Cracker Barrel’s Rebranding Tastes Bad
Trey Tucker
Conversation with Trey Tucker, a mental health therapist and social media influencer.
[Ep 385]
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When Experience Gets Rebranded Off the Menu
What happens when a beloved brand ditches what made it special in the first place? In this episode of A Shark’s Perspective, licensed therapist and viral social media influencer Trey Tucker joins Shark to dissect Cracker Barrel’s massively controversial rebrand—and the psychological whiplash it created. From nostalgia and experience to operational failure and culture missteps, this episode goes far deeper than logos and fonts.
We unpack why brands must lean into their uniqueness—not erase it—why great service still wins over surface-level design, and why $700 million won’t fix a brand if the biscuits get cold and the culture is colder. Whether you're a business leader, marketer, or someone who just really loves cornbread, this one’s a must-listen.
Key Takeaways:
🧠 Protect the Experience - If your brand has built a unique, memorable experience—something your customers feel and remember—then you’ve accomplished what most brands only dream of. That emotional connection is far more powerful than any logo. Don’t lose sight of what truly differentiates you: the experience. It’s your brand’s most valuable asset.
🚫 Marketing Can’t Fix Everything - No amount of rebranding can rescue a company from poor decisions if it ignores what its customers actually want. Logos don’t save failing experiences. Operations, service, and listening to the audience matter more. Cracker Barrel’s identity isn’t interchangeable—it’s not meant to look like everyone else. Stand apart, not blend in.
💰 Spend to Grow, Not Gloss Over - Dropping $700 million on cosmetic upgrades may appease investors short-term, but real transformation happens behind the scenes. Invest in culture, service, and operational excellence—those are the seeds that yield long-term success. In food service especially, great meals and authentic service win every time. Fix the foundation, not just the façade.
Connect with Trey Tucker:
Website: https://ruggedcounseling.com
Instagram: @ruggedcounseling
TikTok: @ruggedcounseling
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Transcript
Kenneth Kinney (0:23): Welcome back and thank you for joining A Shark's Perspective.
Kenneth Kinney (0:23): I am Kenneth Kinney, but friends call me Shark...
[00:00:00] Trey: Hi, I am Trey Tucker, and you're listening to a Shark's perspective.
[00:00:04] Intro Music
[00:00:23] Shark: Welcome back, and thank you for joining a Shark's perspective. I'm Kenneth Kinney, but friends call me Shark. I'm a keynote speaker, a strategist, a shark diver, host of this show and your chief shark officer. Her. So sort of in the words of poet laureate, Eminem shark is back, back again. I've been on hiatus with this show, but I'm back with a lot of great new episodes and a few more for us to catch up on the biggest questions facing us today though.
[00:00:50] Shark: Well, you could wonder if there's life on other planets. Where did COVID begin? How do we bring everlasting peace to Russian Ukraine?
[00:01:00] No, it's what in the world was Cracker Barrel thinking? By now, you likely know that Cracker Barrel is going through a massive rebrand. Their logo change in the CEO's explanation, sparks social media outrage.
[00:01:11] Shark: Their stores are changing. But what about the experience? What about the delicious fried foods? What about where you'll buy your Dolly Parton CDs? But the bigger question is what happens when you change not only a brand, but also the experience that matters when you've actually created an experience?
[00:01:28] Shark: Which is rare when you think about most restaurants. We recorded this after the logo had initially changed, but before they changed it back. Regardless, we welcome a good friend of mine who knows social media well. Trey Tucker is a licensed professional therapist as well as a social media influencer with over a million and a half followers.
[00:01:47] Shark: And on this episode, we will discuss cracker barrels rebrand logos, customer experience, social media. Nostalgia, some of the psychology behind it all, like Cracker Barrel, anxiety,
[00:02:00] big naps, changing culture. Communications for CEOs, fried foods, country music, candy at the general store, board games, and a lot, lot more.
[00:02:08] Shark: Celeste tune into his social media therapist with a shark who probably needs some therapy on this episode of a Shark's perspective. Trey, welcome to a Shark's perspective, if you will. Tell the audience a little bit about yourself, what your background, what you're, what you're doing today.
[00:02:27] Trey: So I'm a mental health therapist.
[00:02:29] Trey: I, uh, help people all types, all types of age ranges and issues. Anxiety seems to be or continue to be the main issue that people come at me with and on also what corporations do wrong that ticks 'em off, which I think is one of our topics here today.
[00:02:45] Shark: Yeah. And so I think the, the primary topic we're gonna talk about today from a mental health perspective is, uh, CBA.
[00:02:53] Shark: Which is known as Cracker Barrel Anxiety. Uh, you know how had put my own show on hiatus for quite a while,
[00:03:00] uh, just needed a break and was doing 80 other shows and speaking engagements and stuff. But honestly, if anything, this is really sad. If anything, I mean, this could be the, the quintessential problem of our times outside of, you know, global warming and what we do with China.
