By Heather Haddon
Last summer Chief Executive Julie Felss Masino was trolled mercilessly as she pressed forward with a Cracker Barrel revamp, from remaking the folksy logo atop restaurants to pulling antique tchotchkes off the walls.
Amid the firestorm of criticism, she was subjected to critiques of her glasses and comments about her "woke" attitude. She fielded unsolicited business advice from President Trump over the logo redesign and company management. And activist investor Sardar Biglari vowed to remove her through a proxy battle.
But on Tuesday she delivered a new outlook so rosy that shares shot up as much as 35%.
Masino survived by unceremoniously casting aside her original plans in the wake of a customer and social-media revolt and focusing back on the brand's core customers, a maneuver many CEOs struggle to pull off.
"What I've always admired about Julie is her grit and determination, I think people underestimate her," said Greg Creed, former Yum Brands CEO, who led the fast-food company's Taco Bell business while Masino worked as an executive there.
Masino told investors Tuesday that her new strategy to bring the family-dining chain back from huge losses in sales, profits and the number of guests coming through its doors is working. Loyal customers have come back as the company refocused on dishing up its most die-hard fans' favorite foods, deals and nostalgia.
"The food is even more delicious, is made the way that they remember and the service is going to be out of this world," Masino said.
One particular bright spot: merchandise commemorating the 250th birthday of America and other heritage items that flew off Cracker Barrel store shelves faster than expected, including U.S. Constitution T-shirts, flag pillows and patriotic smock dresses.
The return of nostalgic favorites, like campfire meals and ham dinners, are helping to woo back guests, too, the company said.
In addition to improved earnings for the past quarter, Cracker Barrel also boosted its expectations for sales and profits for the rest of the fiscal year. The stock zoomed, closing up more than 22%, at its highest price since last September, when political attacks on the brand continued to rage.
But Cracker Barrel isn't out of the woods yet. Restaurant customer traffic declined 6.7% from a year earlier in the three months through May 1, an improvement from the previous quarter but still a loss that executives are trying to reverse. Cracker Barrel's market capitalization is down around $550 million from last year's highs.
While Masino made TV appearances and spoke at conferences before the controversy, she has been less visible this year, focusing on internal improvements and rejiggering plans. Her tone has also changed, from renovate to preserve.
"We have been really clear. We put the remodel program on pause this year, given everything that happened to us," Masino said during the call with investors.
Instead of the Cracker Barrel pop-up it staged in Manhattan last year, the company is focused on promoting its brand at Speedway Motorsports races this summer. It is updating paint and bathrooms in Cracker Barrel restaurants, but has no immediate plans to resume the extensive store remodeling that sparked so much outcry.
Many CEOs struggle to survive a controversy of Cracker Barrel's size. Board members can get impatient, leading to a CEO's ouster. In 2024, for example, Starbucks removed its handpicked CEO, who was contending with a unionization drive among baristas along with a social-media uproar over the brand after some workers' and management's comments about the Israel-Gaza conflict.
When corporate boards are assessing current and future CEOs, increasingly they are looking for executives who can be agile in difficult situations, both internally and externally, said Seema Threja, global head of executive recruitment firm Spencer Stuart's hospitality and leisure practice.
"Leaders are no longer being judged in a vacuum," Threja said. "It's around learning agility. Can a person take a hard signal and adjust?"
Recruited to Cracker Barrel in 2023, Masino set a multiyear brand update in motion. The goal was to modernize its stores, menu and design to help bring new customers to the vintage chain. The company had seen some promising results from food updates and marketing tie-ins when, as part of a fall marketing campaign in 2025, it unveiled a new, simplified logo.
But when launched more widely, the redesign plunged Cracker Barrel into a culture war-fueled battle, with critics accusing it of shunning its heritage -- and loyal diners. Some of the online pushback was ginned up by bots.
"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," Trump wrote on social media last August as the backlash reached a boiling point.
Cracker Barrel in late August said it would return to its previous logo featuring its "Old Timer" icon and barrel. In early September, it suspended its restaurant redesign test. Still, the company's shares slid by more than a third by the fall from its late-July high.
Masino took action. She cut ties with the marketing firm behind the chain's rebranding campaign and revamped the company's leadership structure, bringing back a former vice president for menu strategy and elevating a veteran field operator to oversee store operations.
In the company's kitchens, workers returned to traditional kettle cooking for sides like green beans and stopped freezing its biscuits in batches. Cracker Barrel asked customers to give feedback and promised to keep refining its offerings in response.
Even so, the activist investor who has mounted repeated proxy fights at Cracker Barrel, Biglari, set in motion a new one to remove Masino and another board member, Gilbert Dávila. Cracker Barrel shareholders voted around 75% of shares in favor of keeping Masino, less support than the prior year but enough to regain her position.
Dávila, a marketing specialist and board member since 2020, didn't receive the necessary votes to stay on the board and resigned.
The company has trimmed its costs, laid off corporate staff and pulled back on big marketing spending.
At the store level, some workers said the company has pushed them to sell more popular retail items like squeezy children's toys, along with drinks and take-home meals. They have also stressed greeting guests quickly, even during busy hours.
While weekends are busy, weekdays can still be slow. Restaurant visits have gradually improved this spring, but remain down by 5.7% in May from a year earlier, according to Placer.ai, which analyzes foot traffic.
Restaurant teams and executives are focused and hustling, Masino said, but Cracker Barrel's recovery remains fragile. The company warned its sales could be affected by rising gasoline prices and lower-income consumers further tightening their belts and eating out less.
"It's just some real hard work," she said.
Write to Heather Haddon at heather.haddon@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 10, 2026 21:03 ET (01:03 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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