Few stories grabbed national attention quite like the Cracker Barrel rebrand did this year. Even amid endless high-profile developments in Washington, the Cracker Barrel rebrand stood out as offensive to Americans everywhere.
Like Bud Light’s partnership with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney, Cracker Barrel’s new look felt like an attack on an American institution from an out-of-touch C-suite that bought into the leftist idea of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The backlash was so severe that the company publicly slammed the brakes on their modern makeover and promised Americans they weren’t changing a thing.
Despite this course correction, it was clear that someone at the top had lost the plot, and when Cracker Barrel shareholders voted for board nominees, DEI consultant Gilbert Dávila was not one of them. As I reported on Thursday, Dávila resigned from his position.
Read: Cracker Barrel Kicks Its DEI Consultant to the Curb After Disastrous Rebrand
Now, Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino, who survived the shareholder vote, is sitting down for interviews, and her first is with Glenn Beck.
In an interview that took place at a Cracker Barrel location, Beck asked them directly what happened to lead them to such a “stupid” decision, comparing it to Coca-Cola’s “new recipe.”
“Our guests have a right to be upset,” Masino told Beck. “We messed up. The intent was not ideological. It was not to put the old version of Cracker Barrel in a box. It was not the intent whatsoever.”
Masino said the logo, the most infamous and forward-facing part of the rebrand, was just part of a bigger system but claimed that the logo’s famous “old-timer” was never going anywhere. She said that what she didn’t see in the “data” was that taking the old-timer out of the logo made Americans feel like they themselves were being taken out of it.
“I’m sorry,” she continued. “We really regret that. That was not the intention.”
Later, Beck went on to ask if the company had “embraced DEI as a culture.” Masino, seemingly giving the most sterile answer she could, told Beck that Cracker Barrel has always tried to be a welcoming place for everyone. Thankfully, Beck pressed the question by asking if political statements were intended from the rebrand.
“No, it’s pancakes,” said Masino.
I find it very interesting that the conversation was steered into what Cracker Barrel was doing wrong in terms of their food and service by Doug Hisel, the Senior Vice President, who also took part in the interview.
If Masino is telling the truth, and this rebrand wasn’t at all DEI-driven, then it was incredibly short-sighted at best. However, it’s pretty clear that Cracker Barrel was involved in DEI-related activities and was becoming increasingly friendly with leftist causes. As Fox News reported through an interview with Robby Starbuck, the restaurant chain kept adopting more and more LGBTQ+ themes:
Starbuck highlights Cracker Barrel’s support for LGBTQ+ organizations and events, such as Nashville Pride, River City Pride and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).
He also noted that the company displayed rocking chairs with rainbow colors and LGBTQ+ insignia. The company even went so far as to place one in its Tennessee corporate office. Rocking chairs are practically synonymous with Cracker Barrel, with the restaurant’s long porches lined with them at locations nationwide.
“The fact that it’s located there is important to this story because what’s happened here is a microcosm of the parasitic operating procedure of left-wing activists,” Starbuck said. “They don’t just wanna force their soulless, godless, hedonistic vision of the future onto blue hellscapes that their party controls.
“No, it’s much more important to them that they shove it down into your towns, into your kids’ schools and into your way of life. So, sticking a pro-trans rocking chair into their headquarters in a predominantly conservative town is exactly the type of thing they revel in doing.”
It’s working with the HRC that is of particular concern, as adhering to HRC standards usually means pushing leftism within corporations on the C-suite level, particularly through LGBTQ+ causes. The HRC has what’s known as a Corporate Equality Index, which gives companies a score on how inclusive they are. Cracker Barrel denied that it had worked with the HRC in “several years,” yet it was still participating in LGBTQ+ events.
Despite the dodge by Hisel, I think his focus on the food and service is truly where Cracker Barrel needs to improve drastically. This aesthetic rebrand was a massive waste of time and resources, and while Masino says ideology wasn’t involved in any of these decisions, its attempt to appeal to a larger crowd sure seemed DEI-driven.
Whether or not Cracker Barrel will truly learn its lesson is yet to be seen, but it seems that the spanking the company’s brass got woke them up to reality.
Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.
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