Cracker Barrel remodel is too much for some customers. Bulk of makeovers are in Indiana
In a bid for more younger customers, the Lebanon, Tennessee-based chain known for nostalgic decor of signs and collectables is remodeling its shops and overhauling its menu.
But a viral video from 2024 showing a makeover with the chain's traditional eclectic look replaced with a brighter, modern farmhouse vibe is meeting with complaints that the updated store lacks character.
'I hate to have to break it to you, but you're eating at a Pier 1,' ChnRstrntKng posted in response to a viral post on X showing a remodeled location.
Video of the renovation of the Mount Juliet, Tennessee, location also went viral in 2024.
About 30 of the chain's 660 locations are being fully remodeled. Another 30 are undergoing a refresh.
Among changes are a lighter paint job, sound-buffering ceilings, updated lighting, more comfortable seating, simplified decor and fixtures, and the removal of the lattice that separated tables and sections.
Menu updates also are in the works, with items following testing in Indianapolis.
The changes are part of an initiative under CEO Julie Felss Masino following a 40% drop in stock price and a decline in traffic. The brand had been struggling since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The company will also test a store that is 15% smaller but with the same number of seats, said Sarah Moore, the chain's chief marketing officer.
'We have such a core base of loyal customers, but then as other bases of customers really start to understand the brand, they fall in love with it too, because we do really transcend those different generations,' Moore told IndyStar during the menu tests and store remodels. 'This entire journey we're embarking on with this transformation is about just that; bringing more people into the fold and showing them what so many customers already love about our brand.'
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The chain began remodeling stores in the summer of 2024.
Indianapolis is at the center of Cracker Barrel's makeover. The dozen stores in the area account for about half of those in the nation that were recently remodeled or are in the process.
'What we're doing in Indianapolis is bringing together the best of everything we're evolving across the entire transformation framework,' Moore said, noting a high concentration of stores in the area. 'Indianapolis is a loyal fan base. They really love Cracker Barrel. And then all of the stores, the way they're kind of spread out, we reach different audience segments; so it's a really, really nice core market for us to test out all of this new stuff.'
The company last fall began testing menu items in Indianapolis, allowing customers to be among the firsts to get tastes of the Meatloaf Slides + Onion Petals, Shrimp n' Grits, Chicken n' Dumplin Soup and Crispy Tender Dippers with Comeback Sauce.
The meatloaf sliders in particular tested well, Moore said, with meatloaf served on a fluffy roll with a sweet and savory bacon jam and the new onion petals – batter-dipped and fried onion pieces.
Core menu items such as pot roast and chicken and dumplings will stay on the menu, Moore said.
'We have such classic menu items that people just are beloved amongst our core customers. So for us, embarking on this kind of menu evolution was really about how do we stay true to those classics that we love, but how do we also show up in new and different ways to create more crave-worthy options for a broader customer base,' Moore said.
'We are starting to attract those net new customers. We're trying to bring more of them into the fold, but it's critically important that we are focused and listening to that core customer that has been loyal to us for so any years,' she said. 'So everything we do is based on protecting that relationship and getting their feedback throughout this process.'
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Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Besides the Lincoln Center theater, Tow, once a member of the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans, funded a performing arts center at Brooklyn College (where he and his wife, both raised poor, had met); journalism programs at Columbia University and City University of New York; the Tow Center for Developmental Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan; and the Tow Youth Justice Institute in West Haven, Connecticut. Advertisement After an early career teaching economics at Hunter and Brooklyn colleges, Tow concluded that universities had 'too many people fighting over anthills,' and he jumped to the private sector. In 1964, he landed a job at the TelePrompTer Corp., a pioneer in the cable industry, where he was credited with expanding subscribers to 1 million from 50,000. Advertisement In 1973, he and his wife, who had been an elementary-school teacher, started their own cable business, Century Communications Corp. It was launched from their dining room table on a line of credit. The timing was perfect: The federal government had just deregulated the industry, and homes with cable subscriptions began to grow exponentially. New-Canaan-based Century became one of the country's largest cable providers, with some 2,300 employees and 1.6 million subscribers. In 1999, Tow, the chief executive, sold the company for $5.2 billion, in a mostly stock deal, to Adelphia Communications. He became Adelphia's largest shareholder after the founders, the Rigas family of Pennsylvania. Three years later, Adelphia filed for bankruptcy amid a corruption scandal that eventually sent John Rigas, the founder, and his son Timothy, the company's former chief financial officer, to prison. Tow's shares had declined by 70 percent. He had also jumped into the telephone business, buying a stake in 1989 in Citizens Utilities Co. of Stamford, Connecticut, a network of small phone companies that is now known as Frontier Communications. The New York Times called Tow, who as Citizens' chief executive grew the company, 'an aggressive acquisitor and deal maker.' But when it was disclosed that he was paid $21.6 million in 1992, more than any other utility executive in the country, shareholders, including the California Public Employees' Retirement Fund, sued. The lawsuits were eventually settled. Tow retired from business in 2004 to focus on philanthropy through the Tow Foundation. Advertisement In 2012, he and his wife signed the Giving Pledge led by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to have the world's richest people promise to contribute at least 50 percent of their wealth to nonprofits. The Tows committed to give away nearly 100 percent of their assets. The Tow Foundation reported $321 million in assets in 2024, a sum that will grow considerably with the addition of bequests from Tow following his death, according to his family. Leonard Tow was born on May 30, 1928, in Brooklyn to Louis and Estelle (Weiss) Tow, Jewish immigrants from Russia whose family name derived from the Hebrew word for 'good.' Leonard and a brother grew up in a one-room apartment behind Tow's Discount House, a store his parents owned in the Bensonhurst neighborhood. He received a bachelor's degree in 1950 from Brooklyn College, where he met Claire Schneider, a member of the class of 1952. He belonged to the Longfellows Club, a group for male students over 6 feet in height, and she was in the Hi Hites, an equivalent group for tall female students. They married in 1952. Tow earned a master's in 1952 and a doctorate in economic geography in 1960, both from Columbia University. Survivors include his sons Andrew and Frank; a daughter, Emily; eight grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter. The Tows funded the Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College, the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia and the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at City University of New York. The two journalism ventures aim to find ways for journalism to survive in the internet age and combat misinformation. 'I'm really worried about the print-journalism side of the business,' Tow told the Times in announcing the first grants of $8 million to the journalism programs in 2008. 'There's so much contraction of employment going on; every day you pick up the paper and this chain or that chain has laid off another 10 percent, and we're watching advertising support slowly disintegrate.' Advertisement In 2016, the Tow Foundation donated $25 million to Barnard College to help build a new teaching center. Tow received the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy in 2019. Criminal justice is also a focus of the foundation: It donated six-figure sums in 2023 to the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, PEN America's Prison and Justice Writing program, and the Yale Prison Education Initiative. And as part of an overhaul of Damrosch Park on the Lincoln Center campus, which was announced in May, the Tow Foundation pledged $20 million toward an outdoor community stage. This year, the foundation underwrote the salaries of 14 resident playwrights at nonprofit theaters who received their first New York productions. 'My father was at the theater three weeks ago,' Emily Tow said. 'He was interested in everything, it didn't matter how avant-garde. Some weeks he'd see three or four plays, from a basement in the Lower East Side to the fanciest Broadway production.' This article originally appeared in
