Cracker Barrel managed to unite the country when it unveiled its new, modernized logo ditching Uncle Herschel. Yes, it was pressure from conservatives and even President Trump that forced the company to retreat on the redesign, but Democrats thought the rebrand ‘sucked’ too. Perhaps the most stinging rebuke, however, came from Cracker Barrel’s 93-year-old co-founder Tommy Lowe, who found the new design “pitiful.”
In an interview with WTVF NewsChannel 5 in Nashville, Lowe said CEO Julie Masino, previously an executive with Taco Bell, just doesn’t get it.
“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 said, emphasizing that efforts to modernize were undertaken to “be like the competition,” except “Cracker Barrel doesn’t have any competition.”
In 1969, Lowe helped open the first Cracker Barrel, a restaurant and country store, in Wilson County, Tennessee, with his friend, the late Dan Evins.
He offered Masino some free advice. Instead of “throwing money out on the street” with the $700 million rebrand, Cracker Barrel needs to stick to its roots.
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“There was a Grand ‘Ole Opry guy when we opened named String Bean and String Bean came in there one day when we were open about a month or two and he said, ‘It looks good but just keep it country,'” Lowe recalled. “If they don’t get back to keeping it country, then it ain’t gonna work.”
