Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, the chain of southern-style restaurants with a gift shop that lines highways across America, has gotten a makeover. Their logo has lost the ‘Old Country Store’ tagline, as well as the iconic man in a chair resting his arm on a barrel in favor of the words Cracker Barrel in text only. Inside, per patron videos of remodeled locations, gone is the dark nostalgic feel replaced with a sterile renovation. The knick-knacks have gone from quirky kitsch from yesteryear to something you might see in a suburban craft store. 

While the company’s CEO has said that initial reaction to these changes was positive, the verdict across social media was very much the opposite. The new look removes the old-school charm and character that was central to the brand’s identity for decades. 

Cracker Barrel is just the latest in a string of companies, including Jaguar more recently and even Coca-Cola in the mid-’80s with their New Coke rollout, to violate the critical principle of making sure that you do not alienate your loyal customer base. 

I wear many hats in business and have more than 20 years of experience as an advocate for loyal customers and clients in business, working in an outsourced CCO (Chief Customer Officer) function and sharing my proprietary customer loyalty models via speeches and consulting with both the biggest companies in the world and a variety of small and mid-sized businesses. And I firmly believe that one of a company’s most important assets isn’t listed on its balance sheet: the company’s loyal customers. 

Loyal customers are easier to sell more to, both in frequency of purchases and upsells, because they already love your business and have often given you permission to communicate with them and build a relationship. They are also excellent advocates for generating new business via their own advertising efforts — word of mouth, posts on social media and more. 

While it is a challenge for companies to continually grow, and publicly traded companies are under even more pressure to do so, mathematically, growth becomes harder if you are losing customers from your key customer base. 

If you make your customers believe you do not care about them and their relationship with your brand and company, it is going to be very difficult for you to be successful in your business. This is the stark reality many businesses who have sought out new customers have faced lately. It’s fine to reach new customers, but you must do it carefully and in a way that doesn’t simultaneously burn goodwill with your existing customers. 

New customers should never be treated better or given more weight than existing, loyal customers. 

In my own social media post resharing a video of a Cracker Barrel dining room remodel, I received thousands of interactions. Among the majority comments from long-time customers expressing their displeasure at the changes, one other comment stood out. The poster said, ‘I don’t eat there but it looks nice to me.’ 

And that is the crux of the issue. The poster is not a customer, and based on the comment, is not likely to become a customer. So, seeking her approval is not a revenue-enhancing win for the company. Maybe it gets some ROE (return on ego) points for the marketing team, but it doesn’t get ROI (return on investment) for shareholders.  

For Cracker Barrel, losing character in a time when corporatization is making everything around us bland and soulless feels like something enjoyable from the past is being killed off. And for a brand which has been based on nostalgia — from their décor to their nostalgic candy and wares in their adjacent store — it doesn’t make a lot of sense.  

I am a long-time Cracker Barrel patron. I stop in whenever I am on the road. And as a long-time customer, as well as business advisor and executive, I can tell you that Cracker Barrel’s logo was not their issue.  

My last stop in was in June on a road trip. I noted that I hadn’t been there in a while prior, because I hadn’t been on the road much. And in a moment where convenience is a part of the equation and DoorDash has taken hold of younger generations, it is harder to get touchpoints with a brand, even if you want them. This is a much bigger strategic endeavor that Cracker Barrel needs to think through. 

My other issue was the menu. They had taken off my favorite item and their hashbrown casserole tasted off — the food overall wasn’t as fresh as I had experienced in the past. In my social media post, there were several comments about a decline in food quality over recent years. Making the menu and food quality rock-solid is critical for a restaurant, particularly when consumers are trying to stretch their dollars. 

Cracker Barrel isn’t the first and certainly won’t be the last company to fall into the trap of thinking that all change is good. Companies should be bringing their customer voices to the table, which can be accomplished with a CCO whose job it is to know the customers well and advocate for them within the company or other loyalty specialist advising.  

Loyalty is hard to build and easy to lose. Companies always want to attract new customers, but that isn’t effective if relationships with existing customers aren’t nurtured at the same time. 