[00:03:19] Shark: COVID, you know, and other pandemics. What happened with Cracker Barrel's rebrand probably right up there. So. Mm-hmm. For those that don't know what's going on with Cracker Barrel, please pull your head out of a rock before you listen to the rest of this episode. But Cracker Barrel has changed their logo and I saw a couple of posts.
[00:03:38] Shark: You did. You've got what, A million and a half followers, so. You did some pretty good posts, even though I don't wanna call you a friend. Um, you talked a little bit about what, what your point of view was from a mental health standpoint as well as to what Cracker Barrel had done, but kind of in your own words, from a, you know, just a, the good old boy living in
[00:04:00] East Tennessee to, to literally a health professional.
[00:04:03] Shark: How do you see what they've done with the rebrand?
[00:04:05] Trey: Yeah, I'm on the correct side of the state and other than, and instead of what you've chosen to be on the other side of the state, so, but yeah, there's all kinds of different mental health terms that we could throw at this whole Cracker Barrel story. But nostalgia for me was the one that stood out the most.
[00:04:21] Trey: And even before this Cracker Barrel incident, I just, I've noticed people around me, whether they're clients or friends. And you can even see it from a marketing and corporate perspective. People want nostalgic stuff. They want the throwback. Like right now, the nineties era has, has come back among high school and college students.
[00:04:40] Trey: They're fascinated by what we were doing in the nineties. So people are craving something traditional. Something stable, maybe a little slower paced. And so what Cracker Barrel did was they, they seemed to have that market cornered from the restaurant, restaurant perspective, and they did. Then they just decided to just, you know what, let's throw that out so
[00:05:00] we could, we could start with nostalgia, but go a bunch of different directions too.
[00:05:03] Trey: Yeah.
[00:05:03] Shark: Well, I, I mean, I did some deep research on the subject in that I went and ate. There, uh, two days ago, and then it took a massive nap afterwards. Uh, that was, 'cause when you, when you eat that much fried food and carbs, you know, bad things are gonna happen from a sleep perspective. And, and they did happen within about an hour of when I got home.
[00:05:24] Shark: But one of the things that bothered me so much too is to hear how this has also been. Marginalized. I have a few liberal friends. I think they amount to three or maybe four of them, but they, but they were telling me how they thought this was an issue. That was on the right, and I heard this, uh, went flip around the channels on CNN this morning, and I'm telling you from the people that I talked to, including a buddy of mine who's African American, and he, he and I talked about it and he was like riled up about it when I went to the Cracker Barrel this past weekend.
[00:05:58] Shark: Half the crowd there was black. It just
[00:06:00] happened to be, you know, where I, where I live is uh, about 50, 50% black. And I heard people there talking about it just the same. I don't think it's an issue That's Americana. It's one of the things that I think about, and I'd love your thoughts on this. When you, on top of nostalgia, it's the experience that people get with brands.
[00:06:20] Shark: If you change anything like Applebee's. You know, God bless Applebee's or Outback or 99% of the restaurants out there, Chipotle, nobody's gonna care or think about it. But from an experience standpoint, which is what they created, it really has, um, you know, drawn some iron from, from people that don't wanna see that being torn up.
[00:06:44] Shark: And that's seems to be what they're doing. With, with changing that, but from a psychological perspective, I can't believe we're actually trying to apply psychological lens to this. But from a psychological perspective, what do you think that, in particular, that tr
[00:07:00] that, what people hold onto? Why is it so near and dear to 'em from that experience?
[00:07:04] Shark: From that experience? 'cause a lot of people go and don't even like the food.
[00:07:08] Trey: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:07:09] Shark: But I mean, our service, uh, be quite honest. Our, my food was fantastic. My wife's food was cold, and it took them way too long, and that's one of the things that they really screwed up from an experience level. The rest of it, when you go inside with everything they have in the store, as you walk in, like it's, it's something you remember.
[00:07:29] Shark: It's not like any other kind of restaurant.
[00:07:32] Trey: Yeah, I mean, you hit the nail on the head. It's something you remember unlike any other restaurant. 'cause it is that experience. I mean, think about it, between the two cities you and I live in and all the different cities along the way, in between how many places can you stop and get just good old southern cooking?
[00:07:48] Trey: I mean, it's gotta be thousands. Mm-hmm. But. Cracker Barrel stands out above all of them, not because of their food. 'cause like you said, sometimes it's pretty crappy, but they stand out 'cause of that experience. And part of that
[00:08:00] experience is that rustic old school dim lighting feel. And to me it, it always reminded me of like, walking into my grandparents' house.
[00:08:10] Trey: It's just, it's not updated and I don't want it to be updated because I, I want some stability with. Everything else changing and chaos around and all this unpredictability. I want some level of certainty and like, okay, I, I know I, I feel. Safe here. And that's, I mean, ultimately when we talk about an experience and especially one with nostalgia, it comes down to like, where, where do I feel safe and at home, and where I know things are actually gonna be somewhat under control.
[00:08:38] Trey: And so, like you said, they, they took away the thing. The experience that made them unique. And so a lot of times when you, when you take that from a customer's mind, especially something that connects way back to their past, you get a very visceral reaction, which we've seen on social media and obviously we've seen in their stock market price.
