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As the dust settles on a botched logo redesign that turned it into a political and cultural flashpoint this summer, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store is no doubt looking to put 2025 behind it. In the meantime, the restaurant company has also trimmed its physical footprint as it looks to 2026. Reporting its fourth-quarter financial results earlier this month, Cracker Barrel revealed the planned closure of 14 Maple Street Biscuit Company locations. That amounts to roughly 21% of its company-owned stores for the fast-casual brand, which Cracker Barrel acquired in 2019 for $36 million. The company is projecting revenue for fiscal 2026 of $3.35 billion to $3.45 billion, and a comparable store traffic decline of 4% to 7%, in part due to the closures. Cracker Barrel also plans to open two new locations for its flagship Cracker Barrel brand during the period. Julie Masino, the restaurant chains CEO, addressed the logo controversy in an earnings call on September 17, saying it underscored deeply held feelings and a love for the brand among fans. The company reverted back to its old branding and halted a planned remodeling of some of its restaurants in the wake of intense backlash that followed the logo change. Maple Street Biscuit Company, founded in Jacksonville, Florida, in 2012, largely escaped getting swept up in the negative publicity. The brand has locations mostly centered around the Southeast, Midwest, and Texas. Which Maple Street locations are closing? Cracker Barrel did not provide a list of impacted locations. Although it disclosed the closures as part of its outlook for fiscal 2026, a spokesperson confirmed with Fast Company that the locations it cited have in fact already closed. Based on a Fast Company review of Maple Street’s store locator tool and review websites such as Yelp, the 14 recent store closures span six states, with the most located in Texas. The full list, which Cracker Barrel confirmed, appears below: Florida 2233 Gulf to Bay Blvd Clearwater, FL 33765 7756 113th St N Ste E Seminole, FL 33772 Kentucky 2270 Nicholasville Rd Ste 120 Lexington-Fayette, KY 40503 Ohio 9711 Sawmill Pkwy Ste A Powell, OH 43065 South Carolina 965 Wood Duck Dr Ste 108 Myrtle Beach, SC 29577 1739 Maybank Hwy Ste U Charleston, SC 29412 Tennessee 10837 Hardin Valley Rd Knoxville, TN 37932 Texas 967 Keller Pkwy Keller, TX 76248 4836 Waterview Town Center Dr Ste 300 Richmond, TX 77407 14999 Preston Rd Ste 226 Dallas, TX 75254 3288 Main St Ste 111 Frisco, TX 75034 3040 E FM 544 Ste 400 Wylie, TX 75098 8801 Eldorado Pkwy McKinney, TX 75070 4020 W University Dr, McKinney, TX 75071 A Cracker Barrel spokesperson pointed out that Maple Street Biscuit Company still has more than 50 locations. 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 delivered fantastic guest experiences day in and day out,” the spokesperson said. “We hope our loyal guests will continue to dine with us at our many other Maple Street locations. Shares of Cracker Barrel (NASDAQ: CBRL) are down roughly 5% since its earnings report. The stock has fallen around 30% since late August.
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E-Commerce
Want to switch to Apple Music because you can’t find your favorite indie band on Spotify? Or maybe you’re on Amazon Music but saw a new subscriber offer on Tidal that’s too good to pass up. There are a variety of reasons to change music providers. But if you’re thinking about it, and you’re worried about losing your library of saved songs and personalized playlists, fear not: there are ways to bring all of it with you. Many music streaming services dont make it obvious often burying instructions deep in FAQs and making the process arduous but they do offer options to help migrate your collection. Apple made it easier last month when it quietly rolled out a new feature allowing users to import libraries from rival sites. Having Apple officially incorporate the feature might give reluctant users the confidence to move. Some pointers to help you along with your musical migration. Importing into Apple Music The iPhone maker recently published a help page to walk users through the process of importing libraries into Apple Music. The feature, buried in your settings, is provided by a third-party service called Songshift. It’s currently available to users in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. To use it, you’ll need an Apple Music account and the latest version of iOS or the Android Apple Music app. On iPhone, go to Settings, then Apps, then Music. Tap Transfer Music from Other Music Services to pop up a list of various streaming services. Android users can follow a similar process. Transfers can also be done through a web browser at music.apple.com. After choosing a service, another screen appears, prompting you to log into the target account. Now you get a menu with options to import All Songs and Albums” as well as All Playlists.” If you don’t want all your playlists, you can untick the ones you don’t want. However, you can’t pick individual songs and albums. Apple Music will then replicate your library based on your choices. Importing my Spotify library, with about 150 playlists, went fairly smoothly, although the process took about half an hour because the service also downloaded around 1,230 songs and albums to my iPhone. I had assumed that ticking All Songs and Albums meant that Apple Music would mirror the handful of music I had downloaded to my Spotify app, but it also downloaded all 63 albums in my Spotify library and the 440 songs on my Liked Songs list, which I normally listen to via streaming. If you dont want to download everything, unselect that option before you start. Also note that Apple says playlists “created by the music service can’t be transferred, so I couldn’t bring Spotify-curated lists like This is Taylor Swift or Alternative 80s with me. It also meant that my Liked Songs list, which Spotify generates for every user and a list I’ve been adding to over the years couldn’t be replicated. Any downloaded songs were just dumped into Apple Music’s library. After this story was first published, reader Linda Feaster wrote in with a workaround: create your own playlist and then add all the tracks from the Spotify playlist. It could be tedious if there are hundreds of songs but should do the trick. If you’re tempted to try out the tool, note that it probably won’t work the same way with every service. Apple warns