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When your whole schtick is nostalgia, but all the folks who remember the things you reference are now dead or otherwise unable to come to your restaurants, you either need to change your schtick, or you need to tap into the nostalgia of a younger generation. There aren’t as many Amos & Andy and Howdy Doody fans on the highways these days.
Or just be happy with the niche. Not everything needs to be global.
But its niche is disappearing, so it either finds a new niche, or it goes out of business. Its niche was always “middle-aged people’s childhood memories,” but how many of today’s middle-aged people grew up listening to radio shows and watching old men sitting around cracker barrels?
Hell, I AM middle-aged, and one of my grandfathers was a sharecropper who eventually started his own corner store, so I SHOULD be exactly their demographic… but my childhood memories are of Charlie’s Angels, Radio Shack computers and Run DMC. Their niche is almost nonexistent now.
I would totally make it a point to frequent a steampunk themed Cracker Barrel.
Old and new logo for those interested
"We can't afford to keep making elaborate signs"
New logo sucks. Racists and wokists should be able to agree on this.
I was expecting more. Outlines, geometry, something...
However, looking at the old one, what are the words printed on? Is that a kidney?
I’ve honestly never noticed, but a little googling confirms that yes, it’s a pinto bean.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250317110059/https://www.crackerbarrel.com/newsroom/get-to-know-us
the West has fallen 😞
Every food place wants to look generic and sterile now. And their logos reflect that
Wait. Is it called Cracker Barrel cuz the logo is a cracker leaning on a barrel? Never put that together.
No its a barrel of hard tack (aka crackers). Supposed to be old timely grocery store version of a water cooler.
Crackers used to be shipped in barrels.
Naturally they got really nasty really fast. It wasn’t until they invented sealed packaging we more or less have now that they became tolerable. It was kinda a bad thing to name a restaurant after.
I assume it's a Barrelof Crackers, but I dunno.
Ootl, what happened?
Cracker barrel changed their logo to some generic corporate thing and Republicans are mad about it for the wrong reasons
I'm mad about it because of the "modern" low-detail logo art style that feels like an art downgrade whenever corpos adopt it. Not a Republican. Is that a good reason?
As long as you aren’t mad about it because you think it’s some anti-white or anti-southern culture thing, think whatever you want about it. Nobody was offended anyone called the art ugly. Shit, the people paid to design it probably think it’s ugly.
Yeah it's funny the amount of people I saw blaming the "DEI designers" and "Gen Z" instead of the CEO/Board of directors and the largest shareholders, which unsurprisingly are Vanguard and Blackrock. Boomers mad that the companies funding their retirement accounts are being capitalist and focusing on quarterly hyper growth but then defending capitalism as the last bastion of freedom
Sorry, but you're officially Republican now.
That's why I'm mad about it, too
I'm addition to removing the cartoon old man and barrel iconography, Cracker Barrel is reducing the amount of random junk on the walls, and painting the bare wooden walls white. (Select stores only, not everything gets remodeled all at once). Probably they're trying to appeal more to a younger generation or something.
Any word yet if this is private equity stripping the copper or are they just morons?
It's a publicly traded company, so no, this isn't private equity bleeding a corpse. They seem to be trying to modernize and broaden their appeal to get out of an extended post-covid slump. Per Wikipedia:
In May 2024, Cracker Barrel revealed that 16% of their customer base had not returned since 2020.
Say what you will, but those 84 people stayed because there's no better place for microwaved insults to Southern cuisine this side of the Walmart frozen dinners aisle.
I ate there once and the food was terrible. They should work on that.
Given it's private equity, my guess would be both.
painting the bare wooden walls white
Welp, they just lost my business (not that I'd been there in years before this anyway...).
Painting real wood (other than maybe pine or poplar) is like painting brick: just don't do it!
So to appeal to a younger generation they made a minimalist logo and are removing any trace of personality? I mean, their personality wasn't my thing (haven't been in many, many years) but I have no idea why they couldn't try new personality instead of no personality.
Alternatively, have they tried making their food good? That might work.
Homie and his barrel got bounced from the logo.
So, can someone explain this to non USAians?
cracker barrel had a logo with racist undertones, like the other logos above it. it has recently been retired, much to the outrage of conservatives.
It's a guy leaning against a barrel, what racial undertones are there?
Who cares. I got food poisoning from them twice, separate locations and years. The second bout of food poisoning sent me to the hospital, but also indirectly lead me to coming out as transgender. So thanks but no thanks, your food is disgusting.
There goes the neighborhood.
Is that native American lady caricature holding a big stack of pancakes?
Land O Lakes butter.
Got rid of the native, but kept the land.... They didn't think that one through did they?
Uncle Ben is absolutely iconic to me, even though I agree with their reasons for the rebrand.
