionary tale of how quickly miscalculating a customer base can escalate now -- and the latest chapter in the corporate culture wars that have come for brands including Bud Light and Target. With the rise of social media, company marketing has become a blood sport, and political polarization has raised the stakes. In Cracker Barrel's case, conservative activists and President Trump joined the online chorus, which was turbocharged by what has since been determined to be a swarm of fake social-media accounts.

The CEO joined Cracker Barrel in 2023 with visions of a yearslong turnaround project. Masino knew Cracker Barrel's loyal customers were sensitive to changes, even over things as small as breakfast sausage options. She and her executive team spent more than a year mapping out a strategy.

This account of how those decisions landed the Tennessee-based chain in a cultural-war firestorm and continue to challenge the company is based on discussions with more than two dozen employees, executives and others involved with Cracker Barrel's business.

"We have taken to heart the learnings around the logo and remodels, and from what was working in our plan, and we are moving forward with a renewed focus on food and the guest experience," the company said in a statement.

Country hospitality

Cracker Barrel has traded on nostalgia since its first location opened in 1969. Founder Dan Evins, a Tennessee oil jobber, envisioned a restaurant and retail operation themed around old-time country stores, where people gathered to play checkers on barrels once used to deliver crackers.

By 1977, Evins was running 13 Cracker Barrels from Tennessee to Georgia, and that year a Nashville artist sketched a new logo, with an "Old Timer" in overalls sitting in a chair and leaning on a barrel.

The restaurants served up moderately priced country ham, pancakes, eggs and grits. Adjoining stores sold cast iron skillets, toys and old-fashioned candies, with rocking chairs out front for waiting customers.

When Masino became CEO almost two years ago, Cracker Barrel, like other full-service restaurants, hadn't seen customer traffic return to prepandemic levels across its 660 locations. Its customer base skewed 65 years and older.

Masino, 54, put herself through college working in restaurants and tending bar. The Ohio native was the first in her family to go to college, and rose from a buyer of men's footwear at J.Crew to brand management at Godiva. She went on to stints at Starbucks, Sprinkles Cupcakes and Mattel. Then she relocated from California, where she had run the North American and international divisions at Taco Bell, to Cracker Barrel's Tennessee headquarters.

She arrived believing she had a mandate for change.

'Largely untouched'

Masino hired consulting giant Bain to scrutinize the company's prices, retail assortment and competition. Prophet, a global marketing firm based in San Francisco, was tapped to help update the brand, logo and stores, and polled thousands of consumers about Cracker Barrel.

In early 2024, Bain came back with its findings. Diners found Cracker Barrel's food middling and its service slow.

Cracker Barrel's "store atmosphere has remained largely untouched since brand inception," said a presentation explaining some of Bain's findings, a copy of which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

In May 2024, Masino announced a three-year strategic plan, including menu changes, store remodels and updated prices. Cracker Barrel pledged up to $700 million for the effort. To help pay for it, the company slashed its quarterly dividend to 25 cents from $1.30.

Masino warned consultants to tread lightly.

Menu changes

Cracker Barrel had come under fire in 2022 from some customers and critics online who accused the chain of abandoning its southern roots and becoming "woke" after it added plant-based Impossible Sausage. The chain explained that the aim was to give customers a new choice and that meat remained.

When it tested swapping in cornbread skillets for its original muffins in a handful of locations in early 2024, some diners balked. Cracker Barrel reverted to the original a few months later.

Earlier this year, Cracker Barrel moved to modernize its cooking techniques, internally referred to as "BOH Optimization," a reference to "back of house." Cracker Barrel started preparing its green beans and other sides in ovens instead of traditional stovetop kettles. The food was chilled and reheated when needed, promising fresher veggies than ones cooked in kettles and held until served.

Cracker Barrel also started making its biscuits in big batches and chilling them, rather than rolling out the dough in response to daily demand. It expected the move would ensure supply and save millions of dollars.

Old Timer

As part of Masino's revamp, Prophet, the brand consultant, zeroed in on the "Old Timer" logo. The firm found that some consumers considered it old-fashioned. The Old Timer tested poorly. The busy logo often looked fuzzy and pixelated in digital ads.

Prophet developed a new, more basic logo -- no barrel, chair or Old Timer. Executives involved didn't expect it to spark any controversy because the new logo closely resembled a text-only logo that Cracker Barrel had been using extensively for six years on menus and ads, with no pushback.

Prophet sought input on its branding work from several board directors who had marketing experience. Board members clapped when Prophet presented initial work that would reposition the chain as "Country Hospitality."

By June 2025, Cracker Barrel had remodeled dozens of stores. Executives monitored sporadic complaints online over menu changes and renovated locations with fewer wall-hanging tchotchkes.

Masino stayed the course. In late August, Cracker Barrel released new ads with the logo.

Bot storm

The scattered complaints became a wave. Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and conservative activist Robby Starbuck shared posts accusing Masino of being "woke."

The online anger against Cracker Barrel was partly stoked by fake social-media accounts, according to three firms that monitor and research online activity.

Three days after the backlash erupted, Cracker Barrel hired a Washington, D.C.-based company to better understand the online conversation. The consultants found that 32% to 37% of the online activity criticizing Cracker Barrel in the days after its logo announcement was fueled by fake accounts, with at least two groups of bots driving much of the outrage. The company hasn't publicly disclosed the findings.

Sardar Biglari, the owner of restaurant chain Steak 'n Shake, has maintained an investment in Cracker Barrel and pushed for changes for more than a decade, with little success.

The bots particularly reposted anti-Cracker Barrel messages on X from Biglari's holdings, Steak 'n Shake and media brand Maxim, including calls to fire Masino. They amplified Starbuck's critiques of Cracker Barrel's diversity and equity stances. The analysis didn't determine who was sponsoring the bots.

It's hard for companies subjected to such online attacks to recover, said Dan Brahmy, co-founder of Cyabra, a firm that analyzes fake accounts and studied the attacks on Cracker Barrel. The chain didn't fund Cyabra's analysis.

"The bots create a viral narrative that shapes the opinions of other people out there," Brahmy said. Fake accounts attempting to manipulate the market are on the rise, particularly on topics that draw interest from ideological, activist or state-backed actors, according to Cyabra.

Biglari says he didn't participate in or have any knowledge of bot activity. "It's a roulette wheel of excuses," he said of Cracker Barrel. "The board has blamed its dismal performance on everything from demographics, gas prices and the pandemic to brand relevance and now bots."

Starbuck said that he has a loyal following among conservative consumers and that fake accounts didn't sell Cracker Barrel stock.

U-turn

Amid the logo uproar, online critics also lambasted Cracker Barrel's food preparation changes, complaining about cold biscuits and meatloaf.

Masino and some board members were targeted by online attacks and received angry calls and emails. For Masino, the attacks grew personal. Numerous posts criticized her appearance, particularly her thick-framed glasses.

The company closed its sprawling Tennessee campus, long open to locals who walked on the grounds, to outsiders. Visitors must now show a badge at a security gate.

Cracker Barrel executives believed they could ride out the controversy. In public statements, the company emphasized that comfort foods, rocking chairs, peg games and other Cracker Barrel traditions remained.

In stores, though, workers faced unhappy customers. Cracker Barrel sent store employees a video message acknowledging that work had become more challenging. "But here's the good thing, people are talking about us. They are coming in," Cracker Barrel's head of restaurant and retail operations at the time said in the video.

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October 24, 2025 20:00 ET (00:00 GMT)

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