A Crack in the Barrel
🥞 Cracker Barrel's big rebrand · Courtroom activism backfires · Optics of Privilege · Voucher update · Week in culture · Much more!
Good afternoon, everyone. Cracker Barrel's new logo tanked more than its stock price... Updates on last year's runaway grand jury... Does privilege go both ways.... And our traditional week in culture revue.
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Cracker Barrel advanced with its modern makeover and rolled out a new logo yesterday that landed with a thud. The new text-only logo removes the signature old cracker leaning on a barrel entirely and modernizes the font a bit. In response to the new design, the stock tanked 12 percent as soon as the market opened this morning.
We’ve written about Cracker Barrel and its role as a culture war flashpoint consistently over the years. In 2002, the Human Rights Campaign launched the Corporate Equality Index, which scores companies based on the “gender identity protections” they adopt. Despite its relatively small size and the fact that it didn’t actively participate in the first survey, Cracker Barrel received a special call-out for its efforts to cling to traditional social mores in a rapidly changing world.
Since that time, it’s become a symbol of enduring cultural conservatism to those on the right, and a target for reform for those on the activist left. In their reporting on the rebrand, the New York Times describes it as a “white-coded establishment that align[s] with conservative social norms.”
In light of that, it’s difficult to see CEO Julie Felss Masino’s efforts to modernize the chain as anything other than the desecration of a charming and enduring conservative cultural institution, undifferentiated in many respects from the desecration of national monuments and statues.
As we reported yesterday, Nashville Pride has lost so many corporate sponsors over the past year that it has turned to the public to raise funds to keep the parade going. An item we neglected to mention was that the organization seems willing to resort to blackmail to dissuade other sponsors from bouncing. “Corporations that stepped back will be named,” the organization writes on its website.
In 2024, Cracker Barrel sponsored Nashville Pride. This year, it was absent from the sponsor list after rabid pressure from patrons and activists alike. Will Massino change her tune? Does she care? We’ll soon find out. DAVIS HUNT
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⚖️ When Courtroom Activism Backfires The runaway Davidson County grand jury that dismissed 47 cases at the beginning of this year may have made things more difficult for those they let off the hook. According to the Tennessean, some defendants whose cases were brought back before a different grand jury and got indicted the second time around faced re-arrest and additional bail costs.
You may recall that during the first quarter of 2025, Theeda Murphy was foreperson of the grand jury that returned the highest amount of “no true bills” in Davidson County history. The group dropped 47 cases based on lack of evidence, including three first-degree murder charges.
Many considered the jury a runaway jury because the number of “no true bills” was almost 15 times higher than the average amount of no true bills normally returned each quarter. The fact that Murphy is a progressive, anti-police activist also drew much scrutiny.
At the time, Murphy said that the police didn’t present enough solid evidence for the cases. During the second quarter, the grand jury heard 43 of the previously dismissed cases. All received indictments, and both grand juries heard the same presentations.
🔎 The Optics Of Privilege By now you’ve probably heard about the fur that flew between Councilmembers Tasha Ellis and Sean Parker during Tuesday’s council meeting. Following the exchange, Councilmember Kyonzté Toombs stood before the body and demanded an apology from Parker on the behalf of the Minority Caucus. When we asked Toombs about the decision to mention race during the group’s request for atonement, she insisted that the Caucus does not think “CM Parker is racist or acted with racist intent.”
If that’s so, then why did the Minority Caucus bring race into it at all?
Toombs said the remarks she made on behalf of the Caucus, including its demand for an apology from Parker based on “the optics of a white male colleague approaching a black female who is seated and using profanity towards her” being “an act of intimidation,” weren’t about actual racism. Instead, she explained that “as people of color, we see the world through the lens of our lived experience and our race, for good or bad, is intertwined with that experience.”
While the group may have been addressing the optics of the situation through their lived experience, the optics through the lens of the livestream showed the Minority Caucus demanding an apology from a white male colleague while insinuating that the incident was racially charged. This, despite Toombs admitting that the Caucus views Parker as “an ally.”
