Cracker Barrel’s CEO dismissed warnings from a top investor who called the rebranding ‘obvious folly’

Fox Business ^ | 26 Aug, 2025 | Asra Nomani

[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.

---

TOPICS: Business/Economy; Society
KEYWORDS: girlpower; leftism; thefutureisfemale

[MtnClimber]

Didn’t they notice what happened to Bud light and numerous others?

[ClearCase_guy]

Girl Boss.

Cracker Barrel food is substandard. They need a new recipe. They got a recipe for disaster.

[Vision]

“strategic transformation plan”

lol. Ms. Black Glasses was all excited.

[nopardons]

BTTT

[Billthedrill]

Nonsense, the proposed changes met with a chorus of unanimous delight, or so we were told. Is that the sort of thing management would lie about?

Let me rephrase that...

[bray]

Women make terrible CEOs. They are too concerned about Virtue Grandstanding.

[CaptainPhilFan]

Cracker Barrel’s first mistake was hiring a broad with dyed blonde hair and big, black glasses that are usually just for show, who wears all black and thinks she’s a girl boss and the best thing since free abortions.

These wimyn in business are a disaster wherever they are found.
Anyone think I’m wrong there?

I believe many of these sorority hires fancy themselves some kind of witch, also.

[srmanuel]

Any restaurant not just Cracker Barrel only has a few things to be concerned with, serving quality food at a reasonable price, in facility that is clean and welcoming.

When you hear about anything else then it’s a waste of time and money. This particular CEO totally overlooked the basics and was on a mission to advance an woke agenda has failed spectacularly.

You don’t take a brand that has been successful for many years and throw out everything the company was built on.

[hinckley buzzard]

We have a whole generation of people with bachelors degrees in things like “communication” who come out of college knowing everything, and who don’t need to listen to anyone. This is the result. It won’t be the last one either.

[sauropod]

Bkmk

[FamiliarFace]

Did you write that? It’s very good.

[philman_36]

"This is a company that felt compelled to atone for past sins," when it fired gay employees in 1991, before quickly reversing its policies. "In the process, it went overboard. With their eye off the ball, the company suffered, and they are using the problems they themselves created as the pretext to radically alter the brand, a play that looks doomed from the start." Self inflicted wound from a corporate struggle session.
They caved, plain and simple.

[allendale]

If your portfolio contains a stock that hires a progressive Democrat woman as their CEO, sell it immediately. Also if it is a man who has donated consistently to democrats sell as well.

[Red Badger]

No, it’s very old, predates the Internet.

It’s one of those inter-office memos Xeroxed a million times and faxed across the country ........... circa 1980..........

[budj]

Classic "woke" management:
A board of directors comes up with
"...'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'..."
Investors will, diners go elsewhere.

[citizen]

“strategic transformation plan”

---

Like the "fundamental transformation of America."

[Socon-Econ]

Didn’t they notice what happened to Bud light and numerous others?
*********
Why should they notice that? Like most younger corporate elites, they’ve no doubt been in a leftist communications bubble their entire lives.

[DariusBane]

“The first of “five pillars” in the plan would be “refining” and “evolving the brand across all touchpoints.”

In a single sentence we find everything wrong with the American MBA. Language must be meaningless convoluted and lacking content. What the hell does that mean? Just a word salad Kamala Harris could be proud of.