Topline
Cracker Barrel shares rose as high as 8% before dropping slightly Wednesday morning, hours after the restaurant chain announced it would abandon a new minimalist logo that received intense backlash from conservative critics, including President Donald Trump.
The restaurant chain brought back its “Old Timer” logo after previously announcing a redesign.
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Key Facts
Cracker Barrel unveiled their new logo as part of a new marketing campaign last week, which quickly drew the ire of conservative influencers on social media, most of whom complained about the ongoing trend of minimalist logo redesigns.
Cracker Barrel’s share price slumped for days after the logo redesign, falling more than 7% on August 21 as criticism mounted.
Shares rose 5% before markets opened on Wednesday morning before sliding slightly as trading began, only to leap much higher later the same morning.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
Surprising Fact
Cracker Barrel was founded in 1969, but only adopted a logo featuring a character named “Uncle Herschel” leaning against a barrel in 1977. Although critics compared the now-abandoned new Cracker Barrel to branding redesigns at large chain restaurants like Pizza Hut and McDonalds, the restaurant chain insisted it was “rooted even more closely to the iconic barrel shape and word mark that started it all.”
Crucial Quote
Congratulations “Cracker Barrel” on changing your logo back to what it was,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday, after the company announced the restored logo. “All of your fans very much appreciate it. Good luck into the future. Make lots of money and, most importantly, make your customers happy again!” Trump previously suggested the company could get a “Billion Dollars worth of free publicity if they play their cards right” and return to the old logo, calling it a “great opportunity.”
Key Background
The swift backlash against the southern-themed restaurant and country store mirrored a similar backlash against Anheuser-Busch after a very brief Bud Light marketing collaboration featuring transgender actress Dylan Mulvaney. In a similar pattern of events, conservative influencers on social media stoked outrage after the short ad, posted in April 2023, causing sales to tank.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharyfolk/2025/08/27/cracker-barrel-shares-rise-premarket-after-chain-restores-old-logo/