[00:08:58] Shark: Yeah. So if
[00:09:00] you were gonna give them advice, uh, again from a therapist point of view as to how to roll out something like this, how would you do it?
[00:09:09] Trey: Gosh, I, I would've, I would've done a whole lot more research than apparently they did. I mean, this, this reminds me of the whole new Coke fiasco. Have you, have you connected that dot?
[00:09:19] Trey: Am I, am I off base on this?
[00:09:20] Shark: Um, yes. No, I mean, I, there's, it's sad. I looked up a lot of failed rebrands, and that's obviously one of the biggest. I just don't know that I would've necessarily connected that.dot. But go ahead.
[00:09:32] Trey: I, I mean, I, I just can't imagine that they either, either they didn't do enough market research or they just didn't listen to it.
[00:09:40] Trey: It because if you, I mean, just look at all the people that have been vocal about this change. It's, it's obvious that they stuck their head in the sand and said, we're, we're doing this change 'cause we wanna do it. And you know, if that's the case, if these are the changes you wanna make because you're the CEO or the board, or whoever's brainchild this was, then just say, look,
[00:10:00] we hope you like this.
[00:10:01] Trey: We have to do something different. Our start price has been going down. This is what we've chosen to do to try to turn things around. Just be open and honest about it. Don't try to say, oh, well you asked for this and like you we're doing this for you 'cause we know better than you. No, just, just say, this is what we wanna do.
[00:10:18] Trey: We hope you like it.
[00:10:19] Shark: Well get a pen and paper 'cause I'm gonna roll out some really gold nuggets for you here from a business perspective that, but you know, one of the things that if you do, and I never would've done any research on this, but. Uncle Herschel was the founder's uncle. Hmm. So he, he was in the gasoline business, I believe, and then wanted along the, you know, the highways, the kind, that kind of food that brings back the nostalgia of home.
[00:10:45] Shark: And so putting a, a barrel there was what was basically how people used to get together and tell stories at the general store. It was the, the water cooler of the, of the era. Mm-hmm. I heard a lot of people
[00:11:00] making a lot of comments about this being a, uh, it's why I've mentioned about, um, African Americans in particular is I, I can't think of anything less racist or, or, you know, than people just getting together and sharing stories and having food together.
[00:11:17] Shark: Like, I observed everybody sitting next to me and that, you know, everybody was having a good time, but I heard some of the. Right. Well, left wing media attacking, making this a right issue, which I just honestly, I couldn't understand whatsoever. But from a generational perspective, you deal with a lot of young people.
[00:11:38] Shark: You, you, you, especially where you work as well. What are the comments that you've heard from friends and and youth about how they perceive it? Because a lot of people also think this is an ageism issue.
[00:11:51] Trey: Yeah. You know, most of the people that I've talked to face to face, they all agree, whether they're republican, democrat, independent, whatever.
[00:11:59] Trey: They agree
[00:12:00] this, it's, it's a terrible logo. The inside of the restaurant looks terrible. It looks like it looks like a golden crown now. Yes, it does look like golden ground dude. They changed the color scheme, but left the fonts. Yeah. And, and so everybody I've talked to face to face agrees, and the, the 1% of the comments, whether it's on my videos or other people's videos that are opposing the, the, the, basically the, the people who are trying to make it about politics or race or whatever, they, they're missing the point.
[00:12:31] Trey: It's that. People are, people don't want their traditions taken away. It doesn't matter what culture you're from, they don't want their take traditions taken away. And so I think sometimes we, we make our, our political beliefs, so much of our identity that that's the lens we see everything through. There's this.
[00:12:48] Trey: There's a psychological term called reticular activating system. It's like your brain is going to look for the things you've trained it to look for. Like when, when you get a new car, you start seeing other people driving that
[00:13:00] same car that you never noticed before. 'cause that's now what your brain is dialed into.
[00:13:04] Trey: So I think sometimes people, they feel kind of powerless in their own life and then they make. Politics, their way of feeling powerful. And then they see every news story as well. It's, it's 'cause this politics, these people believe that. Like, no, this is just, people don't want this restaurant image to change.
[00:13:21] Trey: This is part of their, their heritage and their childhood.
[00:13:24] Shark: Well, you know, an example, and I think I may have told you the other day, uh, when we were talking about doing a show on this, is, this is kind of like if they changed all of, uh, you know, uh, Hooters waitresses and made them waiters. Well, you know what they did, but you built your brand around this for.
[00:13:43] Shark: 30, 40 years and decided to change everything. Or if it's, this is a ridiculous example, but, uh, if Chuck E Cheese got rid of all the electronic games and put in cornhole, in badminton in there, kids would be riding like they were in
[00:14:00] Minneapolis, you know, five years ago. I mean, this, this would've been, uh, held to pay for this.
[00:14:05] Shark: But it is something, you know, when people think about what we buy into and what we get to know, I don't even. We expect great service, which is marginal anywhere. Mm-hmm. You expect great food, which on occasion they can really deliver what? What they don't want to be. Told is this is how it needs to be going forward, because that was not the problem.
