More than six years after acquiring Maple Street Biscuit Co. with plans to expand the brand, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc. said July 20 it sold the downsized restaurant chain founded in Jacksonville.
Cracker Barrel said it sold Maple Street to Biscuit Belly, which describes itself as a “gourmet biscuit sandwich concept” and said it will convert the Maple Street sites to its brand.
Maple Street had 51 restaurants after closing 19 locations since the spring of 2025.
Cracker Barrel said Biscuit Belly is acquiring the assets of 35 Maple Street restaurant, and the remaining 16 will be closed.
Maple Street was founded in 2012 with a restaurant in Jacksonville’s San Marco neighborhood and grew to 33 locations when the company, then headquartered in Orange Park, was acquired by Tennessee-based Cracker Barrel for $36 million in October 2019.
Cracker Barrel, which operates about 660 restaurant and retail locations in 43 states, kept the Maple Street concept intact and expanded the chain to 70 locations by early 2025.
However, as Cracker Barrel’s eponymous chain struggled, company officials stopped talking about Maple Street in its quarterly financial reports and began downsizing the chain.
Cracker Barrel never reported specific financial results for Maple Street.
The company did not give terms of the sale to Biscuit Belly but said it expects to recognize noncash charges of $37 million to $39 million in its current quarter related to the sale.
“Divesting Maple Street sharpens our focus on the core Cracker Barrel brand and is expected to improve profitability. Combined with our improved fiscal 2026 outlook and reduced leverage, these actions demonstrate the progress we are making against our strategic priorities,” Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Masino said in a news release.
Louisville, Kentucky-based Biscuit Belly is a privately held company founded in 2019.
Although Cracker Barrel said it is selling 35 Maple Street sites, Biscuit Belly said it is acquiring 34, but the deal will significantly expand the brand which currently has 15 locations in the Southeast.
The company has no locations in Florida, but its website says a site in Pensacola is coming soon.
“Acquiring an iconic brand like Maple Street, one of the original gourmet biscuit sandwich concepts, was not on my 2026 bingo card,” Biscuit Belly cofounder and CEO Chad Coulter said in a news release.
“Two of the biggest headwinds that growing brands encounter are the time required to find and build locations, and the difficulty of finding great teams. When we looked at Maple Street’s geography, footprints, and established teams, a light bulb went off,” he said.
Biscuit Belly said it expects to reach 60 locations across the Southeast by the end of 2028.
Biscuit Belly said at biscuitbelly.com it will convert the Maple Street locations in Fleming Island and San Marco to its brand over the next 18 to 24 months.
A list of restaurants provided by Biscuit Belly said the company plans to convert those two Maple Street restaurants and one in Point Meadows (the Baymeadows neighborhood of Jacksonville).
Maple Street had listed two other Northeast Florida restaurants in Julington Creek and St. Augustine, which are not on Biscuit Belly's conversion list.