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine — a largely taxpayer-funded body that has taken in hundreds of millions in federal dollars — is facing pushback for fast-tracking a climate review that critics say is an attempt to undermine the Trump administration’s energy agenda.

Earlier this month, Politico reported that NASEM is using ‘internal funding’ to pay for a review that will be released in September in order to ‘inform’ the Environmental Protection Agency’s move to rescind the Obama-era greenhouse gas endangerment finding, a cornerstone of climate regulation that conservatives say has strangled American energy production.

That effort is being led by molecular biologist Shirley M. Tilghman who, in addition to being a member of NASEM, serves as an External Science Advisor to the Science Philanthropy Alliance, a group tied to the progressive consulting behemoth Arabella Advisors through the New Venture Fund, a nonprofit that pushes a variety of progressive causes. 

Critics tell Fox News Digital they have concerns about the timing of this move and the possible political motives attached to the fast-tracked review. 

‘NASEM’s decision to do a fast-track study on greenhouse gas emissions and endangerment in response to the EPA rule undermines the legitimacy of the National Academies,’ Daren Bakst, Director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment, told Fox News Digital. 

‘The process shows the numerous problems with what they are doing. On August 7, NASEM announced they were doing a report to be finished in September. That is an incredible rush job that by itself undermines the legitimacy of what they are doing. Likely, the report has already been written in whole or in part, given the timing. This rush gives the impression they have their conclusions and are just working backwards. ‘

Conservatives have long argued that groups tied to Arabella Advisors operate as a ‘dark money’ network, influencing policy debates and shaping research priorities behind the scenes. This dynamic reflects a growing entanglement between research institutions and ideologically driven funding streams. 

The concern is heightened by the fact that NASEM derived roughly 58% of its budget from federal funds in 2024. The New York Times reported that ‘about 70%’ of the budget came from federal funds in 2023. 

‘To me, it seems like a move to protect NASEM’s position as the gatekeeper of official science,’ Travis Fisher, director of energy and environmental policy studies at the Cato Institute, told Fox News Digital. ‘I think it’s appropriate to ask whether government-funded researchers and organizations might have a conflict of interest in setting the terms of the climate debate. For example, it’s clear that more alarm means more research funding.’

Regarding the Arabella connection, Fisher said that ‘any overlap’ between the NASEM effort and political advocacy groups ‘deserves scrutiny.’

‘I’d like to know who pushed for NASEM’s involvement in the first place and whether ideological groups applied any pressure to get NASEM to join the political fray,’ Fisher said. ‘In any case, I’m surprised to see NASEM inject itself into inherently political fights over EPA policy.’

James Taylor, President of the Heartland Institute, told Fox News Digital that NASEM is a ‘leftist’ and ‘statist’ institution that is ‘funded by and dependent on big government.’

Fox News Digital previously reported that NASEM, sometimes referred to as NAS, has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds in recent years while doling out hefty salaries to its top brass and bankrolling a variety of left-wing initiatives. 

‘It has long since stopped being a scientific organization and is now merely a political one,’ Taylor said. 

‘For example, in a recent so-called climate science assessment, only 22% of the authors had PhDs, which was equaled by the 22% of authors who worked for environmental activist groups. Counting Democrat politicians who were also co-authors, the NAS assessment had more environmental activists writing the report than actual scientists. NAS is a joke and has no credibility at all.’

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a NASEM spokesperson said, ‘This fast-track study is being funded by private donations, and is intended to inform public comments requested by EPA.’

‘The New Venture Fund is a 501(c)(3) organization that uses a fiscal sponsorship model to support a wide range of nonpartisan projects,’ a New Venture Fund spokesperson told Fox News Digital. ‘We fully support efforts to increase funding for foundational science and proudly served as Science Philanthropy Alliance’s fiscal sponsor until it spun off in 2023.’

‘Arabella Advisors is an independent organization and one of our many vendors. They do not ‘manage’ New Venture Fund or have any say in our funding or fiscal sponsorship decisions.’