[00:14:31] Shark: The experience at Cracker Barrel was not the problem. Yes, the experience was the one thing that people liked, and if they'd listened to their audience, which they clearly did not knew, they decided somehow they've greenlit over 700 million to do this rebrand, and unless they operationally fix. Getting better service food on time, those are the things that are gonna change.
[00:14:55] Shark: Nobody's gonna give a damn about any of the stuff they have in the store.
[00:14:59] Trey: No.
[00:14:59] Shark:
[00:15:00] If they make it look like you're at, you know, Walgreens instead of a crowded, hot mess of. Christmas decorations and baby clothes and Andy Griffith DVDs, or not even DVDs, I think you probably still have VVHS in there, right? Uh, Dolly Parton CDs, scented candles.
[00:15:21] Shark: It's the most ridiculous crap that nobody is generally buying. But it's a, it's something that people enjoy. They, they just gotta buy better. They gotta buy better merchandise. They're gonna have to figure out like everybody else how to deal with theft. 'cause I'm sure that has really been a part of their problem, but marketing can't fix it.
[00:15:40] Shark: Everything And the arrogance that people, and again, I've spent a lot of my career as a marketer, the arrogance that thinks that you can. Just shift people's brains that way without fixing, if they had spent 700 million on trying to fix the experience and the quality of their food, right, that would've been
[00:16:00] worth so much more than pulling some dude off of a, of a logo that most people didn't even know.
[00:16:07] Shark: But when they showed the redesigns of what the inside of the store and, and the restaurant, I mean. We're wasting time talking about it today. This is, I mean, it's ridiculous how much this has consumed the world as far as bigger problems that we have to worry. I mean, it's not like we have to worry about global warming or, you know, anything else that's important, you know, tensions in between U Ukraine and Russia.
[00:16:28] Shark: No, no, no. We're gonna talk about Cracker Barrel today. So what would you, what would your advice be for them if you were, if you could wave your magic wand and go in as the new CEO? Which, as long as you don't go in with those ridiculous glasses that lady wore, the the, what would you do to change it right now?
[00:16:48] Trey: That that was the, the requisite uniform that she had on in those glasses? Yeah. So yeah, I, I would first of all listen to
[00:16:56] Shark: the customers, like we, if felt and John and Rachel Maddow had a
[00:17:00] baby, which apparently is never gonna happen. It would come out with those glasses that she had on. That's exactly right.
[00:17:07] Trey: So, uh, I mean. I, I have a feeling her, her days as CEO are numbered based on the, the outcry and the stock price. The shareholders usually are not too patient in this kind of a situation. But, uh, the, the immediate thing that would get people at least moving back in their direction is to just go back to the old logo.
[00:17:26] Trey: So you know what they. We messed up our bad. Or you know what? Even if you want to claim you did it on purpose just to make people appreciate the old logo, do that. I don't, I don't care. But put at least put the old logo back and say, okay, we're gonna listen to you. We're gonna take some time. We want to hear what, what would you like to see different?
[00:17:43] Trey: I think some of these stores that are already, that have already been remodeled, they, they look ridiculous. Like when you went into the store, you, you tested out or you did research in, had that one been remodeled yet?
[00:17:53] Shark: No. No. Thank goodness. No.
[00:17:55] Trey: Yeah, I mean the, the rest, it just, it looks so generic and so they, they took the
[00:18:00] only thing that made them unique and they just washed it away.
[00:18:03] Trey: So I don't know how many restaurants they've redone, but they can, they probably do need to at least update some of the interiors of their restaurant, but keep the same look and feel. Don't, don't make it generic again, that those would be my thoughts, but like you said, fix the food and invest in their people.
[00:18:21] Trey: Because that's really what's gonna make people coming back over and over.
[00:18:25] Shark: Yeah, I, this is the hard thing to do. And it could cost them more, and it may be something that they don't know. I mean, ultimately, if you lean away from what makes you unique. It is almost always a path to horrible com com commoditization.
[00:18:42] Shark: Mm-hmm. And nobody else is gonna want to eat there. I mean, I don't need that qual, that kind of food in my life most of the time. I got enough enough issues with, you know, artery clogging foods in general. But just, uh, the, the tough part is acknowledging
[00:19:00] with some humility that. From some, you know, moron consultants that came in.
[00:19:05] Shark: Marketing cannot fix everything operationally. That's where they're gonna solve their problems. Uh, could they rebrand or may if they took out. Two little, I don't know what you would call 'em, stations, if you will, inside the store to make 'em less crowded. Like you can't walk No more than two people can, you know, especially in the south where most people are, are bigger anyway, but most people can't walk through an aisle.
[00:19:30] Shark: If it's more than two, forget it.
[00:19:32] Trey: Right.
[00:19:32] Shark: They don't, it doesn't need to be that crowded. I don't need to see more. Burt's Bees. Chapstick, you know, 87 different flavors of that on the wall. Just get rid of some of that stuff. Uh, not necessarily that, but you know what I mean. Um, you don't have to have Christmas ornaments with Snoopy on it.
