Cracker Barrel co-founder Tommy Lowe, 93, on Friday criticized the chain’s CEO following a “pitiful” rebranding.
“They’re trying to modernize to be like the competition. Cracker Barrel doesn’t have any competition,” Lowe, who co-founded Cracker Barrel with the late Dan Evins in Lebanon, Tennessee in 1969, told WTVF.
“I heard [CEO Julie Felss Masino] was at Taco Bell. What’s Taco Bell know about Cracker Barrel and country food? They need to work on the food and service and leave the barrel, the logo, alone.”
He also slammed the rebrand as “pitiful” and said “spending $700 million doing that is throwing money out the window.”
Cracker Barrel hired Masino, a longtime Taco Bell and Starbucks executive, in July 2023. She was chosen for her record as an innovator, with the hope that she would attract new customers to Cracker Barrel, which operates 660 restaurants in 43 states.
Her attempt at a rebrand hit a wall last week.
The company saw severe backlash over its plans to modernize and simplify its nostalgic logo — including from President Donald Trump.
Cracker Barrel has reversed course and said its old logo would remain. It features an overall-clad man — said to represent “Uncle Herschel” McCartney, a relative of Cracker Barrel’s founder – leaning on a barrel, with the words “Old Country Store” underneath.
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