The woke CEO of Cracker Barrel, Julie Masino, is on her way out, according to the company. This comes after she attempted to sterilize the Americana country feel of the chain’s restaurants and branding a year ago.
You may remember that last year, Cracker Barrel ignored the massive amount of backlash it received when it launched a chain-wide remodeling of its restaurants, eschewing the old-fashioned look and feel that defined the brand. Masino and her team instead opted to force a new look and feel to the restaurants that was, well, boring. In fact, it was so obviously an attempt to get away from its Americana country roots, that the negative feedback came heavy and hard.
Displaying a commitment to tone-deafness, Masino pushed forward with changes to the chain’s logo and menu that made vanilla look like an exotic spice. The ensuing controversy, in a marketing sense, achieved Bud Light levels of disgust.
NEW: Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino to step down just one year after the company’s disastrous rebrand.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 27, 2026
Masino oversaw the company’s axing of Uncle Herschel and their restaurants’ iconic tchotchkes.
“The feedback's been overwhelmingly positive that people like what… pic.twitter.com/QonxhL2bSl
After the controversy threatened sales and company performance, Masino and her team backed off their plans and decided not to complete the wholesale makeover of the chain’s restaurants, its logo, and its menu.
For this, Cracker Barrel shareholders rewarded Masino in November 2025 by letting her keep her job.
The Wall Street Journal reported: “The move (Masino's resignation) ends a roughly three-year tenure in which the restaurant chain was widely criticized by customers and President Trump for her efforts to modernize the eatery and its stores. Masino pressed forward with a revamp that included remaking the folksy logo atop Cracker Barrel restaurants, pulling antique tchotchkes off the walls and changing the menu.”
Cracker Barrel’s stock price tanked as a result. The company lost more than half of its valuation. Since then, the stock’s recovery has been largely tepid, though it did get a boost earlier this summer when the company forecasted an improved 2026 outlook.
The company said that Masino will be replaced in August by David Deno, the former CEO of Outback Steakhouse’s parent company Bloomin’ Brands. Deno is a 40-year veteran of the retail and restaurant business, including stints at Best Buy and Yum Brands. The company said that Masino will stick around in an advisory capacity until October 9 as part of a management transition.
NEW: Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino is stepping down following the company's controversial rebrand last year that sparked fierce backlash from longtime customers.
— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) July 27, 2026
The effort to modernize the chain included removing the iconic Uncle Herschel mascot and redesigning… pic.twitter.com/GU35yNlVRs
Back when Masino thought she could get away with wokifying Cracker Barrel, she caught the attention of activist investor Sardar Biglari, who made it his mission to try to remove Masino from the corner office through a proxy fight. That was when Masino backed off her plans to transform the Cracker Barrel brand. Shareholders, in turn, voted not to fire her.
Biglari also owns a major stake in Steak 'n Shake, which I earlier reported, unlike Masino and her regime, has demonstrated a superior ability to connect with Americans.
The two chains – Steak 'n Shake and Cracker Barrel – share a major investor in Sardar Biglari. He’s the Iranian-American founder, chairman, and CEO of Biglari Holdings, which owns 100% of Steak ‘n Shake. He’s been the chairman and CEO of that company since 2008.
Biglari is also a longtime investor in Cracker Barrel, where he has been a thorn in the side of that chain’s management. Even before the rebranding fiasco at Cracker Barrel, Biglari was working to shake things up there. Once the rebranding disaster started to make headlines, he seized on that to call for changes, I wrote in October 2025.
The Journal reported that “Cracker Barrel told investors after second-quarter earnings that the family-dining chain was recovering from huge losses in sales, profit and the number of guests coming through its doors.”
Apparently, the pace of the recovery wasn’t working fast enough for Cracker Barrel investors. Masino is now out, proving the following point once again: “Go woke, go broke.”
What are the lessons here? First, it’s that Americans aren’t that hard to figure out. They know what they like. Second, if you’re a woke girl-boss, what they like is not what you like. So, if you understand these two things, you should be OK. Oh, and third, if you insist on trying to force-feed wokeness to most Americans, they’ll skip your restaurant and go somewhere else.
It seems that after a year of second and third chances, Cracker Barrel has finally decided to, as HR directors love to say, “go in a different direction.”
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