The revelation comes as the Trump administration seeks to rescind the Obama-era greenhouse gas endangerment finding, a cornerstone of climate regulation that critics say has strangled American energy production.

The 45-day public comment period for the proposal is set to end in mid-September. 

The 2009 Endangerment Finding, issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), declared that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide ‘threaten both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations.’

This finding established the EPA’s legal obligation under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

In March, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin pledged to roll back the assessment, claiming it has fueled an avalanche of regulations that have cost the U.S. economy over $1 trillion. He doubled down again in July during a speech in Indiana, delivered against a backdrop of trucks, while slamming the Biden-Harris Administration’s electric vehicle mandate.

‘With this proposal, the Trump EPA is proposing to end sixteen years of uncertainty for automakers and American consumers,’ Zeldin said, adding that regulatory relief will give U.S. consumers affordable choices when car shopping.

An Arabella spokesperson told Fox News Digital that Arabella ‘does not fund any organizations.’

‘We are a professional services firm that provides administrative and operational support such as compliance, HR, and accounting to nonprofit clients. We are not a donor and we are not a funder.’

Hours of interviews between Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell and a federal prosecutor were released by the Department of Justice on Friday afternoon. 

During the recorded sessions in which the convicted sex offender, who was found guilty for her role in Epstein’s crimes, was granted immunity, she made several interesting claims. 

Here are 10 top takeaways. 

Claims there is no client list

Maxwell denied the existence of a black book with Epstein’s clients on it – and least to her knowledge. 

‘There is no list,’ she told Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. 

Maxwell said she believed the origin of rumors that there was a list came in 2009 after Epstein had finished a 13-month sex trafficking sentence in Florida, and a lawyer at Rothstein Adler involved in a civil suit against him called the FBI to say he had a ‘piece of evidence’ that belongs to Epstein.

That was ‘the list,’ she claimed, adding that she believes he became a confidential informant to the FBI.

She said he obtained the list through a sting operation involving Epstein’s former butler, who said in a deposition he had ‘handwritten notes, or a journal, whatever.’ 

Doesn’t believe Epstein killed himself

Maxwell said she doesn’t believe Epstein killed himself when he was found hanging in his New York jail cell in 2019. 

‘I do not believe he died by suicide, no,’ she told Blanche when asked. 

She added that she didn’t have any speculation about who could have killed him, but claimed the U.S. Bureau of Prisons is rife with mismanagement. 

‘If it is indeed murder, I believe it was an internal situation,’ she said, adding she didn’t believe his death was a way to silence him. 

‘I do not have any reason to believe that,’ she told Blanche. ‘And I also think it’s ludicrous because if that – I also happen to think if that is what they wanted, they would’ve had plenty of opportunity when he wasn’t in jail. And if they were worried about blackmail or anything from him, he would’ve been a very easy target.’

Never saw President Donald Trump do anything inappropriate

Maxwell said while she believes President Trump (before he was president) and Epstein were friendly, she didn’t think they were ‘close.’

‘I think they were friendly, like people are in social settings. I don’t — I don’t think they were close friends or I certainly never witnessed the president in any of — I don’t recall ever seeing him in his house, for instance.’ she said. ‘I actually never saw the president in any type of massage setting.’

She added, ‘I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.’ 

Former President Bill Clinton never went to Epstein’s island 

Maxwell claimed that former President Bill Clinton, whose name has previously been linked to Epstein, ‘absolutely never went’ to Epstein’s Caribbean island where sex trafficking of young girls took place. 

She added, ‘I can be sure of that because there’s no way he would’ve gone – I don’t believe there’s any way that he would’ve gone to the island, had I not been there. Because I don’t believe he had 16 an independent friendship, if you will, with Epstein.’ 

She also said that Clinton was her friend, not Epstein’s, and that she knew him through the Clinton Global Initiative and was part of the inception of the organization. 

Calls Epstein ‘disgusting,’ but doesn’t believe he’s guilty of everything he was accused of 

Maxwell called Epstein ‘disgusting’ in the interview but said she doesn’t believe he was guilty of all the accusations. 

