Cracker Barrel Old Country Store is renovating its River City Marketplace restaurant as it undertakes a $700 million three-year revamp within its brand and network of locations.
Walker Property Services LLC of Palm Beach Gardens is renovating the Cracker Barrel restaurant at 13250 City Station Drive at a project cost of $422,987.
An associate says the store will close after close of business March 6 for the renovation and reopen March 15.
The tenant improvement includes new flooring and wall finishes in the dining room and restrooms, along with minor electrical work and replacing plumbing fixtures.
It involves 2,500 square feet of the 10,100-square-foot building.
There are no changes to the seat count or kitchen.
Plans also indicate exterior renovations, including painting and repairs. From all accounts, the rocking chairs remain. The signature barrels will remain or be replaced with new ones.
Inside changes include new doors and hardware, new chair rails, furniture, signs, divided wall features, millwork, menu holders and more.
The fireplace remains with a plan to “thoroughly clean stone fireplace to remove dirt, grime & soot.”
Retail space improvements include new fixtures.
The project coordinator and architect is idGROUP of Dallas.
Cracker Barrel leases the building, which was developed in 2006. The site is east of Interstate 95 off of Airport Center Drive. The location’s site says it offers front-porch dining.
The strategy
As of Dec. 4, Cracker Barrel, founded in 1969, and its affiliates operated about 660 company-owned Cracker Barrel Old Country Store locations in 44 states and owns the fast-casual Maple Street Biscuit Company, which was founded in Northeast Florida.
On May 16, 2024, the roadside, comfort-food staple Cracker Barrel announced that it expected to remodel 25 to 30 locations during the fiscal year that ends in July 2025.
FSRMagazine.com reported Jan. 24 that the Lebanon, Tennessee-based brand, led by President and CEO Julie Felss Masino since July 2023, is proposing to remodel the chain’s restaurants and simplify the menu.
The website said Cracker Barrel wants customers to know it’s more than just a relic of the past, crediting that as the catalyst behind the $700 million transformation plan announced in May 2024.
The 56-year-old company focuses on serving a homestyle breakfast, lunch and dinner menu in dining rooms decorated with antiques and other old decor. The restaurants also feature retail stores at the entrance that sell clothing, candy, soda, toys, decor, seasonal decorations, collectibles and more, including rocking chairs.
The full-service-restaurant magazine reported that Cracker Barrel is making “growth” and “defensive” investments.
Defensive investments consist of “maintenance catch-up around guest-facing and employee-facing features like paint, parking lots, and bathrooms.”
Growth investments are updated store layouts.
As of January, Cracker Barrel had completed 19 full remodels and 12 refreshes.
The publication said Cracker Barrel’s leadership team spent eight months conducting research, resulting in a strategy that involves three imperatives: building relevancy, elevating the food and beverage experience, and growing profitability. Those are based on five pillars of action: Refine the brand, enhance the menu, evolve the store and guest experience, win digital and off-premises occasions, and elevate the employee experience.
“It’s how are we testing out these various levels of these potential remodels, these restyling of our stores,” said CMO Sarah Moore, as quoted by FSRMagazine.com.
“And I would actually say it’s less about new and more about lighter, brighter, and evolved. When you walk into one of our remodeled stores, no matter what the level is, you are going to immediately feel a lighter, brighter sense of welcoming. But I have talked to so many customers who will say to you, it still feels like Cracker Barrel, and that’s the beautiful thing,” Moore said in the FSRMagazine.com report.
“So whereas the various levels, they may have different components — like some have new furniture, some don’t, some have new flooring, some don’t — once you put new paint on the walls and re-curate the decor on the walls and new lighting, it feels like an entirely new place, and we’re learning that a little bit goes a long way. But it really is about not creating this net new experience, but creating this lighter, brighter showcase of Cracker Barrel.”
The magazine reported in May 2024, as Cracker Barrel announced the strategy, that comparable store traffic was down 16% year-to-date and that the brand had lost market share, particularly at dinner.
It said Cracker Barrel announced it would pump $600 million to $700 million in capital expenditures across 2025, 2026, and 2027 “to spark a strategic transformation.”
Cracker Barrel announced that it has also launched a new dinner menu designed to simplify the ordering experience and also introduce new dinner recipes, including Maple Bacon Grilled Chicken, Country Fried Pork Chops, Pot Roast Supper and Barrel-Cut Sugar Ham.
It said customers would find the new dishes featured across three menu categories – Home Cooked Classics starting at $7.99, Down Home Daily Dinners under $10 and Cracker Barrel Favorites.
The area presence
Cracker Barrel operates six locations in Northeast Florida, targeting sites along interstates.
The other three in Jacksonville comprise Southside at 4680 Lenoir Ave. S., built in 1997, off of I-95; Arlington at 438 Commerce Center Drive, built in 2003, off of I-295; and West Jacksonville at 502 Chaffee Road, built in 2005, off of I-10.
There are no permits in review for remodeling those. Cracker Barrel owns the Southside and Arlington stores and leases the West Jacksonville location.
The other two in the area are in Clay County at 4272 Eldridge Loop in Orange Park, built in 1993, off of I-295; and in St. Johns County at 2441 Florida 16 in St. Augustine, built in 1996, along I-95. Cracker Barrel owns both of those.
The financial update
The renovations are designed to improve sales and service.
Nation’s Restaurant News reported that Cracker Barrel reported a quarter-over-quarter increase in same-store sales, from 0.4% in the fourth quarter of 2024 to 2.9% for the first quarter of 2025, which ended Nov. 1, 2024.
Revenue grew 2.6% to $845.1 million, the second quarter in a row of positive growth.
For fiscal 2024, Cracker Barrel reported revenue of $3.47 billion, up 0.8% from 2023 total revenue of $3.44 billion. The 2024 revenue included a benefit of $62.8 million related to the 53rd week.
Comparable store restaurant sales fell 0.1%, including total menu pricing increases of 4.9%.
Comparable store retail sales decreased 5.5% from the prior year.
For the quarter that ended Nov. 1, 2024, the Cracker Barrel restaurant sales accounted for almost 81% of total revenue with the retail stores accounting for 19%.