Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc.’s quarterly earnings report gave investors confidence that its chain of 657 restaurant and retail stores is turning around.
However, the company continues downsizing its Maple Street Biscuit Co. chain and its executives are not talking about it.
Cracker Barrel in 2019 acquired Maple Street, the restaurant chain founded in Jacksonville and then headquartered in Orange Park.
After the $36 million acquisition, Cracker Barrel officials expressed enthusiasm for the chain of 33 restaurants and began expanding it, growing it to 70 locations.
But a year ago, the company began retrenching Maple Street, closing two restaurants in the fourth quarter ended Aug. 1, 2025.
Another 14 Maple Street restaurants were closed in the first quarter of this fiscal year and when Cracker Barrel reported earnings for the third quarter ended May 1, it said it closed two more Maple Street sites, reducing the chain to 52 locations.
According to its quarterly report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company closed the 16 restaurants this fiscal year “because of poor operating performance.”
That was all the company had to say about the state of Maple Street in its report, and in a June 9 conference call with analysts, Cracker Barrel executives did not mention Maple Street at all.
Cracker Barrel never reports financial data for Maple Street. Its reports on restaurant metrics always include an asterisk saying the data is only for Cracker Barrel restaurants and excludes Maple Street.
Cracker Barrel reported total revenue of nearly $2.47 billion for the first nine months of the fiscal year and said restaurant and retail revenue, excluding Maple Street, was nearly $2.43 billion.
That indicates Maple Street’s revenue in the nine months was $44 million, down from $51.9 million the previous year. But because of the restaurant closures this fiscal year, the lower revenue would be expected and there is no way to gauge the performance of the remaining restaurants.
Cracker Barrel did say it incurred $3.47 million in costs related to the closure of the 16 Maple Street restaurants plus one Cracker Barrel store in the nine-month period.
Cracker Barrel reported its total third-quarter revenue fell 2.9% to $797.4 million and adjusted earnings dropped by 50% to 29 cents a share compared to the third quarter of 2025. However, that was a positive surprise on Wall Street because analysts were projecting a net loss for Q3 2026.
Cracker Barrel has been disappointing investors in recent years and created a firestorm with longtime customers last year by changing its logo and unveiling an updated restaurant design.
Because of the backlash, the company reverted to its traditional logo and backed off plans for the redesign.
In its conference call, CEO Julie Masino said its turnaround strategy including operational and menu improvements is producing positive results.
“Our multipronged (menu) strategy combines bringing back guest favorites, introducing new offerings, enhancing quality and leaning into value,” she said.
Masino said customers are attracted to the value of dining at Cracker Barrel.
“Our absolute check remains well below the industry. In Q3, our average check was $15.85, compared to over $27 in casual dining and over $19 in family dining, underscoring our lower prices versus competitors,” she said.
Cracker Barrel’s results sent its stock soaring June 10 after the report. The stock rose as much as $12.61 to a nine-month high of $48.91.
Fidelity National Information Services Inc., or FIS, and its predecessor companies have been providing technology services for the banking industry since 1961.
A lot of new financial technology companies have entered the business since then, but CEO Stephanie Ferris thinks FIS has a competitive advantage with its institutional knowledge of the banking industry and its regulations.
“I actually think the moat for this industry is regulatory compliance and know-how,” Ferris said June 9 at the Mizuho Technology Conference in New York.
“That’s one of the benefits we give the banks as we deploy,” she said.
The know-how led to Jacksonville-based FIS announcing a partnership last month with artificial intelligence giant Anthropic to develop tools for banks to uncover financial crimes.
“Anthropic came to us. They’ve been working with the largest banks,” Ferris said.
Anthropic decided it needed a partner with more knowledge of financial regulations, she said.
“For Anthropic, we were a really good and important partner,” she said.
Banks could possibly develop their own tools for this, but Ferris said FIS can offer them a more cost-efficient system.
“We can do it faster, cheaper for them,” she said.
