Cracking the Code: Experts Weigh in on Cracker Barrel Controversy

The recent backlash Cracker Barrel faced after attempting to modernize its logo underscored a critical challenge for legacy brands: how can they evolve and attract new demographics without alienating their established, loyal customer base. To gain deeper insight into this complex situation and its implications for other brands, Modern Restaurant Management (MRM) magazine consulted a panel of leading marketing and branding experts.

Beth LaGuardia Cooper is the Chief Marketing Officer at Advantage Media, where she focuses on enhancing brand identity, awareness, and preference, aligning with the brand's commitment to integrity and leadership.Throughout her career she has emphasised data-driven decision-making, optimizing marketing technology, and leveraging innovative strategies and channels. 

Joycelyn David, author of The Multicultural Mindset: Driving Business Growth in a Borderless Era, is the owner and CEO of AV Communications (AVC). She is also the founder of TULONG, a B2B solutions start-up for the marketing and media industries. 

Heather Holmes, founder and CEO of Publicity For Good, has more than  a decade of experience in public relations, media, and communications, specializing in consumer-packaged goods (CPG) brands that have a positive social impact. She has  worked with 300+ brands from across multiple industries, such as food, beverage, fashion, baby/ parenting, lifestyle, health and wellness, beauty and non-profits.

Companies frequently refresh their brands and logos. What distinguishes the Cracker Barrel situation?

BLC: First, let’s start with the why. The reason behind Cracker Barrel's rebranding was to attract a new audience. Where they went wrong: The changes seem to indicate that they were not paying full attention to attracting new audiences by turning their back on what was valued by the existing audience.

This wasn't just tweaking colors or fonts, and this is often the case in business and building cultural intelligence.  It goes deeper than people, and brands realize.

Change is hard. A lot of abrupt change without bringing along your existing audience or signaling to them that they matter too, as we saw, can have immediate repercussions. The simplest of principles was not used – one I learned at the age of seven in my brownie troop, “Make new friends but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.” On the bright side, if you are a brand without a deep emotional connection to your audience, then you can change on a whim. Cracker Barrel has a loyal customer base. They needed to take more care to protect that.

JD: Cracker Barrel didn’t recognize the value of their own brand’s culture and instead erased a beloved icon of  that culture, who'd been central to their identity since 1977. This wasn't just tweaking colors or fonts, and this is often the case in business and building cultural intelligence.  It goes deeper than people, and brands realize.

What could have/should have the Cracker Barrel team have done when introducing this new logo/rebrand? What were the missteps, if any? How big of a risk was this for the brand?

BLC: I’m sure they did research and were rightly focused on the need for some change to improve the long-term health of the company. I can’t imagine they put similar effort into understanding the values and perspectives of their base. Did they assume the existing base would just go along with the change, or did they undervalue the impact of a negative reaction? I’m not sure why they didn’t evolve aspects of the branding more naturally, on a more measured timeline. Or why didn’t they overtly preserve more nostalgia or make some of the changes aimed at satisfying unmet needs of their base, too? This was a big risk with lasting impact, despite rolling back the logo. Some people will be turned off from ever coming back. This brand change may be playing into a deeper emotion. For example, older generations already feel pushed out of society as the traditions they rely on are vanishing, and this brand change may have struck a nerve.

JD: The biggest misstep was not including members of the culture and brand community – thoroughly – in the testing of the new direction. Treating it as “simple logo refresh” instead of recognizing they were tampering with the core identity of the brand culture built over decades.

When you’re a heritage brand, you aren’t just changing a logo, you’re changing a symbol that people tie to their own identity and memories.

Would we erase the stars and stripes from the US flag? Or the maple leaf from Canada?  Identity and culture are intertwined and the symbols, and brands that reflect them, vital!

HH: When you’re a heritage brand, you aren’t just changing a logo, you’re changing a symbol that people tie to their own identity and memories. Cracker Barrel moved too quickly, stripped away the emotional anchor their guests associated with tradition, and failed to frame the “why” behind the change.

The missteps were over-simplifying, erasing instead of evolving, and underestimating just how much nostalgia drives loyalty in this category. The risk was huge: decades of brand equity and customer trust were jeopardized overnight, and the financial impact proved how real that risk was.

How can brands best balance loyal guests’ connection to the ways things were/are with the need to be business savvy and looking toward how things could be in the future and attracting new guests? How can brands avoid being trapped by brand nostalgia?

BLC: How brands can avoid being trapped by brand nostalgia: I would turn this on its head. How can we leverage the nostalgia in modern ways, whether it’s featuring old favorites that come back for a limited time, for Cracker Barrel maybe you add “Uncle Hershel’s Favorites” on the menu, or creating a walk through history campaign to tell the story and celebrate the evolution of Cracker Barrel through the years – but also add your modernization touches and the changes needed to make it a lasting brand. 

JD: Brands need to evolve with the pace of their customers.  Sometimes they need to speed the hell up. Other times, as here, they need to slow down and take intentional decisions. 

The smartest brands add new elements while keeping their core culture and brand intact.

The smartest brands add new elements while keeping their core culture and brand intact. Think of it as renovating your childhood home – you can update the kitchen, but you don't tear down the front porch where all the memories were made. Cracker Barrel could've introduced modern elements while keeping their core brand culture intact.

