In August 2025, Cracker Barrel changed its logo and changed it back within a week. The chain unveiled its biggest logo change in decades, dropping the "Old Timer" who had leaned against a barrel on its sign for decades in favor of a simplified, text-only mark. A wave of criticism from the right branded the change "woke," the stock fell more than 10 percent amid the uproar, and on August 26 President Trump posted on Truth Social that the company should "go back to the old logo." Hours later Cracker Barrel reversed course, restored the Old Timer; a deputy White House chief of staff said executives had called to tell him the company had heard the president. Trump congratulated the company by name.[1][2]
That episode, and the year of fallout that followed, is the clearest window into where Cracker Barrel sits politically: a brand coded as traditional and Southern, run for three decades in a direction that repeatedly put it at odds with much of its own customer base, and then, under intense pressure in 2025 and 2026, steered sharply back.
- The logo Cracker Barrel changed and reversed within a week under Trump pressure
- How the 2025 backlash pushed it to pull Pride and DEI content and halt remodels
- A corporate PAC that historically sent most of its candidate money to Republicans
- A three-decade swing, from firing gay workers in 1991 to sponsoring Pride
- The July 2026 CEO exit that capped the rebrand fallout and a long activist-investor fight
Quick Take
Cracker Barrel is a Lebanon, Tennessee restaurant and country-store chain, founded in 1969, with roughly 660 locations and about 70,000 employees.[2][6] Its documented political record runs in more than one direction. Its corporate political action committee historically sent the large majority of its candidate money to Republicans, though direct federal candidate giving has gone quiet in recent cycles.[4] Over thirty years the company moved from a 1991 policy that fired employees for failing to show "normal heterosexual values" to celebrating Pride Month and publicizing a high score on an LGBTQ workplace-inclusion benchmark.[5][6] Then, after the 2025 logo backlash and a direct intervention by President Trump, it reversed the rebrand, pulled Pride and diversity content from its public materials, halted store remodels, and, in July 2026, replaced the chief executive who had led the change.[1][7][8]
The Logo That Lasted a Week
Cracker Barrel announced the new logo on August 19, 2025, as part of a broader multiyear plan to modernize its roughly 660 stores and draw younger customers. The redesign stripped the seated man and barrel from the mark, leaving only the brand name.[1][11] It was not the first time a change had inflamed the customer base: in August 2022, a Cracker Barrel Facebook post promoting an Impossible plant-based sausage drew thousands of angry comments and "go woke, go broke" replies.[15] Backlash on the right was immediate. Donald Trump Jr. posted his objection on August 20, and conservative activist Robby Starbuck tied the change to the company's diversity, equity and inclusion programs and to a board member with a DEI-strategy background.[11] The stock fell more than 10 percent in a matter of days, though the chain was already contending with a longer sales slump.[1]
On August 25 the company said it "could've done a better job" explaining itself. The next morning President Trump called on Cracker Barrel to reverse the logo and "admit a mistake based on customer response." By that evening the company had done exactly that, announcing the Old Timer would stay, and a deputy White House chief of staff said Cracker Barrel executives had phoned to thank the president for weighing in. Trump posted his congratulations.[1][2] The company framed the remodels and logo as secondary to the food, and initially described its critics as a "vocal minority," though a YouGov survey that month found most respondents preferred the old look.[10]
A Long Arc on LGBTQ Issues
The 2025 fight landed on a company with a long and documented history on gay-rights questions. In January 1991, Cracker Barrel issued a written policy stating that employees who failed to demonstrate "normal heterosexual values" would be terminated. It fired at least nine workers, and as many as sixteen later said they had lost their jobs under the rule, among them a Georgia cook whose dismissal drew national coverage. Protests spread across the Southeast, and the company withdrew the firing policy within months. It did not, however, add sexual-orientation protections to its nondiscrimination policy until a 2002 shareholder vote, having resisted such proposals in the intervening years.[5][6][14]
The company's stance shifted over the following decades. It scored a zero on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index, an opt-in LGBTQ workplace-inclusion benchmark, in 2002, then changed enough of its policies to publicize a score of 80 by 2021. In 2019 it barred a Tennessee pastor who had publicly called for gay people to be executed from holding a church event at one of its restaurants, citing its zero-tolerance nondiscrimination policy.[12] In June 2023 it marked Pride Month with a rainbow rocking-chair post that drew conservative criticism, and it later sponsored a Nashville Pride event.[5] After the 2025 logo reversal, Cracker Barrel scrubbed diversity and Pride content from its website in the months that followed.[7]
Following the Money
Cracker Barrel's disclosed federal political spending is modest and, lately, largely dormant. In the 2024 cycle, OpenSecrets recorded $40,026 in contributions associated with the company, no reported lobbying, and no direct contributions to any federal candidate.[4] Its corporate PAC was more active in earlier years and leaned heavily Republican: in the 2015-2016 cycle it gave $61,500 to federal candidates, directing the large majority of that candidate money to Republicans.[4] Two cautions belong with those figures. The recent totals reflect a PAC that has gone quiet on direct candidate giving rather than a company that has switched sides, and the older partisan split describes candidate contributions in a single cycle, not the company's giving across all years.
