Cracker Barrel has lost its barrel.

This week, the Tennessee-born chain, once defined by its gingham-tinted nostalgia, retired the logo of a man in overalls leaning against a wooden cask in favor of a stripped-down wordmark. The stock immediately tumbled, nearly a hundred million dollars in value gone by Thursday afternoon. Online, the uproar was swift and gleeful: conservatives decried the change as too progressive, and so, the new logo was inducted into the ever-growing catalog of “woke” consumer products — a list that already includes rainbow Oreos, Bud Light cans and Starbucks’ allegedly godless holiday cups.

For a restaurant better known for cornbread and checkerboards than market volatility, the whole thing had the air of an identity crisis unfolding in real time.

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