HH: The balance comes from layering progress on top of what people already love rather than replacing it. Nostalgia should be seen as an asset, a bridge to the future, not as an obstacle. Brands can refresh elements gradually, experiment with service, menu, or digital experiences, but the heritage touchstones must stay intact. Avoiding the nostalgia trap is about framing change as stewardship: you’re carrying something forward for a new generation, not discarding what made the brand meaningful in the first place.

In what ways should Cracker Barrel have let customers in on the process to hopefully avoid any backlash?

BLC: The simple answer: talk to your customer base to hear their input on how to change and get their buy-in for the need to change. Test proposed changes with both your base and your new audience, and be prepared to alter things that don’t land. 

Talk to your customer base to hear their input on how to change and get their buy-in for the need to change.

JD: The brand should have sought more input from their core community/brand fan base. Unfortunately, companies are stepping away from formal consumer research in efforts to improve margin or reduce spend. Preview campaigns, focus groups with longtime customers, even social media polls. When your own co-founder publicly criticizes you, that's a sign you didn't do your homework with the people who actually matter. 

HH: The brand could have piloted the new logo in select markets, invited loyalty members to vote on different designs, or run a campaign that explained the vision behind the evolution. By testing in small doses and giving customers a voice, the rollout would have felt like co-creation rather than a top-down change. People don’t resist evolution when they feel included, they resist when they feel blindsided.

What should the brand do now to recover? Can they breathe a bit now and still try to take steps to modernize?

BLC: This too shall pass. However, they need to reach out to the community, beyond the restaurant, to win back any irritated customers they can. A listening tour could be a way, since the prior moves felt a bit tone-deaf. Executives need to appear humble and genuinely interested in learning. Ask the loyal base how Cracker Barrel can solve the need to change and be more inclusive of new audiences. Let’s do this together. We are a forgiving people, but this will require some humility and effort. 

JD: Recovery needs to focus on building stronger cultural intelligence inside the organization, starting with their marketing team. As the owner of a marketing agency, I advocate brands to bring agencies and diverse team members on board to help stay better connected and in-tune with both traditional brand fans, and also new ones. Otherwise it’s an echo chamber.

Recovery needs to focus on building stronger cultural intelligence inside the organization, starting with their marketing team.

The whole redesign started because of a business desire to appeal to new customers. Will this reversal help with that? I don’t think so. More work is still needed. The logo reversal was short term damage control – but it doesn't solve their fundamental business challenge. The reality is harsh: their core customer base is aging, comparable sales are declining, and they're losing market relevance.

HH:The first step is reaffirming what customers see as non-negotiable: the iconic imagery, the sense of place, the warmth. From there, modernization can still happen, but in a gradual, thoughtful way. Update menu innovation, improve service speed, or add digital convenience, but frame it as enhancing the guest experience without compromising the brand’s soul. They can breathe a bit now, but they need to move carefully and with humility.

How much of this backlash is genuinely coming from the company’s customer base versus a social media-manufactured controversy, and does it even matter because damage has been done?

BLC: There is no question that this was blown out of proportion by the attention it got from a few individuals and the media. However, there is a genuine voice among their loyal customers, who seem to be speaking with their wallets.

Once the narrative takes hold, it affects traffic, sales, and reputation in very tangible ways.

HH: There’s no doubt social media amplified the outrage, but the speed and scale of the financial hit show that this wasn’t just noise, it resonated with real customers. In today’s world, whether the backlash is manufactured or authentic almost doesn’t matter. Perception is reality. Once the narrative takes hold, it affects traffic, sales, and reputation in very tangible ways.

What are the key takeaways from this that other brands should be paying attention to if they are considering making changes to a logo or menu? Is there a right way to approach it, or are you always going to alienate somebody, and it’s going to be amplified in the social media world we live in now?

BLC:  Social media amplification is a reality. As quickly as things blow up, they often subside. So, with respect to social media amplification, let’s use it to our advantage. One example might be to have a loyal ambassador base of customers who can be activated to support you on social media, helping to reinforce brand evolution. Connect the base with the new target audience in a way that seems natural and reinforcing to both. Ultimately, I don’t have any issues with the goals here. The execution was a bit botched, but that can be a moment in time that easily fades – a wake-up call that, if handled in the right way, can leap you forward if you embrace it, learn from it, and find ways to do better as a result.

Heritage brands aren't just businesses – they're icons of culture.

JD: Heritage brands aren't just businesses – they're icons of culture. For Americans, Cracker Barrel is part of their culture, and we saw very emotional responses, all the way to the top administration.

Culture moves people. Brands need to value culture as much as they do their P&L. The currency in that is cultural intelligence and also why my book is “required” reading in my opinion for leaders of today and tomorrow!

HH: The takeaways are simple but critical: protect what people hold dear, test before you roll out, and communicate the “why” behind any change. Every brand will alienate someone, but you can minimize the damage by making your loyal base feel respected and by framing change as evolution, not rejection. In the social media era, amplification is inevitable, but so is the opportunity, if you tell your story well and involve your community, you can modernize while strengthening, not weakening, your brand.