Cracker Barrel Overhauls Their Iconic Logo

Aniket Tank, editor-in-chief

In Aug. 2025, the beloved restaurant chain Cracker Barrel changed its iconic logo and announced new restaurant decor. Both changes were made to market to a younger audience. The company faced backlash from the public for the new simplified logo design and changes in restaurant design, so they reversed both decisions only weeks after the initial announcement.  

On Aug. 18, 2025, Cracker Barrel first unveiled the logo change as part of a wide rebranding campaign called “All the More.” In the next following days after backlash grew, they reversed the logo on Aug. 25, only one week after the new logo was announced. 

The “All the More” campaign to rebrand Cracker Barrel’s restaurants was in the process of being planned as early as 2024 and multiple marketing agencies were brought in to help with the redesign. The goal was to increase sales by appealing to a broader audience of customers. 

While this planned rebranding of the company failed, Cracker Barrel is only the latest company that has been criticized for trying to modernize their brand. Other companies like Google and Pringles have done the same over the past few decades. Both of those brands had more success with their rebrand. 

Cracker Barrel’s original logo features the founder of the company Dan Evins’ real uncle, Herschel McCartney (Uncle Herschel). The logo they changed to featured no Uncle Hershel and was text only. People claimed that the logo change was a betrayal to the company's traditional rural values for new modern ones. 

“I was really shocked to hear it at first. I was really mad because when I was a child, I went to Cracker Barrel a lot after soccer games,” said junior Anastasia Lunger.  

Many people online have also said that they have a connection to the brand from their childhood. If consumers have a nostalgic connection to a brand their more likely to engage with the brand, so the logo change was more of a harm to the company profits than it was a boost. 

The logo changes especially saw criticism from those with conservative political views; many of whom labeled the rebranding as “woke” and saw it as a betrayal of conservative values that the brand had associations with because it is a predominantly southern brand. 

  “Cracker Barrel should go back to the old logo,” said U.S. President Donald Trump, commenting on companies rebrand. 

After the logo change, Cracker Barrel’s stock value dropped nearly $100 million. But rebranding has always been risky and sometimes it goes well for a company and sometimes it's universally hated. 

Google and Airbnb have both switched to a minimalist logo, Google in 2015 and Airbnb in 2014. Both companies ditched details in favor of simple shapes, and both reflect the start of the minimalist trend in logo design. 

Newer companies have it easier when it comes to brand redesign because customers don’t have an older connection to the brand identity. In the case of Cracker Barrel, the imagery of the old logo and the original restaurant design invokes nostalgic and homely feelings. For many, the change in the design was viewed as an attack on what they loved about the chain.  

“It doesn't give that southern homey feel that it's supposed to have,” said Lunger. 

The company’s plan was to remodel 25 to 30 restaurants by the end of the fiscal year. According to Cracker Barrel, they only remodeled four before they canceled the program. 

A 2019 study done by the American Marketing Association claims that these minimalist design changes doesn't positively impact sales. They say that descriptive logos give potential customers a sense of authenticity which is highly valued.