[00:19:49] Shark: I mean, there's just, there's so much stuff in there. They could have decluttered it somewhat.
[00:19:56] Trey: Yeah.
[00:19:57] Shark: And made it that way. But don't try to
[00:20:00] serve us. I mean, I'm waiting for the gluten-free tofu option right at Cracker Barrel, and that's gonna be where they're gonna end up going at some point. And then we're gonna see them fall into obscurity.
[00:20:13] Shark: Nobody's gonna care, and it's gonna be another brand that goes away. One of the issues I think they should have. Dealt with a little bit more, and I, it's hard to do this in any business and I've, I've run into this with a lot of companies, is they need to measure against their own numbers and their own numbers.
[00:20:29] Shark: I'm sure that the, what they're measuring against is revenue year over year following. They've had this revenue issue for a while. Mm-hmm. But that's also affected a lot of those. Uh, those kind of restaurants, ones that fall into that casual, the fast, fast casual type food that's, it's not just a Cracker Barrel issue.
[00:20:51] Shark: All of them are, I mean, you're seeing this everywhere. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's a cons, that's a concern more for the industry than necessarily measuring your numbers against.
[00:21:00] What you did six months ago.
[00:21:02] Trey: So why, why would they not have chosen to go after the actual food improvements and employee improvements?
[00:21:10] Trey: Is that, is that that much more expensive?
[00:21:11] Shark: Well, yeah. 'cause then you're talking about changing culture and changing culture is not. Always the easiest to do and implement. Look, hiring today, it's not easy. Hiring is so difficult to hire good talent, especially in those kind of roles. Mm-hmm. But you pay 'em a little bit more.
[00:21:28] Shark: I mean, you look, you know, and I use this example all the time, why is it that a store like Trader Joe's, everybody in their, I say everybody, most people in their smile. Everybody is required to help you. If you ask, you go in a lot of similar stores and it's like the lights are turned off and if you ask somebody for help, the lights come on and the roaches fall and hide and, and not at Trader Joe's.
[00:21:56] Shark: So why is it that the culture there.
[00:22:00] They sell the same bananas that these other stores sell. Mm-hmm. Why is it that that recipe for culture is so much better? They're not paying them $48, you know, an hour. It's not like they're paying people 96 grand a year to to bag groceries and the other stores are not.
[00:22:18] Shark: Mm-hmm. And that's not poo-pooing on all the stores. Some of them are better than others, but when you create that kind of culture, that luckily is one of the first things that they focused on. And they made it. And that's where a lot of restaurants, it's hard to find good gen, uh, managers, general managers, but you don't need 800 people to work in that restaurant.
[00:22:39] Shark: You need a, metaphorically speaking, you need a hundred that you pay well take care of and who have some pride in the store. And that's that. Equation is very hard for most people to solve today. That's why you see, um, we're hiring at every place. Mm-hmm. But that's why you hire with someone
[00:23:00] you can develop, you know, and have a good culture.
[00:23:03] Shark: Somebody that talks to people, somebody that smiles and, uh, greets their staff. I mean, that's how you get a better tip is being nice people. Uh, helping a team understand that culture and the service is what made Cracker Barrel a a down home family restaurant.
[00:23:17] Trey: So we know it can be done like you listed with Trader Joe's or Chick-fil-A or the others.
[00:23:21] Shark: Yeah, Chick-fil-A's another great example,
[00:23:23] Trey: right? So it can be done. So in this Cracker Barrel situation, was it just laziness like it, it just seems like lipstick on a pig because we can dress up the logo and the interior all we want, but it's still the same core issue.
[00:23:37] Shark: Uh, it's, it is still, it's still an issue with the industry as well, but I would've gone in and I would've focused on that, and I wouldn't have never even, I mean, they could have taken out, like I said, a couple of stations got rid of some of the clutter.
[00:23:51] Shark: Maybe not buy all the cheap junk they could buy. You know, I mean, everything in there's not made here, which is really funny. It's a,
[00:24:00] it's a, it's a Americana, but everything's made in, in China, Malaysia. That was funny. Kinda looking through some of the silly items in the store. Nothing was made here.
[00:24:09] Trey: Right.
[00:24:09] Shark: Uh, that could have been fixed, but really just. Operationally fixing the kitchen, uh, operationally, training the staff over and over again. I mean, most people know how hard it is to manage a restaurant. It ain't easy. No. But doing the right thing with your team and your culture is gonna change. It's gonna change all of it.
[00:24:30] Shark: I mean, it's gonna change the way people perceive their experience there Look. All of those kind of brands that built on that experience. Mm-hmm. And the, the way that people were treated with high levels of service. Mm-hmm. That can still be achieved because we just mentioned to Chick-fil-A. Again, Chick-fil-A year over year is ranked number one, and their chicken sandwiches are amazing, but they're still outranking other, uh, chicken brands that are good.
[00:24:59] Shark: But
[00:25:00] if the difference between Chick-fil-A and going to KFC or Popeye's is far beyond the taste of a chicken sandwich.
