Dive Brief:
- Cracker Barrel has sold the Maple Street Biscuit Company to Biscuit Belly, a biscuit-sandwich concept, according to a Tuesday press release. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
- As part of the acquisition, 16 Maple Street locations will close and Biscuit Belly will assume control of the other 35.
- Cracker Barrel bought Maple Street in 2019 for $36 million when the biscuit chain had 28 corporate-owned and five fast casual restaurants in seven states. At the time of that transaction, Cracker Barrel said it would transition its Holler and Dash Biscuit Houses to Maple Street concepts.
Dive Insight:
Selling off Maple Street should help Cracker Barrel prioritize the operations and health of its core restaurant brand, CEO Julie Masino said in the press release. Masino said that in the long run, the sale of the biscuit chain would aid the brand’s profitability.
In a statement about the acquisition, Biscuit Belly said it would convert the 35 total Maple Street locations to its brand over the next 18 to 24 months with the first changes completed in January.
Work on conversions “will begin immediately starting with locations in the greater Cincinnati area and Richmond, Virginia,” according to Biscuit Belly.
The acquisition will more than triple Biscuit Belly’s footprint and bring its storecount to about 60 locations.
“We intend to keep the acquired restaurants open and invest in the existing teams who already know their guests and communities,” the biscuit brand said.
The biscuit chain said the acquisition was aligned with its long-term growth strategy and would help it overcome the challenges of finding well-sited restaurants and bringing on the staff to run them. Biscuit Belly said it would continue franchising, and that the acquisition of the locations “complements our existing growth pipeline and gives us another path for intentional expansion.”
Cracker Barrel, meanwhile, has struggled to drive sales since suffering extensive media and political backlash over an ill-fated rebrand effort last summer. Since then, the brand has focused on improving its customer experience while facing an attempt to oust its CEO by activist investor Sardar Biglari.
According to the Cracker Barrel press release announcing the sale, “comparable store restaurant sales decreased approximately 2.5%,” across the first 11 weeks of its 2026 fiscal fourth quarter.
In a separate transaction, Cracker Barrel entered a sale-leaseback transaction with a real-estate investor covering 26 company-operated stores. That $77 million transaction will be used to pay down debt for the brand.
