Do not fix it if it is not broken. This is what happened to the well-known Cracker Barrel logo. Everybody knows the iconic logo, featuring the famous Uncle Herschel leaning on a barrel of crackers with the iconic yellow and brown colors. This popular logo has been around since 1969 and has been loved by many since then.
The logo itself invokes feelings of nostalgia and a rustic feel. Just the same feelings you would get from walking into a Cracker Barrel. Everything about this logo was perfect…until the day modernism almost took its next victim.
You must have seen what almost became the new Cracker Barrel logo: it is objectively awful. The colors are the same, yes, but the nostalgia and rustic aesthetic are completely washed away. It was turned into a lifeless, corporate logo.
CEO Julie Felss Masino devised a plan to renovate all Cracker Barrels in an attempt to attract younger customers. The logo change was not random—it launched alongside Cracker Barrel’s fall menu campaign called “All The More.” This plan flopped harder than a fish out of water. The four newly renovated Cracker Barrels were an abomination. The walls were stark white, and the rustic decor we are all familiar with was stripped away. The plans for further Cracker Barrel remodels have been suspended due to severe backlash and growing outrage.
Cracker Barrel clarified that the man in the original logo was not literally Uncle Herschel, even though they have called him “the soul of Cracker Barrel.” He is more of a symbolic figure than a real person, but the internet did not care. People rallied around him like he was their actual uncle being pushed out of the family business.
The logo redesign and renovation abominations sparked so much backlash that Cracker Barrel’s stock plummeted by $94 million in one day. The backlash got so intense that even Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. weighed in, calling the redesign “woke” and urging the company to revert. The company saw this as a wakeup call and decided to reverse the logo back to its original design and stop all remodels. Then the internet did what it does best, turned outrage into entertainment. Brut America rounded up the best posts from X, and TikTok turned Uncle Herschel into a cultural martyr. The memes? Unhinged. The takes? Even worse. Let’s take a closer look at the logos.
