Growing up in the South, Cracker Barrel felt a bit like a theme park attraction. Its down-home frills, Old Country Store merch, and cartoonishly indulgent comfort food embody a storybook spectacle of Southern life that doesn't really exist anymore in popular culture. Which helps explain why the company's decision to neuter its logo—axing the overalls-clad "Old Timer" leaning against the eponymous barrel—did not garner glowing reviews from some of the more vocal participants in the discourse.

The criticism, from a slew of politicians and public figures, coalesced around a core theme: that the restaurant had fallen prey to the wokeness bug and would soon become another one of its casualties. Go woke, go broke, as the saying goes.

There are a few reasons why that critique misses the mark. F

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