‘I do believe that Epstein did a lot of, not all, but some of what he’s accused of, and I’m not here to defend him in any respect whatsoever,’ Maxwell told Blanche. ‘I don’t want to, and I don’t think he requires, nor deserves any type of protection or – from me in any way, to sugarcoat what he did or didn’t do.’

She added, ‘This is one man. He’s not some – they’ve made him into this – he’s not that interesting. He’s a disgusting guy who did terrible things to young kids.’

Never saw Prince Andrew do anything inappropriate and believes the photo of him with accuser Virginia Giuffre is fake

Maxwell told Blanche that she also never saw Prince Andrew do anything inappropriate while she was with him, adding that she believes the infamous photo of the prince with his hand around accuser Virginia Giuffre when she was 17 isn’t real. 

‘I believe it’s literally a fake photo,’ she said of the picture, purported to have been taken at her former London townhouse. ‘I do not know that they met.’

Giuffre died of suicide earlier this year. She had accused the royal of forcing her into sex inside Maxwell’s home in London’s ritzy Belgravia neighborhood. The prince was relieved of his royal duties amid fallout from the scandal but has always denied allegations of wrongdoing. He agreed to pay Giuffre an undisclosed settlement in 2022 and to donate to her charity for crime victims.

Maxwells claims she has memory problems after being on suicide watch for 2 years

Maxwell claimed to Blanche her ‘memory’s not as good as it was’ because she was kept on suicide watch at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn after her arrest for nearly two years, and she was woken up every 15 minutes. 

She said because of her memory lapses she had taken notes before the interviews, and throughout the interview still struggled to recall many details. 

Claims Epstein had a heart condition and told her he couldn’t have sex often

Maxwell said that when she traveled with Epstein, they slept in the same bed, but he told her he had a heart condition and couldn’t have sex frequently. 

‘Which meant that he didn’t have intercourse a lot, which suited me fine, because I actually do have a medical condition, which precludes me having a lot of intercourse,’ she told Blanche. 

She added that she didn’t know the exact nature of the condition, but he liked ‘other forms of sexual activities.’

Claims Epstein never loved her and said she wasn’t his type and that he told people to lie to her 

Maxwell told Blanche she and Epstein had a friends with benefits relationship while she was working with him, but at one point Epstein said that one of his associates didn’t want to be seen with her too much because of her father’s company’s embezzlement accusations. 

But she said she believed that was all a ruse just to keep her from traveling with Epstein. 

‘Today – not contemporaneously, but today I don’t believe that that’s even true. I think it was used as a means to not have me travel with him to Ohio or whatever. It was just a way to park me,’ she said.

She added that after her arrest during the legal discovery process she saw evidence that ‘he would actively tell other people to lie to me or conceal things from me, and that he never loved me and I wasn’t his type.’ 

Claims Epstein took testosterone, which altered his character 

Maxwell also claimed that in the late ‘90s, Epstein started taking testosterone, ‘and that altered his character.’

While discussing the frequency at which he got sexual massages, she said the testosterone both made him more ‘aggressive’ and she thought it likely ‘altered his desires.’

Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking of minors. 

As the 11th member of former President Joe Biden’s administration appeared before the House Oversight Committee this week, Fox News Digital asked senators on Capitol Hill if former Vice President Kamala Harris should testify next. 

‘I think they should take her behind closed doors and figure out what she knows and what she’s willing to talk about,’ Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., said. 

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., is leading the investigation into the alleged cover-up of Biden’s cognitive decline and use of the autopen during his tenure as president. 

Comer said on Fox News’ ‘The Ingraham Angle’ last month that the ‘odds’ of Harris getting a subpoena to appear before the House Oversight Committee are ‘very high.’ 

While Marshall told Fox News Digital that Harris should testify, he admitted, ‘I don’t think you need her testimony to show Americans what I knew as a physician a long time ago, that Joe Biden had a neurodegenerative disease of some sort.’

Marshall has a medical degree from the University of Kansas and practiced medicine for more than 25 years before running for public office. 