[00:25:07] Trey: Yep,
[00:25:08] Shark: it's, and they have the right culture. That's not an easy change, especially at the scale that these larger ones are. But you don't have to start with, I don't forget how many stores that Cracker Barrel has.
[00:25:20] Shark: You don't have to start with all, you know, 500 of them. Mm-hmm. Start with. 10 and then market it that way. This is a bigger problem that they're gonna need to fix than what a logo, who is gonna get so inspired by their menu items. Now you've got, what, 40 something years of tradition that people expect that kind of food.
[00:25:41] Shark: They don't expect to go in and get salads. I mean. And, and they're gonna have to come to grips with that, but they can still offer that as some, I mean, my God. What other place would you want good quality food at? Um, I had to go through this one time when, when my dad
[00:26:00] was, uh, before he had passed. So we had to get food for Thanksgiving.
[00:26:04] Shark: We couldn't cook it. My mom was not gonna cook the food when she was taking care of my dad. We got it from places like that, that when you get food like that, you don't just go get it from. Anywhere you get it from places that make it feel like home and that, and obviously that store does something like that.
[00:26:21] Shark: So,
[00:26:21] Trey: yeah. Uh, you know, you talked about hiring. It just dawned on me when they hired the CEO, this was her MO and other restaurant chains. She, she just changed logos and changed the interior design and to my knowledge, never tried to change culture or food quality. So, I mean, cracker Barrel had to know what they were getting when they hired her.
[00:26:41] Trey: There was not gonna be a real attempt to make those deep lever more deep level, more difficult changes.
[00:26:48] Shark: Yeah, it's not easy because so many, especially in the equity market, they come in and try to operationally, you know, make little changes from a financial perspective. Inject here with more
[00:27:00] ads and pull out money from different things you do with training and, and I'm using some bad examples, but.
[00:27:07] Shark: The more that they f figure out a way to c commoditize it, the worse it is for the end customer. And again, if they just listen to their customer improved on that, bring the food more quickly. I guarantee if you looked at their, their scores. The reviews are not gonna be, you know what? They had too much stuff in their store.
[00:27:28] Shark: I just, right. You know, nobody was complaining about the death trap above the store where if you look up, there's like shovels and anvils that are ready to fall on your head, but they're pulled up to the ceiling. Nobody complained about that. They complained because their food wasn't fast, the service wasn't good, and if they'd fix that.
[00:27:49] Shark: Nobody in there said, you know what, you gotta pull that old white guy off of the, the logo.
[00:27:54] Trey: No,
[00:27:54] Shark: I didn't even, I didn't even know what he looked like before it came up, uh, on the thing. I don't know that I would've paid
[00:28:00] attention at all. Right. But when they try to over. Uh, when they try to pull their uniqueness out, they're one of the few stores that have a great experience.
[00:28:09] Shark: Mm-hmm. What other, I'm trying to think of other, other food locations other than a high end restaurant or certain, you know, we run into this in, in Memphis with barbecue shops. There are only a few, a handful that have any kind of great experience inside of them. Mm-hmm. Most of them. Are commodities and you don't think anything of them, and they're at the margins where the food is marginally better than the other, but people want great food and then they want a great experience on top of it.
[00:28:39] Shark: And that's not really a new topic. That's something that, you know, high-end restaurants have been doing forever.
[00:28:45] Trey: Right. I, I just, it seems like either we're missing something or this is so simple that they, I'm gonna put the tinfoil hat on here for a second. It makes me wonder, are they doing this on purpose to try to somehow tank the, the value of the company?
[00:28:58] Trey: I, I, I can't figure
[00:29:00] out why they missed the obvious.
[00:29:01] Shark: Yeah. I heard on, on one news channel that the whole point was to tank it, tank this, and then come back in a week and say. You know what? We were wrong. We listened, but their, their first comments after were not that we're going back to the old logo and the old way and all that stuff.
[00:29:18] Shark: They, I don't know, they necessarily doubled down. They just said, you know, we could have rolled this out better. Hmm. And that's the kind of stuff that where communication, and I remember reading it, it sounded like it was written by a combination of an attorney and a communication team.
[00:29:34] Trey: Mm-hmm. It was
[00:29:34] Shark: not written by anybody who'd ever eaten in one of their stores on a regular basis.
[00:29:39] Shark: It was not, this is not the kind of stuff people want to hear. So it's, look, I'm not. I don't know that I'll go back for another several months, so this is not even a big deal to me. It's basically a fascinating, uh, marketing. F up, for lack of a better phrase. And I think it's, it's one of the things that,
[00:30:00] that, you know, we've got, we've gotta figure out, so when you, what were the reactions you got from, 'cause you've just got a, a few little followers, like a million and a half followers on TikTok and Instagram.
[00:30:12] Shark: Did you hear many comments or did you just post your thing and then ghost everybody and
[00:30:17] Trey: Yeah, just plug my ears. Exactly. Exactly. So the fascinating thing is on. Instagram, you're able to put a poll with your posts. Yeah. Yeah. And 90% of the people agreed that this was a massive screw up. And then of course, you know, the 10% had their different reasons that we covered already.
