Cracker Barrel plans to cover outgoing CEO Julie Felss Masino’s security costs and pay her millions in exit fees following the chain’s disastrous rebrand attempt last year, according to reports.
The Southern dining chain will continue paying an unspecified amount for Masino’s protection for as long as the board deems it “reasonably necessary” after she leaves the company in October, according to a regulatory filing reported by Bloomberg.
Masino – who is set to step down as CEO on Aug. 10 and stay on in an advisory capacity through the fall – will also receive $4.6 million in exit payments over two years, according to filings obtained by the Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, Cracker Barrel has wooed incoming CEO David Deno with promises of a $1 million annual salary; $465,000 in relocation expenses to Nashville, Tenn.; a corporate apartment; and twice monthly trips back to his home in St. Petersburg, Fla., for up to six months, the Journal reported.
Cracker Barrel did not respond to The Post’s inquiries about how much it has spent on Masino’s security thus far.
The Lebanon, Tenn.-based company is desperate to move past its “woke” rebrand controversy, which saw Masino attempt to appeal to younger customers last August by modernizing restaurant locations and axing folksy farmer Uncle Herschel from the company logo.
Cracker Barrel’s stock and its store sales declined as outraged customers and even President Trump revolted against the changes, which were quickly reversed.
While it’s unusual to offer paid security services to CEOs with no time limit after their exit, it’s just the latest example of mounting safety concerns following a series of violent attacks, starting with the fatal shooting of a UnitedHealthcare executive in Midtown Manhattan in 2024.
In July 2025, four people were killed in a shooting in a Midtown Manhattan office building.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s San Francisco home was targeted in an attempted firebombing incident earlier this year while California cops have reportedly responded to a slew of threats against Anthropic and OpenAI workers as public opinion of the new tech sours.
“There is a general animus directed to leaders in highly compensated positions,” Dave Komendat, former security chief at Boeing who now works at Corporate Security Advisors, told Bloomberg.
Komendat said his firm now carries out security evaluations for a growing number of companies “that you wouldn’t normally associate with wanting or needing to do this.”
As social media users blasted Cracker Barrel’s rebrand, Masino faced personal attacks on her appearance and her management performance – including from an activist investor who called for her to be fired.
On Monday, analysts said her exit came as a “surprise” since Cracker Barrel has started to bounce back from its 2025 declines.
“Having a company pay for post-terminated CEO security is rare,” R.J. Bannister, partner and chief operating officer at Farient Advisors, told Bloomberg.
“My sense is that it was probably a negotiating point, something that she was asking for as part of agreeing to step down.”
Starbucks similarly agreed to pay for security services for longtime CEO Howard Schultz for an additional 10 years when he stepped down from the role in 2023.
As companies grow fearful of threats, some of the largest firms – especially those in the tech sector – have ramped up their security spending, even hiring armed guards to travel with top executives.
Meta disclosed $8.5 million in security costs for CEO Mark Zuckerberg last year while Oracle spent $5.6 million mostly to fund boss Larry Ellison’s residential security.
Security expenses at Palantir Technologies jumped 150% to nearly $3 million in 2025 over a single year, while Salesforce’s grew to roughly $4 million — about $1 million more than the year before.