Parker was asked to apologize, and he did. That said, Councilmember Tasha Ellis was not asked to apologize for disrupting procedure or calling Vice Mayor Angie Henderson out for using her “white privilege.” To that extent, the optics favor Ellis as the “privileged” one.
🎓 Voucher Update It turns out that Tennessee's expanded school voucher program is, on average, providing more money per student for private school tuition than the state spends per public school student. According to the Tennessean’s reporting of the 2025-26 school year data presented to the State Board of Education last week, the numbers seem to confirm the fears of many anti-voucher Tennesseans wary of a two-tiered system that favors some children over others.
JC Bowman, Executive Director and CEO of Professional Educators of Tennessee, told us that he agrees with State Senator and Chair of the Education Committee Jon Lundberg’s opinion that pulling from the same pool of money is the only way to prevent a two-tiered system. “I go back to the constitution, and it says—the state constitution says—we will create a system of public schools in Tennessee,” said Bowman. “Now, we can define what public schools means…however you want to define it, but at the end of the day, I think that means it needs to come from one pot of money.”
DEVELOPMENT
- Local group brings Japanese-Cajun restaurant, dive bar to Rock Block (NBJ)
- Metro lands $100K grant to amplify corridors along Buchanan, Bordeaux and Nolensville Pike (Post)
- Developer pays $2.14M for east side properties (Post)
- Belmont pays $1.5M for campus-area property (Post)
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✹ THE WEEK IN CULTURE (August 21st)
Watch
Hot Ticket: Eden Ron Howard delves into thriller territory with this pre-WWII parable about a group of expats who find their jungle utopia unraveling thanks to humankind’s basest instincts. With Jude Law, Sydney Sweeney, Vanessa Kirby, and Ana De Armis.Now playing in theaters.
Pamphleteers’s Pick: Relay Riz Ahmed plays a high level fixer in the Michael Clayton/Ray Donovan vein whose ethics come full circle when a client (Lily James) comes to him for help. It looks like Scottish director David Mackenzie may be offering up another late summer prize like he did with eventual Best Picture nominee Hell or High Water back in 2016. Now playing in theaters.
For a complete list of upcoming titles, check out the 2025 Film Guide.
Stream
Speed (HBO Max) The Keanu classic about a runaway bus and Dennis Hopper’s madman is the perfect late-August home viewing option.
Alien: Earth (Hulu) This prequel series to the stalwart sci-fi franchise traces humans’ first contact with the acid-spitting xenomorphs through a brilliant AI allegory. With Justified’s Timothy Olyphant.
Read
Panamerican Book Club Those who missed County Highway’s Grimey’s stop on their summer road trip can still sign up to receive five books over the next year that are rooted beyond the coasts in the real America. Lee Clay Johnson’s brutal Tennessee noir Bloodline and a collection of populist bon vivant Martin Mull’s musings are now available.
Listen
Own Worst Enemy Gavin Adcock The outlaw country rising star may be most famous for bashing Beyoncé’s country turn, but his latest proves he knows exactly what he’s talking about. On this gorgeous and unflinching double album, he walks a fine line between country’s past and present with witty tracks like “Morning Bail”, “Graveyard”, and “Last One To Know.”
THINGS TO DO
View our calendar for the week here and for more recs, click here.
📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.
🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.
👨🏻🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide.
TONIGHT
🪕 David Peterson & 1946 @ Station Inn, 8p, $20, Info
🎙️ Teddy Swims @ Ascend Amphitheater, 8p, $72, Info
💀 Tennessee Dead @ Tennessee Brew Works, 6p, Info
🪕 Bluegrass Night @ The American Legion Post 82, 7p, Free, Info
📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.
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Today's newsletter is brought to you by Megan Podsiedlik (Nashville), Jerod Hollyfield (Crowd Corner), Camelia Brennan (Local Noise), and Davis Hunt (everything else).