On Thursday, August 21, 2025, Cracker Barrel removed an iconic figure from their corporate logo. “Uncle Herschel,” who the company insists was not a representation of a particular historical character, but more an homage to an older, simpler time in the past, is gone. So is the barrel. Now, the logo is rather plain with just text (retaining the same color scheme).

Customers did not receive the move well. In fact, the company’s stocks plummeted and within a week the company had lost an estimated $100 million dollars in market value!

Why the big deal about a logo?! Well, it’s more complicated than that. To understand the bigger picture, let’s take a quick look at how the company started, and where it has ended up socially.

Cracker Barrel had a Christian Founder

Cracker Barrel was founded in 1969 by Dan Evins (1935–2012) in Lebanon, Tennessee. A lifelong resident of that state, Evins was a lifelong member of a Methodist church. Evins worked for his grandfather’s oil company and opened his first Cracker Barrel to sell gas and provide home-style cooking to travelers who stopped in. The company became a franchise and became publicly held in 1981.

As the chain developed, it became known for traditional, old-fashioned family values and its unique Americana décor and retro product line.

While not an overtly religious company, you could always find gospel music being sold and never a hint of any kind of left-leaning political ideology. It was absolutely the kind of place that conservative Americans would feel at home culturally.

The Shift (A Timeline)

• January 1991: Cracker Barrel instituted a corporate policy refusing to hire employees “whose sexual preferences fail to demonstrate normal heterosexual values.”

Within months, Cracker Barrel rescinded the policy after public backlash, but not before it had fired at least nine employees under the rule.

Over time, Cracker Barrel began shifting its stance:

• 2002: Cracker Barrel received a 0 rating from the leftist Human Rights Campaign (HRC) on their Corporate Equality Index (CEI), which scores companies based on their LGBTQ+ inclusion. This led to Cracker Barrel allegedly participating in the CEI program to increase their score. A former employee who founded Craker Barrel’s internal LGBT employee resource group later joined the HRC’s Business Advisory Council. Recently, Cracker Barrel has distanced itself from HRC and claims it has not been formally linked with them for at least several years.

• 2002: Under pressure from the shareholders, it added sexual orientation to its non-discrimination policy.

• 2009: Former employee, Steve Smotherman (and five other members), started an internal LGBTQ alliance called the “Employee Resource Group (ERG).” Cracker Barrel maintains information about its internal LGBTQ+ Alliance on its website as part of its “Culture & Belonging” initiatives.

• 2011: Gender identity was also added.

• 2013: The company was becoming known for supporting DEI initiatives.

• 2017: Cracker Barrel had a booth at the Nashville Pride Festival. They have also worked with the Nashville LGBT Chamber of Commerce. At the event, they displayed a rainbow rocking chair which was later proudly displayed in their corporate offices in TN, and at their 2019 manager’s conference.

• 2017: For the first time they sponsored the “Out & Equal Workplace Summit.” Cracker Barrel has worked with this non-profit LGBTQ organization as an “advocate.”

• 2018: Won the LGBTQ+ “Employee Resource Group of the Year Award” from Out & Equal.

• 2018: Cracker Barrel received the Corporate Diversity Award from the Nashville LGBT Chamber of Commerce for their inclusivity.

• 2021: Cracker Barrel received an 80 on HRC’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI) Score.

• 2023 (June): They posted a rainbow-colored rocker on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram announcing: “We are excited to celebrate Pride Month with our employees and guests. Everyone is always welcome at our table (and our rocker). Happy Pride!” Furthermore, many restaurants added price tags and lined their sidewalks with the rainbow chairs.

• 2023 (August), Julie Felss Masino was appointed CEO of Cracker Barrel. Julie has spearheaded the push for new branding of the restaurants and the new logo design.

The Pushback

The negative response to Cracker Barrel’s rebranding has been massive. Never one to be left out of a controversy, parody site, The Babylon Bee, created a meme declaring, “Al Queda Claims Responsibility for Cracker Barrel Logo Change.”

In a tweet (1:39 PM · Aug 21, 2025) on the social media platform “X,” their food competitor, “Steak ’n Shake” fired a verbal missile at their rival:

“Sometimes, people want to change things just to put their own personality on things. At CB, their goal is to just delete the personality altogether. Hence, the elimination of the “old-timer” from the signage. Heritage is what got Cracker Barrel this far, and now the CEO wants to just scrape it all away. At Steak n Shake, we take pride in our history, our families, and American values. All are welcome. We will never market ourselves away from our past in a cheap effort to gain the approval of trend seekers.”

The Bottom Line

Is the new rebranding of Cracker Barrel’s corporate image an attempt to “go woke” or align with leftist values? I don’t know. CEO Massino insists it is just an attempt to modernize and update their look. There is a definite truth to the fact that people are averse to change. Especially traditional people (Cracker Barrel’s target demographic for decades) want things to stay the same. In fact, that’s why they ate at Cracker Barrel. It reminded them of a simpler and more wholesome time in the past when we weren’t all constantly bombarded with people’s sexual practices. Traditional pro-American, patriotic customers just want to eat a great meal and remember the good old days. They are fed up with the woke nonsense.

Tearing down the old, changing the history, revising the monuments, and getting rid of the past is exactly what cultural Marxism does. Pizza Hut can rebrand and not have any backlash because they never represented an ideology (other than deep-fried carbs!). Cracker Barrel did. It embodied the old paths.

As resistant as people are to change, social media (I’m thinking specifically of the millions Facebook has angered any time they move part of their interface around) has proven you can change things and people will eventually get used to it and stick with you. If the food stays great, they improve the service, and they keep the heart of what made them successful, people will put up with some new white paint.

But what Americans won’t tolerate is having leftist propaganda shoved down their throats. They have had a belly-full of it. If you go woke, plan to go broke. One more whiff of leftist party politics and I predict it’s game over for the long-standing food favorite many of us have enjoyed for so many years.