A Vote Was Held by Cracker Barrel's Shareholders After the Woke Rebrand Fiasco. Here's What Happened

Matt Vespa | November 22, 2025 6:45 AM

We must come back to this, because a reckoning was warranted here: Cracker Barrel did a woke rebrand, and it was a market disaster. Hundreds of millions in market share were cannibalized as DEI clowns tried to tweak something that didn’t need it in the slightest.

After months of fury, the shareholders made their decision by allowing the CEO to keep her job, but moved to axe the DEI executive at the forefront of this circus (via WSJ):

Cracker Barrel shareholders voted to retain the company’s embattled chief executive after a calamitous rebranding campaign, but sent a clear message of discontent.
In a binding vote Thursday, Cracker Barrel shareholders voted around 75% of shares in favor of keeping CEO Julie Felss Masino on its board, according to preliminary results. Board member Gilbert Dávila, a longtime marketing and diversity specialist, didn’t receive the necessary votes to stay on the board and has resigned, the company said.
Masino and Dávila both had been targeted by activist efforts after the chain’s logo change and restaurant remodels set off a political firestorm over the summer. Cracker Barrel requires that director nominees receive a plurality of shares voted, or more than 50%, to serve on its board.
Roughly 60% of shares voted were cast against Dávila, Cracker Barrel said Thursday. At last year’s shareholder meeting, Masino and Dávila both received roughly 98% of shares voted.
[…]
The shareholder vote was a partial victory for activist shareholder Sardar Biglari, who also owns and runs restaurant chain Steak ’n Shake. Biglari had called on Cracker Barrel investors to withhold their support from Masino and Dávila as part of his eighth proxy campaign directed at Cracker Barrel.
[…]
Cracker Barrel shares declined 5.5% Thursday. The company’s stock has crumbled since the summer’s branding debacle, down about 50% so far this year.