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The Cracker Barrel Old Country Store restaurant chain isn’t doing well. The company’s stock prices are at their lowest in over a decade, and the chain’s 660 stores have lost 16 percent of their customers over the past four years. Cracker Barrel’s stock price at was $45.

62, some 20 percent lower than the $57.27 price on May 16. The company, based in he Lebanon, Tennessee, has launched a three-year, $700 million upgrading of its restaurants, is altering its menu and is seeking a younger clientele.



But even its new CEO, who has been with the company for nine months, says Cracker Barrel is not as relevant as it once was. Cracker Barrel, home of fried , lots of gravy, plenty of carbs, and gifts new and nostalgic in trouble? How can that be? What’s going on with the iconic 54-year-old company whose brown and yellow billboards are almost as familiar as the signs identifying interstate highways along which Cracker Barrels almost always park themselves? Lots of reasons are creeping forth. “We’re just not as relevant as we once were,” the eatery’s CEO, Julie Felss Masino, said on an investor call May 16, according to the .

“Some of our recipes and processes haven’t evolved in decades.” For a while, I’ve been reading comment sections in stories about Cracker Barrel, and there have been repeated complaints about declining quality. In the Post’s comment section, someone calling themselves WhoDat said: “Years ago they had very good food for very reasonable .

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