[00:30:35] Trey: But then if you look at the TikTok video, the same video, but on TikTok, it's, it's. In, I think now in the thousands of comments, just complaining to the, almost like they're hoping the, the CEO will read their comments like, what are you doing, cracker Barrel? This is awful. I mean, it was an army of people who flooded into the comments section just to voice their displeasure.
[00:30:55] Trey: I've, I've just, I've never seen something like it where people get got so enraged
[00:31:00] about something, get getting pulled away. Oh, again, I'd go back to the new Coke thing. I wasn't around them, but I, I remember reading about it like just. The outrage of New Coke, of how that was such a, a disaster and how mad people got that it was ripped away.
[00:31:12] Trey: So yeah, that's, it's been overwhelmingly negative trying to get Cracker Barrel to change their ways back.
[00:31:19] Shark: Well, good problem, bad problem, but Donald Trump, president Trump weighed in on it, which means that. Even though he was right for his comment about, you know, they messed up and they should just go back to the old logo in old ways.
[00:31:32] Shark: It, everybody on the, that hates him, that suffers from TDS will now double down on. It's a wonderful move. And they don't even care because he said it was bad. Then they're gonna say it was good, which is just deplorable. But if you look at all these examples of companies. I, I don't lean the way most people think.
[00:31:53] Shark: I, I, I lean. But when you look at all these bad decisions that they made, that Budweiser made,
[00:32:00] that target made, that so many of these brands have made, it's not great business sense to not listen to your audience. And a lot of the people make these changes. It's the same way they destroy the new Superman movie.
[00:32:13] Shark: Mm-hmm. But that's another show for another day, but. When you don't listen to your, when your audience, when your, your CEO, clearly she's probably a wonderful person. She does not eat at Cracker Barrel on a regular basis.
[00:32:26] Trey: No, I bet not even once.
[00:32:29] Shark: Well, I wouldn't doubt it would the. Unless she's eating a salad.
[00:32:33] Shark: But it's the same people that re that thought the Superman, the new Superman movie was great. None of those people read comic books as a kid or, or really, you know, understood the power of Christopher Reeve and, and how he played it. It's, you know, it's, it's wrong. But what I want know though, is this an issue for me?
[00:32:54] Shark: Or anybody else that may listen to this, I'm asking you to put your therapy hat on for dealing with
[00:33:00] change. Are we too invested in this and not able to deal with change?
[00:33:06] Trey: I, I think we always can get better, excuse me, at dealing with change. No doubt. And I think this one, that isn't one element of this, but this one runs a little deeper and I put a separate video out about that and that, I think this one is the Cracker Barrel incident quote unquote, is more of a just the latest representation of what people see as not just a lot of changes, but a lot of changes specifically designed to wipe away things that are traditional.
[00:33:34] Trey: That are stable, that have some history behind them, and it just, it seems like there's an attempt to make everything homogenized. So I think sure, we can get better at accepting change and we also need to see where, what's the overall direction this change, these changes seem to be leading towards.
[00:33:53] Shark: And still have good fried catfish in the process, which is what I, I ordered along with fried okra this past weekend.
[00:33:59] Shark: Trey,
[00:34:00] I ask everybody that appears on this show, what is your favorite kind of shark and why?
[00:34:05] Trey: Okay. Hammerhead for sure, because number one, they look the coolest. And number two, my dad. Was a big surfer in Jacksonville, Florida when he was growing up and they would often see this big hammerhead named Old Sam and he would just sun himself in the waves, just kind of tumble through the waves, never would bother.
[00:34:24] Trey: The surfers almost kind of surfing along with them and they, they nicknamed him old Sam and he was just a good old hammerhead that was out there almost every day with 'em. So for whatever reason, that stuck with me.
[00:34:34] Shark: That's great. So, Trey, it's a special time in this show. Are you ready for the five most interesting and important questions that you're gonna be asked today?
[00:34:41] Trey: I I, I need a stiff drink before I dive into this. We'll see if I'm ready.
[00:34:45] Shark: I, I would recommend the Peach Sweet Tea
[00:34:48] at C at C
[00:34:48] Shark: racker Barrel. So these are gonna be answers 'cause I've known you for a few years and, and despite that, I still had you on the show. I did.
[00:34:57] Trey: Finally. Yeah.
[00:34:57] Shark: Number, number one,
[00:35:00] number one question is you walk into a Cracker Barrel and you see that they have, you only have enough money for one, a Kenny Rogers CD or a George Strait cd?
[00:35:14] Trey: Oh, oh my goodness. It's like asking a parent to pick between their children. Man, I, I gotta go. George Strait. He, he is, he's,
[00:35:22] Shark: It's because of the hat. Kenny's not gonna mess up the hair with that.
[00:35:25] Shark: Alright, number two. Moon pies or circus peanuts?
[00:35:32] Trey: Ooh, moon pies.
[00:35:32] Shark: I saw a giant pack package of circus peanuts and I saw blueberry moon pies, which never would've ever thought of buying a moon pie ever. But I saw one there and thought of it. What'd you say?
