Cracker Barrel CEO reveals turnaround plan — after admitting chain ‘not as relevant’
Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino rolled out a new three-year plan to revive the struggling Southern-themed chain after she admitted the brand was “just not as relevant.”
The down-home chain, featuring dishes like country fried steak along with the kitschy Old Country Store, plans to remodel its restaurants, offer new menu options, and improve technology for its loyalty program and to-go business.
“Fiscal ’25, which starts for us in another week or two, is really an investment year,” Felss Masino told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Thursday.
“We’ve got five pillars in our plan. We’re really bringing those together, starting to get those rocking and rolling, and then we’ll start to see the benefits in the back half of our fiscal ’26 and into ’27.”
Cracker Barrel is testing four versions of the location remodels at different costs in Tennessee to figure out “which level of investment is going to drive the right return,” Felss Masino added.
The massive revamp comes after the CEO admitted in May that the chain is “just not as relevant” as it used to be after slashing its yearly dividend from $1.30 per share to 25 cents a share.
The challenge is to attract a new, younger consumer base without distancing its traditional senior customers.
The 54-year-old biscuits-and-gravy chain has been struggling since seniors – a large chunk of their consumer base – fled dining locations during the pandemic and haven’t fully returned.
About 10% of seniors overall have not returned to their pre-pandemic eating out habits, Truist analyst Jake Bartlett previously told The Post.
The new restaurant remodels are “lighter,” “brighter” and “fresher,” but still have the same “warm hospitality,” classic menu items and trademark wall decor that keep customers coming back, Felss Masino said.
Though Cracker Barrel is holding onto its classic, down-south menu items – like hash brown casserole and grits – the chain is also launching “the largest menu test in the history of the brand,” the CEO said.
Cracker Barrel locations will start serving more than 20 new items in August, she said.
Felss Masino said sales and traffic are up in all four of the test locations.
“We are receiving positive feedback from our team members and our guests on both our remodel and menu work,” a Cracker Barrel spokesperson told The Post.
“Our goal is to take what people love about Cracker Barrel and open the aperture a little bit so that more people love Cracker Barrel,” the CEO said. “So, we want to appeal to all generations.”
Felss Masino previously said in May that the company plans to spend as much as $700 million on revamping the chain’s image over the next three years.
The all-in turnaround plan comes a few months after the stock was in freefall.
The Tennessee-based company’s shares plunged 20% after an investor call in May.
And shares then traded as low as $45.35 – a 52-week low and its lowest level in more than a decade.
The company’s shares are still in steady decline — dropping 44% so far this year, from $77.33 a share in January to $43.13 a share on Friday.
Over the past four years, Cracker Barrel lost 16% of its diners.
The chain faced pushback last year after lining its porches with rainbow-colored chairs during Pride Month as it struggled to pander to both seniors and young customers — prompting some to threaten Cracker Barrel with a boycott.
