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Posted on 08/27/2025 7:01:06 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Julie Felss Masino and board ignored Sardar Biglari's criticism of $700M transformation plan calling it 'obvious folly'.
Cracker Barrel’s slide into a rebranding debacle began with a phone call at 4:30 p.m. on May 16, 2024.
That day, Cracker Barrel’s new CEO, Julie Felss Masino, got on the phone with investors and unveiled the details of a "strategic transformation plan" her board of directors had approved. The first of "five pillars" in the plan would be "refining" and "evolving the brand across all touchpoints."
Over the next months, Masino and her board of directors dismissed at least four warnings by a top investor, Sardar Biglari, that the rebranding was "obvious folly," filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission reveal.
"Cracker Barrel is not a broken brand but it has a broken board," he wrote, in a scathing seven-page letter to shareholders.
He laid out his criticisms in a 120-page slide-deck presentation with the title, "CRACKER BARREL IS IN CRISIS," next to the company’s longtime logo of an old man in overalls leaning on a barrel – a logo that Masino would wipe out, unbeknownst to Biglari at the time.
While the dynamics of company executives pursuing politically correct, woke rebranding are now well-documented, a timeline of the last year-and-a-half behind-the-scenes at Cracker Barrel reveals a classic case of corporate myopia, ignoring caution and barreling forward with rigidity.
On the call in May 2024, Masino announced she’d hired a new "leading" branding agency to "refine and strengthen positioning to delight existing and new guests." The other pillars included "enhancing the menu," "evolving the store and guest experience," "winning in digital and off-premise" and "elevating the employee experience."
Biglari, a San Antonio, Texas, venture capitalist sometimes nicknamed "Big," didn’t buy the corporate gobbledygook.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
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Nah .. it’s cold mba business analysis cooked up in somebodies thesis...and adhered to by a group of people who are “woke” brainwashed. What could go wrong(across all touch points)?
What amazes me is that the CB issue is in the spotlight for so long. Usually it is flavor of the day and then something new.
Who and what is keeping this in limelight?
But it does remind me of sitting with Dad at the fence of the hog yard and receiving sage advice:
“When one pig squeals, the rest gang up on him.”
“Ms. Black Glasses was all excited.”
**********
Glasses that just shout “I’m smarter and more sophisticated than CB’s customers.” You’ll never, ever see anyone eating there who looks like her.
Three ongoing offenses: DEI, Decor ambiance, Food.
1) The woke DEI employee stuff stays in place.
Only the symbolic sign gets changed.
2) They are still gonna serve frozen biscuits, except on Saturdays and Sundays when there is somebody there doing the baking. Biscuits are done ahead of time and frozen. On Saturday morning do you even get fresh then? Bacon is precooked frozen ahead and heated in the oven.
3) The sterile dining room look also stays.
Do they even do the turnip greens in a pot on the stove anymore?
Don’t trouble yourself over another corporate death.
They think reversing course on the logo solves all their problems. But I can assure you if they’re still waiting deep into Dei BS they are doomed to failure. I hope this awesome investor, big, is successful in ousting this loser of a CEO and the board who are brain dead
She wanted to decorate the restaurant to look like her trendy soulless home.
Both embraced DEI, but...
Bud Lite hired a man who liked to pretend he was a little girl to sell beer.
Cracker Barrel simplified their logo, ditching the old guy on it.
These are not the same things.
They need to go back to the OLD recipes that they had been using since they opened. That was why I went there, it tasted the same as it had from when I first went in the early 80’s in Nashville.
Also, she needs to GO. They need to flush out upper management and put in some people who understand the history and heritage of the company, and who will work to preserve it.
Thank you. I just printed it out for him, took it to him, and also sent him the link so that he can send it to others. He smiled, blew me a kiss, and said thank you. I hope it will make for great meetings!
Fire the Bish.
CB changed the decor to cold and sterile. It looks like it could be any chain restaurant. Robby Starbuck did a critique of their decade long slide into wokeness. He was the fuse. Changing the logo was the match.
CB's CEO does not have an MBA. She has a BA in communications.
Well, the comment was removed - so if you want to send it to me in private message, I’d probably chuckle, too.
Another CEO with a worthless BA degree.
“She should be in federal prison.”
On what charge? Stupidity and incompetence is not a crime.is not a crime
1. Dismissed the few focus groups they held
2. Used Ivory Tower mentality to pursue changes
3. Did not look to improve - but to change
4. Embrace woke ideology
These principles can be applied to each marketing disaster (Coke, Bud, Jaguar, CB).
Its the quality of your food, stupid.
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