[00:35:45] Trey: I said moon pie. You're missing out if you, if you wouldn't buy a moon pie in general, those things.
[00:35:48] Trey: You, you put 'em in the microwave for about seven seconds.
[00:35:51] Shark: Yeah, they're addictive.
[00:35:52] Trey: Mm-hmm.
[00:35:53] Shark: Alright. Number three, fried chicken at a Cracker Barrel
[00:36:00] or they're new tasty as the CEO described it, herb roasted chicken.
[00:36:07] Trey: Never in my life have I ordered herb roasted chicken, so absolutely fried chicken all day, every day.
[00:36:13] Shark: I'm telling you they're gonna come out with a tofu salad at some point soon.
[00:36:19] Trey: Yes. How can we drop your testosterone as low as possible.
[00:36:21] Shark: Exactly. Yeah, it's with soy and, alright, number four. I saw people playing both the PEG game, which has even been rebranded. Yeah. Or the Giant Checkers game, which I saw two people, a brother and sister play in it.
[00:36:39] Shark: They were having a great time with that.
[00:36:40] Trey: I, I'm going checkers because I'm so terrible at golf that even touching golf tees sends me into PTSD flashback mode.
[00:36:46] Shark: Well, I would say. Neither unless you have a Clorox wipe. 'cause those things are nasty.
[00:36:51] Trey: You're right. Oh no, I didn't think about that. Thanks a lot.
[00:36:54] Shark: They're, they're both. You see everybody playing with those. Alright, number five and the most important
[00:37:00] question that you're gonna be asked today. Cracker Barrel favorite and I did take a picture of it, is biscuits or cornbread?
[00:37:07] Trey: Biscuits. Uh, it's, there's no, there's no doubt if you're cornbread you probably have something screwy that I can help you with as a therapist.
[00:37:13] Shark: And i'm sure that at some point soon, under the new guidance of this CEO, and this is gonna show you, I'm never gonna get a speaking opportunity as long at Cracker Barrel as long as she is the CEO.
[00:37:23] Trey: Right?
[00:37:24] Shark: But they will come out with a gluten-free. Biscuits or, or cornbread if they haven't already. So it's gonna happen at some point. So, Trey, where can people find out more about you? Keep up with what you're doing. Get a copy of the book next year when this thing comes out, which we're excited about?
[00:37:42] Trey: It, it, uh, yeah, it's not till February, so, uh, at some point pre-orders will happen in the wintertime.
[00:37:47] Trey: But until then, just ruggedcounseling.com, which you built the site for me. Thank you very much for that site. And then you're welcome also at Rugged Counseling on any of the social media platforms you prefer. This ugly face is pretty easy to
[00:38:00] find.
[00:38:00] Shark: Yeah, absolutely. Trey, thank you so much for being with us today on a Shark's perspective.
[00:38:05] Trey: Thank you buddy.
[00:38:09] Shark: So there was my conversation with Trey Tucker, a licensed professional therapist and social media influencer. Let's take a look at three key takeaways from my conversation with him. First, if your brand is lucky enough to have created an experience that people know and remember and like, then you've hit a chord that most brands try to create, but often swing and miss.
[00:38:29] Shark: I mean, what's the last time you went to a restaurant and remembered anything uniquely different about it? It's rare. Most are generic and they come and go. So when you've created that great experience, understand how important that is to your brand, it's much more than a logo will ever be. Second, marketing cannot and should not fix everything at the end of the day.
[00:38:54] Shark: It doesn't matter if Uncle Herschel is on their logo or not. So why change it so you can market
[00:39:00] yourself into looking like everyone else? No. No one should confuse Cracker Barrel with any other brand. They should be their own category. Listen to your customers. It took them a minute, but they finally did.
[00:39:11] Shark: Hopefully the stores won't kill off that part of nostalgia too later on down the road. A reminder for a 50 plus year old brand that survived a lot of other restaurants falling by the wayside. Don't lean away from your differentiation. Lean into it. It's what makes your brand special. Third, someone green lit this brand about 700 million.
[00:39:31] Shark: What would you do with that kind of money? When you inject that kind of capital into a business? Then you need to see, often investors need to see quick wins, but planting the right seeds, say 700 million of them, with time for them to grow and mature well, that might mean changing the culture, the operations and processes, and doing the tougher fixes like that, that take more time and are needed to succeed in that industry.
[00:39:55] Shark: Great food and great service with a unique experience. You don't need
[00:40:00] trigonometry to figure out that math got a question, send me an email to shark@kennethkinney.com. Thank you for the privilege of your time, and I'm so thankful to everyone who listens. Thank you for having me back in your ear.
[00:40:12] Shark: Seriously, I need to go back, do some more research at Cracker Barrel and after my big nap. Let's dive in when you join us on the next episode of A Shark's perspective.
[00:40:22] Outro Music
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Shark Trivia
Did You Know that the Whale Shark’s skin….
…is the thickest skin of any living creature, in the ocean or on land, and is about as thick as a stack of 58 quarters?
