A beloved Alabama breakfast restaurant owned by Cracker Barrel has closed for good, as the company struggles with ongoing fallout from conservative outrage over its logo.
The venue, part of the Maple Street Biscuit Company chain, appeared to have been abruptly shuttered after six years in downtown Homewood.
“This location is permanently closed,” read a sign on the door on Monday, reported by local CBS affiliate WIAT.
“Thank you to our amazing team and to the wonderful Homewood community that has supported us over the years.”
The restaurant, on the corner of 18th Street and 28th Avenue, is the latest in a string of Maple Street closures that have roiled the chain, with Cracker Barrel confirming last September “that 14 locations would be impacted by the closures during fiscal 2026,” Fox Business reported.
“We appreciate the continued patronage of the many guests who have dined with Maple Street at these 14 locations over recent years and thank our team members for their passionate dedication to Maple Street and focus on delivering fantastic guest experiences day in and day out,” a Cracker Barrel spokesperson told Fox Business at the time.
The spokesperson confirmed those 14 restaurants had already been axed, meaning the Homewood shuttering is an additional closure.
Maple Street Biscuit Company is a brunch chain beloved for its flaky biscuits, fried chicken and house-made sauces, which it touts as “comfort food with a modern twist.”
One of its signature biscuit dishes is ‘The Squawking Goat,’ featuring hand-breaded fried chicken breast, a fried goat cheese medallion and pepper jelly, which has appeared on Food Network’s ‘Guilty Pleasures.’
Maple Street was founded by Gus Evans and Scott Moore in Jacksonville, Florida, in 2012, and quickly became a hit, rapidly expanding into other states over the next decade.
Cracker Barrel, a highly popular southern-themed restaurant chain, took note of the new arrival, snapping up Maple Street in October 2019 in a deal worth $36 million.
It was still expanding as recently as 2023, when Maple Street announced Ohio would be its 10th state of operations.
However, Cracker Barrel hit rocky financial headwinds last August following a disastrous decision to revamp and simplify its longstanding logo, which inadvertently became a new culture war flashpoint as conservatives raged against the redesign.
Influencers and MAGA Republicans branded the firm’s decision to ditch Uncle Herschel on the Cracker Barrel logo as “woke,” with thousands of online memes tearing into the company’s new look being posted after the news of the change broke.
The backlash was so extreme that the company’s CEO admitted that she felt as though she had been “fired by America.”
Cracker Barrel’s redesign caused it to lose $94 million in a single day, and its stock price plunged to $54.50. That meant the company’s stock price had plummeted by 7.15 percent, although it had rebounded from a 15 percent drop earlier in the day.
Even President Donald Trump weighed in on Cracker Barrel’s proposed new look, telling the company that it “should go back to the old logo” and “admit a mistake based on customer response (the ultimate poll).”
Cracker Barrel subsequently reversed its rebrand plans and confirmed that its stores would retain their iconic country theme.
A month later, when it confirmed it was axing 14 Maple Street stores, the company simply said they “fell short of its financial expectations,” Fox Business reported.
Dozens of Maple Street stores remain open in Florida, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio.
