In late August 2025, many people online had strong reactions to the restaurant chain Cracker Barrel's new logo, with some claiming the redesign was a "woke rebrand." The discourse soon spilled onto television news, where it was discussed at length on outlets such as CNN and Fox News.
Some critics declared the new logo went "woke" for removing the character known as "Uncle Herschel," who sat on the titular cracker barrel, meant to invoke the imagery of an old-fashioned general store. The new logo simplified the brand's text design and placed it inside a barrel-shaped outline.
(While Dictionary.com defines "woke" as "aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)," conservative pundits have used the word to describe certain ideologies since the first administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. Notably, it often is used as catchall terminology for traditionally progressive viewpoints such as the promotion of LGBTQ+ rights and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.)
CBS News reported Cracker Barrel stock lost nearly $100 million in value after discourse over the new logo began.
Many users sharing the new logo on social media platforms such as X (archived) and Facebook (archived) decried the update as bland, with one post (archived) calling it "soulless and terrible."
The X account of restaurant chain Steak 'n Shake, which The Washington Post reported as cozying up to conservatives since Trump's second inauguration, posted (archived) an image mocking the change with the words "Fire the CEO."
Despite the pervasive discourse, there was no evidence to suggest Cracker Barrel's logo update had anything to do with LGBTQ+ activism, DEI initiatives or any other so-called "woke" ideologies.
It's worth noting that in 1991, Cracker Barrel came under fire for a policy discriminating against LGBTQ+ people in the workplace, terminating the employment of 11 workers at the time the policy went into effect. The New York Times reported in 1993 that the workers weren't rehired.
After that, Cracker Barrel worked to rehabilitate its reputation, including the creation of a Cracker Barrel LGBTQ+ Alliance and improving its score on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index, "the national benchmarking tool on corporate policies, practices and benefits pertinent to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer employees."
However, some Cracker Barrel fans reacted negatively to the new logo not for ideological reasons, but aesthetic ones related to the perceived diminishment of the brand's unique personality. These users alleged the new design was simply bland, pointing to other similar corporate logo changes in recent years.
Cracker Barrel logo timeline
The company's original announcement of the logo redesign on Aug. 18, 2025, which coincided with a partnership with country music singer Jordan Davis, described the new logo as: "Anchored in Cracker Barrel's signature gold and brown tones, the updated visuals will appear across menus and marketing collateral, including the fifth evolution of the brand's logo, which is now rooted even more closely to the iconic barrel shape and word mark that started it all."
One goal for the new logo was to make it easier to adapt across various platforms and reach more potential customers, the company said.
The company's 2024 announcement of Sarah Moore as its chief marketing officer featured a quote reflecting this: "As I join the team, my goal is to enhance the experience for our loyal guests while also introducing Cracker Barrel's unique charm to new guests across the country."
The original Cracker Barrel logo used at its launch in 1969 — before the version featuring "Uncle Herschel" — featured only text. It was changed to the more well-known incarnation in 1977 and underwent subtle changes until the company started sunsetting it in 2024, according to the user-maintained database Logopedia. A version of the Cracker Barrel logo without Uncle Herschel was used to celebrate the company's 55th anniversary in 2024, seen below:
(Cracker Barrel)
A search online for strong reactions to the 55th anniversary logo, similar to what occurred with the 2025 version, returned no notable results.
How Cracker Barrel responded
A spokesperson for Cracker Barrel confirmed to Snopes via email that the "fifth evolution of the brand's logo is based on a simpler design and to make Cracker Barrel easier to find on new platforms, including digital channels and screens of all sizes."
The spokesperson declined to comment on how the change affected the company's stock price but emphasized that the Uncle Herschel character would remain part of the Cracker Barrel aesthetic, if not on the logo: "We love our 'old-timer' and Uncle Herschel will still be on our menu, road signs and featured in our country store. Our bigger focus is our delicious food and serving up more than a meal with our signature country hospitality."
Further, the company posted a statement on its website in response to the discourse, stating:
If the last few days have shown us anything, it's how deeply people care about Cracker Barrel. We're truly grateful for your heartfelt voices. You've also shown us that we could've done a better job sharing who we are and who we'll always be.
The statement went on to say that the company aimed to attract a younger demographic:
We want to be sure Cracker Barrel is here for the next generation of families, just as it has been for yours. That means showing up on new platforms and in new ways, but always with our heritage at the heart. We take that responsibility very seriously.
On Aug. 26, 2025, the company posted a statement to its website and social media pages that said it was reversing course: "We thank our guests for sharing your voices and love for Cracker Barrel. We said we would listen, and we have. Our new logo is going away and our 'Old Timer' will remain."
What logo and branding experts said
Jenifer Dorman, executive creative director at Critical Mass, a design and marketing agency, told Snopes via email that she looks at the aesthetic of Cracker Barrel's rebrand as part of "a really late wave of the 'blanding' that hit 8-ish years ago, which itself came from a need to simplify the heck out of everything to reduce the friction between rapidly multiplying communication platforms (and calling it modernization)."
"When your goal is 'scale,' that consistency in visual language matters a lot," Dorman wrote. "What gets lost is, of course, personality; a sense of 'promise' that what you're seeing will result in a specific interaction/experience/food."
This notion was supported by professional logo designer Allan Peters, who appeared on CNN on Aug. 22, 2025, to discuss the topic:
I think from their perspective, their audience is getting older. They're in their 70s and 80s and they're trying to attract a younger audience. And so they're simplifying it down. People see a brand now on the phone for the first time, so you need to simplify the logo a little bit more. You can't have full-on illustrations like that man and the barrel.
In May 2024, food-service news outlet Restaurant Business reported Cracker Barrel planned to invest $700 million into updating the chain to be more competitive, which included its appearance. "We generally rank in the middle of the peer set, and we do not lead in any of these areas," CEO Julie Felss Masino said at the time.
Dorman also suspected that the update could be "the next step in their private equity journey — simplification in the name of 'efficiency.'"
"The logo update attempts to signal 'new/different' and also 'simple/clean' for the brand, all while ultimately reducing cost by minimizing additional elements," Dorman concluded.
For further reading, we've also investigated Cracker Barrel fired its head of rebranding following the logo change and whether the Fruit of the Loom logo ever contained a cornucopia.