Who Runs It, and What Changed at the Top
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store was founded in 1969 in Tennessee by Dan Evins, who built the concept around small-town nostalgia. It is based in Lebanon, Tennessee, and trades publicly on the Nasdaq under the ticker CBRL.[6] Julie Felss Masino became president and chief executive in July 2023 and led the modernization push, including the 2025 rebrand. That push landed at a company long targeted by activist investor Sardar Biglari, whose Biglari Holdings first took a stake in 2011 and has waged repeated, unsuccessful proxy fights against Cracker Barrel in the years since.[13] In the rebrand's aftermath, Biglari pressed shareholders to remove Masino and board member Gilbert Davila, and the proxy advisers Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis recommended votes against Davila; shareholders nonetheless retained Masino in a November 2025 vote.[9] On July 27, 2026, the company announced that Masino would step down as chief executive and from the board effective August 10, remaining in an advisory role until October 9, and named David Deno, a former chief executive of Outback parent Bloomin' Brands, as her successor.[7][8]
Where to Find Them
Cracker Barrel operates roughly 660 restaurant and country-store locations and publishes at crackerbarrel.com. It is a publicly traded company, so its financial disclosures and proxy filings are available through the Securities and Exchange Commission.[6]
Footnotes
[1] CNBC, "Cracker Barrel scraps new logo after outrage from customers, Trump," August 26, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/26/trump-cracker-barrel-rebranding-logo.html [2] Al Jazeera, "Cracker Barrel revives old logo after backlash stoked by Trump," August 27, 2025. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/8/27/cracker-barrel-revives-old-logo-after-backlash-stoked-by-trump [4] OpenSecrets, "CBRL Group" organization profile (2024 cycle totals and lobbying) and "Cracker Barrel Old Country Store" PAC candidate recipients (2015-2016 cycle), accessed July 27, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/cbrl-group/summary?id=D000024663 [5] Fox Business, "Cracker Barrel worked with HRC to become more LGBT friendly before rebrand," August 22, 2025. https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/cracker-barrel-exec-went-sit-hrc-business-advisory-council [6] New Georgia Encyclopedia, "Cracker Barrel Boycotts," accessed July 27, 2026. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/cracker-barrel-boycotts/ [7] The Daily Beast, "Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Masino Resigns After MAGA Meltdown," July 27, 2026. https://www.thedailybeast.com/cracker-barrel-ceo-julie-masino-resigns-after-maga-meltdown/ [8] Associated Press, "Cracker Barrel Names David Deno CEO As Julie Masino Steps Down," July 27, 2026. https://www.hngn.com/articles/272394/20260727/cracker-barrel-names-david-deno-ceo-julie-masino-steps-down-after-logo-backlash.htm [9] Fox Business, "Activist investor pushes Cracker Barrel shareholders to oust DEI specialist," 2025. https://www.aol.com/finance/activist-investors-push-cracker-barrel-190703670.html [10] Forbes, "Cracker Barrel's Logo Debacle Proves It Can't Ditch Its Nostalgic Appeal," September 3, 2025. https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2025/09/03/cracker-barrels-logo-debacle-proves-it-cant-ditch-its-nostalgic-appeal/ [11] USA Today, "Trump says Cracker Barrel 'should go back to the old logo' after controversy," August 26, 2025. https://www.aol.com/trump-says-cracker-barrel-back-153930637.html [12] Time, "Cracker Barrel Bars Pastor Who Called for Executing Gay People," June 2019. https://time.com/5610915/cracker-barrel-bans-pastor-execute-gay-people/ [13] Restaurant Business, "A brief history of Sardar Biglari's decade-long campaign against Cracker Barrel," November 2025. https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/brief-history-sardar-biglaris-decade-long-campaign-against-cracker-barrel [14] Salon, "How Cracker Barrel went from anti-gay to angering the right," June 12, 2023. https://www.salon.com/2023/06/12/bigotry-was-the-blue-plate-special-how-cracker-barrel-went-from-anti-gay-to-angering-the/ [15] NBC News, "Cracker Barrel's plant-based sausage post ignites a comment culture war," August 2022. https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/cracker-barrel-post-plant-based-sausage-ignites-comment-culture-war-rcna41443
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