‘All you had to do is look at his very fixed, flat face,’ Marshall explained. ‘Look at his gait, the way he walked. He had a shuffled walk. He didn’t move his arms, hardly at all. When he talked, it was very monotone, a very soft voice. He had malingering thought processes. I don’t think it took much to figure that out.’

After listing the former president’s symptoms, the Kansas senator lamented that Biden ‘turned weakness into war,’ creating a national security threat. 

During Biden’s presidency, the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan resulted in the death of 13 U.S. soldiers, Russia invaded Ukraine and Hamas attacked Israel, triggering the ongoing war in Gaza.

But as Republicans demand transparency, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told Fox News Digital that he is far more worried about the ‘challenges we face right now,’ particularly on the economy, inflation and the impact of Trump’s tariff policies. 

Meanwhile, Sen. John Hoeven R-N.D., defended the accountability argument, telling Fox News Digital that Americans ‘always want more information and more transparency.’

‘If you’re involved in an administration, you [should] always be willing to come in and say what you did and why you did it, and you know what it’s all about. I mean, that’s how it works, and that’s what the American people want,’ he said. 

Fox News Digital reached out to Biden and Harris for comment but did not immediately receive a response. 

Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report. 

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson criticized on Thursday what she said were the ‘recent tendencies’ of the Supreme Court to side with the Trump administration, providing her remarks in a bitter dissent in a case related to National Institutes of Health grants.

Jackson, a Biden appointee, rebuked her colleagues for ‘lawmaking’ on the shadow docket, where an unusual volume of fast, preliminary decision-making has taken place related to the hundreds of lawsuits President Donald Trump’s administration has faced.

‘This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins,’ Jackson wrote.

The liberal justice pointed to the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of Calvinball, which describes it as the practice of applying rules inconsistently for self-serving purposes.

Jackson, the high court’s most junior justice, said the majority ‘[bent] over backwards to accommodate’ the Trump administration by allowing the NIH to cancel about $783 million in grants that did not align with the administration’s priorities.

Some of the grants were geared toward research on diversity, equity and inclusion; COVID-19; and gender identity. Jackson argued the grants went far beyond that and that ‘life-saving biomedical research’ was at stake.

‘So, unfortunately, this newest entry in the Court’s quest to make way for the Executive Branch has real consequences, for the law and for the public,’ Jackson wrote.

The Supreme Court’s decision was fractured and only a partial victory for the Trump administration.

In a 5-4 decision greenlighting, for now, the NIH’s existing grant cancellations, Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the three liberal justices. In a second 5-4 decision that keeps a lower court’s block on the NIH’s directives about the grants intact, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, sided with Roberts and the three liberals. The latter portion of the ruling could hinder the NIH’s ability to cancel future grants.

The varying opinions by the justices came out to 36 pages total, which is lengthy relative to other emergency rulings. Jackson’s dissent made up more than half of that.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley observed in an op-ed last month a rise in ‘rhetoric’ from Jackson, who garnered a reputation as the most vocal justice during oral arguments upon her ascension to the high court.

‘The histrionic and hyperbolic rhetoric has increased in Jackson’s opinions, which at times portray her colleagues as abandoning not just the Constitution but democracy itself,’ Turley said.

Barrett had sharp words for Jackson in a recent highly anticipated decision in which the Supreme Court blocked lower courts from imposing universal injunctions on the government. Barrett accused Jackson of subscribing to an ‘imperial judiciary’ and instructed people not to ‘dwell’ on her colleague’s dissent.

Barrett, the lone justice to issue the split decision in the NIH case, said challenges to the grants should be brought by the grant recipients in the Court of Federal Claims.

But Barrett said ‘both law and logic’ support that the federal court in Massachusetts does have the authority to review challenges to the guidance the NIH issued about grant money. Barrett joined Jackson and the other three in denying that portion of the Trump administration’s request, though she said she would not weigh in at this early stage on the merits of the case as it proceeds through the lower courts.

Jackson was dissatisfied with this partial denial of the Trump administration’s request, saying it was the high court’s way of preserving the ‘mirage of judicial review while eliminating its purpose: to remedy harms.’