In case you needed more reminding that the Cracker Barrel brouhaha isn’t just about a logo, a new report about the cost-cutting culture inside the embattled casual eating giant shows how willing they were to sacrifice the brand’s identity for a few bucks.
The New York Post reported Monday that before the now-abandoned logo change last month, “corporate bean counters this year quietly forced the chain to serve up day-old biscuits and microwaved meatloaf.”
The biscuits, which are served at the 650 Cracker Barrel locations, have been traditionally baked fresh.
However, the higher-ups decided that it would be better to make them the day before and freeze them, then reheat them.
The results were biscuits that were “hard,” “rubbery,” and “like a rock,” according to sources within the company.
“They thought that we’d be faster and out sooner if we weren’t rolling out bread,” a cook with the chain told the Post.
“People want biscuits to be buttery and soft,” she continued.
“The most common complaint we’ve gotten is that our biscuits are sometimes like a rock.”
Should Cracker Barrel replace its CEO?
Basically the same thing was done with the meatloaf, again cooked the day before and zapped just before it was served.
“Before, we cooked it in our oven, and the cook would cut it up still in the pan, which was in our steam line,” the cook said.
“It was fresher.”
“The changes [to how food is prepared] were to account for the labor shortage in the kitchen,” the cook added.
The move was done beginning last year after Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino began cost-cutting measures, including cutting prep cooks and slashing the hours of other workers.
Masino, who was named CEO in 2023, made headlines beginning in 2024 by saying the chain was “just not as relevant as we once were,” adding that “[s]ome of our recipes and processes haven’t evolved in decades.”
They evolved, all right — all to save a few bucks on biscuits and meatloaf.
Don’t get us wrong: Nobody here is suggesting that private companies are in the business of subsidizing failure. And it’s not that the chain hasn’t been willing to spend money under its new executive team. In fact, one of its biggest investors wrote last November that it was “textbook trap of overspending on cosmetic remodeling.”
“The day Cracker Barrel opened, it was already old — its theme derived from the 1920s,” wrote Sardar Biglari, who owns roughly 5 percent of Cracker Barrel’s stock. “I am concerned that not only will the remodel not work but it could actually damage the brand further.”
Part of that “remodel” was the new logo — which was immediately loathed by pretty much everyone. Soon after the fiasco began, Masino and the rest of the team quietly stopped the cost-cutting measures.
So, twice has Masino tanked the stock of her brand: once by declaring it irrelevant, then by making it so with a new logo that spat in the faces of the restaurant’s customer base.
Meanwhile, the higher-ups spent profligately on a rebrand it decidedly didn’t need while cutting into the quality of the food.
Now, she and the rest of the management team have done what they should have done in the beginning and focused on quality.
The idea that a change in logo and a large-scale renovation of restaurants, both of which served to make Cracker Barrel more generic, were going to solve what ailed the chain was bonkers to begin with. Anyone with sense could have told Masino and Co. that Southern charm and homestyle cooking were incompatible with this trajectory.
Perhaps they can pull a Domino’s. Remember what the pizza chain did a few years back: admitted its food stunk, promised to make it better, and delivered. In this case, Cracker Barrel needs to admit that the whole culture is wrong and that it’s rededicating itself to what makes the company worth saving. Absent that — or perhaps as a prelude to it — it should can the CEO. Both are probably necessary to sew up the self-inflicted wounds Cracker Barrel has incurred.
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