2025-08-30
20 分钟It's the Friday before Labor Day weekend, the last gasp of summer,
and across America, cars are on the move.
Maybe you're on I-40, or I-95, or I-10.
It's probably an I-something.
And then you see it, a billboard rising above the asphalt haze, Cracker Barrel.
They're very prominent near highways.
They're a place, you know,
families could go stop and rest and have a meal and buy some fun schwag while they're doing it.
Cracker Barrel is a Tennessee-based chain of restaurants slash old country stores.
A roadside icon with an unmistakable logo.
A man in overalls leaning against a barrel.
So the logo, which dates back to 1977.
had what customers refer to as the old-timer, Uncle Herschel,
which is a man in overalls who is sitting on a chair.
But this summer, that logo, it's become a cultural lightning rod,
one that initially wiped out tens of millions of dollars from the restaurant's valuation.
All because a new streamlined logo erased that old-timer and set off a digital pitchfork mob.
Our colleague Heather Haddon has been covering the story.
A lot of commentators were like, no, we do not like this.
So Cracker Barrel's made everybody crazy today.