Cracker Barrel Q4 2025 earnings

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store said Wednesday that the restaurant chain is focusing on enhancing its experiences for guests after it faced intense backlash over an attempted rebrand earlier this summer.

The company reported mixed fiscal fourth-quarter earnings Wednesday afternoon, and CEO Julie Masino said the company is “optimistic” about its future as it heads into next year.

The stock sank roughly 10% in after-hours trading.

Here’s how the company performed compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

• Earnings per share: 74 cents adjusted vs. 80 cents expected
• Revenue: $868 million vs. $855 million expected

Masino said Cracker Barrel was grateful for customers voicing their “passion for Cracker Barrel in recent weeks,” and that the company is now switching its focus.

“We conducted extensive research to inform our strategic plan, but what cannot be captured in data is how much our guests see themselves and their own story in the Cracker Barrel experience, which is what’s led to such a strong response to these changes,” Masino said on a call with analysts Wednesday.

The company is now focusing on innovating in the kitchen and “areas that enhance the guest experience,” Masino said, with the team aiming to return to a “positive trajectory.”

Still, Cracker Barrel said it expects total revenue for fiscal 2026 of $3.35 billion to $3.45 billion, compared with the $3.52 billion analysts expected, and a same-store traffic decline of 4% to 7%.

The company faced backlash last month after it announced a complete rebrand, including a redesign of its logo and a remodeling of its restaurants.

The new logo scrapped the image of a man sitting on a wooden chair leaning against a barrel, instead moving to a simpler black-and-yellow logo featuring only “Cracker Barrel,” without the “Old Country Store.” It had been the company’s latest move in a “strategic transformation” announced in May 2024 to reenergize the brand.

The restaurants were also scheduled to undergo remodeling to align with the new vision.

But the rebrand came under intense scrutiny. Users on social media called it “soulless” and “generic,” and conservatives took to social media site X to argue that the logo change was an attempt to remove the American identity of the brand to cater to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. The stock sank in the wake of the changes.

Cracker Barrel responded to the criticism, saying the company could have “done a better job sharing who we are and who we’ll always be.” The chain said the man from the original logo, Uncle Herschel, would still be featured on the menu and part of the Cracker Barrel “family.”

President Donald Trump even weighed in on the situation, saying Cracker Barrel “should go back to the old logo, admit a…