“If you are a large technology company you have to make these investments,” she said.
“You’re going to see people will become very, very focused on where the return is on the cost.”
FIS and Anthropic are working with two banks to develop the model and Ferris hopes they will be ready to offer the system to the industry at the end of 2026.
“It takes a long time to test the model. It has to be exact. That’s why it takes long to build the model,” she said.
Ferris deflected questions from Mizuho analyst Dan Dolev about the financial benefits for FIS from the partnership. But in a research note after hosting the session, Doley said it will be an advantage for the company.
“FIS has a great opportunity here, and if successful, it is TAM-enhancing,” he said, referring to the total addressable market for the technology.
Rayonier signs lease for Atlanta headquarters
Rayonier Inc. continues to be based in Wildlight in Nassau County after merging with PotlachDeltic Corp. in January, despite saying the headquarters of the merged company would be in Atlanta.
However, Rayonier announced in a June 12 post on LinkedIn it has signed a lease for its corporate headquarters in the Buckhead district of Atlanta.
The company said the new headquarters will open in 2027.
Rayonier announced the headquarters would move when it reached agreement on the merger in October. The timber, real estate and wood products company said it will maintain regional offices in Wildlight, where the company is developing a mixed-used community, and at PotlatchDeltic’s former headquarters in Spokane, Washington.
The LinkedIn post said Rayonier is Georgia’s largest private landowner with nearly 850,000 acres of timberland in the state.
Rayonier owns about 4.1 million acres of timber in the Southern and Northwestern U.S.
Despite backing off its plans to convert most of its stores to the brand, Shoe Carnival Inc. changed its corporate name to Shoe Station Group Inc. June 12 after shareholders approved the change at the company’s annual meeting.
The footwear retailer changed its Nasdaq ticker symbol from “SCVL” to “SHOE” at the opening of trading June 12.
“The new name and new ticker are reflective of our multi-banner strategy with Shoe Station as our primary long-term growth vehicle and Shoe Carnival continuing in markets where it is dominant,” interim CEO Cliff Sifford said in a news release.
“We will also seek to expand our business through strategic acquisitions of other footwear retailers,” he said.
The company said a year ago it planned to have 80% of its stores converted by March 2027 to Shoe Station, a brand that targets a more affluent customer than Shoe Carnival.
However, the company said last month that it now intends to operate both banners. The Fort Mill, South Carolina-based company has 281 Shoe Carnival stores and 145 Shoe Station locations.
Former Jacksonville Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver is chairman of Shoe Station and its largest shareholder, controlling 31.5% of the stock along with his wife, Delores.
Redwire Corp.’s roller-coaster ride through Wall Street continued as the much anticipated initial public offering of SpaceX launched June 12.
Jacksonville-based Redwire doubled in price in the two weeks after Elon Musk’s company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., publicly filed for its IPO.
But after reaching its record high of $26.64 on May 28, Redwire fell back to $15.12 at the close June 12, the day SpaceX began trading.
Redwire’s stock has been volatile for a long time. A story posted by investing website StockStory said Redwire’s stock has had 103 moves greater than 5% in the past year.
In the most recent market activity, Redwire was following the trend of the entire space technology industry, with many of the stocks rising sharply in May but dropping as investors interested in space shifted their focus to SpaceX.
An exchange-traded fund of space stocks managed by investment company VanEck rose 45.7% from its inception May 6 through May 28, when Redwire reached its high.
However, the net gain for the fund was down to just 6.5% as of June 12.
Illinois-based Convergint announced Jan. 9 it acquired JSC Systems, a Jacksonville-based provider of fire alarms, electronic security and other communications services.
The company founded in 1969 was previously known as Jacksonville Sound & Communications.
Convergint, which provides tech-enabled security and safety solutions, said the acquisition expands its business in the Southeast.
JSC has offices in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina and will operate as a subsidiary of Convergint.
Terms of the deal were not announced.