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.

[x]

I guess in marketing class if your answer is, “You’re doing fine. You have a loyal fan base. Don’t change anything.” you don’t get a passing grade.

[spintreebob]

DBA DataBase Administrator. At State Farm my focus was to find ways for the IBM DB2 Database to run fast and efficient.
IBM makes big bucks of inefficiency of design and coding.

[VideoDoctor]

Cracker Barrel could be on the precipice of SELF-EXTINCTION.. one thing is for certain, the DECAY, which actually began FESTERING some 5 or 6 years ago has now come home to ROOST!

Julie Felss Masino just BURIED herself, in terms of LEADING the Company ANYWHERE. I'll be as BOLD as to say.. "this woman CEO completely "Blindsided" HERSELF, and like the Anheuser-Busch CEO, has NO ONE to BLAME but HERSELF!"

[7.62mm]

I was totally unaware that Mozilla Firefox had issues.

I have had no operating issues with it.

Are they all political?

Have the TDS symptoms disappeared?

Which browser do you use?

Many thanks...

[Flavious_Maximus]

I now use the Brave browser which was created by the guy that wrote the Fire Fox browser (and got fired by them because he did not agree with homosexual marriage).

Also use the Opera browser because of the built in VPN.

Mozilla got rid of that freak anti-Trump CEO (2 years ago) but they are still a very woke company and deserve to be shunned.

[FrankRizzo890]

Oh man, Po’ Folks! That country fried steak was AWESOME!

[7.62mm]

Many thanks!

I’ll check them out...