It was supposed to be a simple rebrand – or so Cracker Barrel thought.
Earlier this month, the 56-year-old southern restaurant chain known for its country-store charm and nostalgic Americana aesthetic unveiled a new look: a minimalist logo, more modern interiors and a handful of new menu items.
Gone was the familiar image of “Uncle Herschel”, the old man in overalls leaning against a wooden barrel. Also dropped were the words “Old Country Store”. In their place: a pared-down gold background with the words “Cracker Barrel”.
It was the chain’s fifth logo change in its history and part of a broader push to stay relevant and attract young customers amid declining sales.
But what Cracker Barrel likely saw as a routine refresh quickly spiraled into a political storm, and made the company the latest target in the American right’s campaign against so-called “wokeness” in corporate America.
In conservative circles online, the backlash was swift.
“WTF is wrong with @CrackerBarrel??!” Donald Trump Jr posted on X. Conservative activist Christopher Rufo declared: “We must break the Barrel,” adding that “it’s not about this particular restaurant chain – who cares – but about creating massive pressure against companies that are considering any move that might appear to be ‘wokification’”.
“The implicit promise: Go woke, watch your stock price drop 20 percent, which is exactly what is happening now,” Rufo added.
Indeed, within days, Cracker Barrel’s stock slid more than 10%. And soon, the outrage reached the White House.
“Cracker Barrel should go back to the old logo, admit a mistake based on customer response (the ultimate Poll), and manage the company better than ever before,” Donald Trump wrote on social media on Tuesday morning. “Make Cracker Barrel a WINNER again.”
Later that day, Cracker Barrel reversed course.
“We said we would listen, and we have,” the company said. “Our new logo is going away and our ‘Old Timer’ will remain.”
A senior White House official revealed that Cracker Barrel executives had called the administration on Tuesday, and “thanked President Trump for weighing in on the issue of their iconic ‘original’ logo”.
The official added: “They wanted the President to know that they heard him, along with customer response” and that they would be restoring the old logo.
Trump celebrated the reversal as a win, and by Wednesday, the company’s stock had rebounded more than 8%. On Thursday, Cracker Barrel also reportedly removed a dedicated “Pride page” from its website.
For the rightwing online voices that drove the backlash, the reversal was another example of the influence they now wield in the US and one that has corporate America willing to bow before it in order to preserve its profits and avoid the hostility of the Maga movement.
One conservative influencer called it “a BIG win in the culture war for America”.
For some, it was no surprise that Cracker Barrel’s rebrand became a political flashpoint, as the company has long marketed a vision of “old country” America and has often been associated with conservative values.
“It has this kind of stylized or idealized representation of what I think many would define as the ‘good old days’,” Jarvis Sam, founder of the Rainbow Disruption and professor at Brown University and University of California, Berkeley, said earlier this week. “But for others, its imagery of histories of exclusion, of racial inequity and this romanticization of a time that was not that great, actually – it was not equally safe and nostalgic for everyone.”
Cracker Barrel, which was founded in 1969, has a documented history of sexual and racial discrimination accusations. In 1991, it adopted a policy that employees who failed “to demonstrate normal heterosexual values” would be terminated, which led to the firing of 11 LGBTQ+ employees and sparked protests.
In 2004, the company paid $8.7m to settle claims from more than 40 plaintiffs in 16 states alleging racist treatment of Black customers and discrimination against Black employees.
In recent years, the brand has drawn conservative backlash for making efforts to broaden its appeal and adopt more inclusive policies. It faced backlash in 2022 over adding meatless sausage to its menu and in 2023 for marking Pride Month on social media.
But Cracker Barrel is far from the only company to have found itself at the center of right-wing backlash campaigns over perceived “wokeness” in recent years.
In 2023, Bud Light lost nearly a quarter of its sales after partnering with Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender influencer. Just weeks later, Target pulled some Pride merchandise after facing backlash and threats to its stores. Chick-fil-A was also attacked for its diversity initiatives, and earlier this year, Trump himself slammed Jaguar Land Rover for what he called “stupid” and “woke” marketing.
“Go woke, go broke,” the White House said this week, referencing a phrase that has, over the years, become a rallying cry among conservative activists opposed to corporate America’s recent efforts to embrace diversity.
Rightwing commentator Rogan O’Handley, better known as DC Draino, who has more than 2 million followers on X, framed Cracker Barrel’s reversal as proof of Maga’s current cultural influence.
“We boycotted Bud Light and made them lose billions for going woke,” Draino said. “We boycotted Target and made them lose billions for going woke. Then we boycotted Cracker Barrel and they brought back the southern gentleman within a week. Maga is the most dominant political movement in our lifetimes. And we’re just getting started.”
Nooshin Warren, a marketing professor at the University of Arizona who studies political and cause-based marketing, said that companies often take their cues from those in power – whether it’s the president, the legislature or the courts.
They do so, Warren said, because they “believe that the power is mirroring the majority in a democratic setting” and thus believe it “mirrors the majority ideology, which is their market”.
In recent years, companies have increasingly sought to align themselves with social values in part as an effort to engage with younger and increasingly socially conscious consumers, and boycotts of companies have emerged on both sides of the political spectrum.
While it is not necessarily new that consumers want brands to be aligned with their values, Warren said, the difference now is the amplification.
“We didn’t have an amplifier and social media has brought that, and because we have that, generally the loudest people are more heard,” Warren said.
She said that the Cracker Barrel controversy, along with broader backlash against brands over their perceived political stances over the years, reflects a wider cultural shift in the US.
“We are a politically charged country right now,” Warren said. “Where almost everything is political, because almost every part of our emotions, household decisions, personal decisions, all has some sort of political value attached to it at this moment.”
On top of that, Warren said, “when we get institutional legitimacy from the top, most popular, most influential people in a country, that will also definitely add to it”.
Since returning to office, the Trump administration has sought to influence corporate behavior, pushing its rightwing policies and perspectives and seeking to suppress or eliminate support for LGBTQ+ rights and diversity.
According to the Wall Street Journal, corporations such as Mastercard, PepsiCo, Citi and others have scaled back their Pride marketing and sponsorships, citing both political pressure from the administration and growing economic uncertainty tied to tariffs.
In the entertainment industry, Variety reported that Discovery, Amazon, Paramount Global and Disney have begun unwinding their DEI initiatives. Walmart and McDonald’s have also recently pared down their diversity-related initiatives.
An April survey by Gravity Research found that nearly 40% of major US brands planned to “reduce Pride-related engagement in 2025” and none reported plans to increase it.
David Reibstein, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, said that Cracker Barrel’s logo change “should have been no big thing”.
“Companies rebrand all the time,” he said, adding that he believes it likely “would have gone under the radar if it had not suddenly caught a couple people’s attention and wanted to make it into a political issue”.
Reibstein said that he has never seen a US president “sort of endorsing or condemning companies” in the way that Trump does: “Trump is an influencer, and when Trump says this company better change, if they don’t, he’s got a whole group of followers that are going to start boycotting that product.”
While Reibstein doesn’t believe that Cracker Barrel’s rebrand was politically motivated, he said that once it caught fire online and the president got involved, the company pretty much had “no alternative but to acquiesce”.
Political pressure is also extending beyond companies, and is part of a growing effort by this administration and its allies to reshape not only company behavior but wider US cultural institutions, from the Smithsonian museums to higher education.
“The whole Maga crowd and the followers of Trump have tremendous influence right now,” Reibstein said.