In an age of increasingly simplistic designs, we almost saw another victim fall to the rising trend of minimalism. On August 19, 2025, Cracker Barrel announced over social media, as a part of their “All the More” campaign, that they were going to change their logo from their iconic Uncle Herschel with his barrel to plain text within a simplified barrel. This change of logo also came during the time that Cracker Barrel was planning on renovating the insides of around six-hundred-sixty of their restaurant locations. The renovations came with the hope that Cracker Barrel would be able to enhance the aesthetic within each of their restaurant locations. They planned on organizing more of their wall decorations while also going for a modern interior. They were going to replace the old wooden look, which had a more homestyle feel, to fit more of a sit-down din er aesthetic.
In the wake of the announcement of the logo change and remodeling efforts, there quickly came a lot of criticism. Many people immediately voiced their concerns and complaints over social media. A lot of this criticism was directed at how sudden the choice of change was. Especially for something that was going to completely flip the feel of the restaurant chain, which thrived on their homestyle feel. After a week of receiving harsh criticism, Cracker Barrel backed off with their changes–both the logo and the remodeling of their locations. They formally announced that they would instead be keeping their current logo and would stop plans for remodeling any further locations. Their consumer base celebrated the fact that their homestyle dining experience would not be changed after all. Although the executives at Cracker Barrel were relatively quick to revert back to what most people liked, the damage has been done, which is evident through how heavily their stock price had been affected. Within the week that the changes had been announced, Cracker Barrel lost around 10% of its stocks worth. Although the stock price recovered after they reverted back to their old logo and homestyle vibe, it has fallen again recently, giving us a sign. There is a lot to learn from how Cracker Barrel handled their plans for change in the future, mainly that major changes should not be made without consulting your customer base, especially when it comes to a restaurant chain that thrives off of a trait of tradition to draw in many of their customers.
This is one of the first major push backs that we have seen in a while against corporate America that has produced major change, and maybe this was the start of a bigger movement in the near future. The big question that comes to mind in the midst of these events is whether or not this is the start of a societal pushback against minimalism. It seems likely that we will see more criticism towards companies that change their iconic logos for the sake of simplification.