that what can be transferred is up to the source platform. Playlists made by others, such as BBC Musics The Sounds of 1994, for example, did make it over. After the move is done, you’ll have 30 days to review songs that aren’t available or don’t have an exact match in Apple’s catalog, and choose from any alternate versions. Working with other music platforms Most of the other big music streaming platforms offer ways to transfer your library to their site. They mostly rely on standalone third-party services that have been around for a while, are free to use, and don’t need app integration to work. Tidal and Deezer both direct users on their websites to one such service, Tune My Music, which works with popular platforms like Spotify as well as a host of lesser known sites. Amazon Music’s webpage has dedicated buttons for Tune My Music and two similar services, Songshift and Soundiiz. Google also advises third-party services for YouTube Music users who want to import or export playlists, albums, artists and tracks. However, for Apple Music users who want to move to YouTube Music, the process is different. You’ll have to sign in to Apple Music and request a transfer a copy of your data, then export it directly to YouTube Music. The transfer process may take several hours if you have many playlists,” Google warns on its support page. Spotify says it’s currently testing a way for users to transfer their libraries and expects to provide more details soon. Using a third-party service to migrate between platforms It was super easy to move my Spotify library to Deezer using Tune My Music. I clicked a button on the Deezer website that got the process started by prompting me to log in to my Spotify account. Then a menu came up with pre-ticked options on what I could migrate: my entire library, favorite songs, favorite albums, favorite artists and any or all of my 150 playlists. I decided to move it all over, which amounted to more than 16,359 items. It took about five minutes. Unlike Apple Music, Deezer didn’t download any files, it just copied lists. A few dozen songs went missing, Tune My Music said. It usually happens because the song doesn’t exist on the new platform, or it’s named a bit differently and couldn’t be matched, it said, but added that I could download a list of missing tracks to look for them on the new platform. After you finish transferring your music library, don’t forget that it’s still on the original platform and hasn’t been deleted. Most third-party transfer services are free, but also offer premium levels with more features, such as instant syncing of libraries between multiple streaming sites. ____ Is there a tech topic that you think needs explaining? Write to us at onetechtip@ap.org with your suggestions for future editions of One Tech Tip. Kelvin Chan, AP business writer AP Business Writer James Pollard contributed to this report.
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E-Commerce
If you think Jimmy Kimmels return to late-night television this week spells the end of that whole saga, well, think again: A group of investors is demanding that the Walt Disney Co. share information about why he was suspended in the first place. Lawyers representing the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Reporters Without Borders, and other groups of Disney shareholders sent a letter to the entertainment giant on Wednesday requesting internal documents and communications related to the decision to remove Kimmel from the air. Kimmel was suspended by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) indefinitely last week for comments he made about the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The group of shareholders is seeking to learn whether the decision to yank Kimmel was driven by politically fueled threats from federal regulators and broadcast affiliates, and if Disneys board and executives didnt live up to their fiduciary dutiesto act in the best interest of shareholders. The group said that, given the Trump administrations threats to free speech, it was writing to seek transparency about the initial decision to suspend Kimmel and his show, Jimmy Kimmel Live! There is a credible basis to suspect that the board and executives may have breached their fiduciary duties of loyalty, care, and good faith by placing improper political or affiliate considerations above the best interests of the company and its stockholders, the letter said. DISNEYS SELL-OFF The group of shareholders is requesting a broad range of information from Disneyfrom financial information to estimate the effect of Kimmels suspension on Disneys revenue to any communications that board members, including CEO Bob Iger, had with political organizations and federal regulators. Though Kimmel returned to the air Tuesday night and his opening monologue has racked up 20 million views on YouTube, Disney shares have yet to recover from last weeks suspension. Whats more, his show still isnt being aired to about one-quarter of U.S. households served by Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group stations. Disney shares fell 3.3% during the time when Kimmel was suspended, and the move triggered a consumer boycott of Disney-owned streaming services, including Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN. QUESTIONS REGARDING ROLE OF FCC The group of investors linked Kimmels suspension with threats from Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. The sell-off in the stock illustrates fears of brand damage and concerns that Disney was complicit in succumbing to the government overreach and media censorship, the group said, while negative repercussions on Disney and its shareholders remain, given President Donald Trumps continued threats to ABC. Nexstar currently requires the approval of the FCC for its planned $6.2 billion merger with Tegna. Disney shareholders deserve the truth about exactly what went down inside the company after Brendan Carr’s threat to punish ABC unless action was taken against Jimmy Kimmel, AFT president Randi Weingarten said in a statement from Democracy Defenders Fund, a nonprofit watchdog group that helped organize the shareholder letter. The Disney board has a legal responsibility to act in the best interests of its shareholdersand we are seeking answers to discover if that bond was broken to kowtow to the Trump administration, Weingarten said.
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E-Commerce
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