Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc (CBRL) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy
Forensic Analysis · Retail / Consumer Discretionary · as of Sep 25, 2026
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc (CBRL)
A forensic read on Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
D · Weak — demands caution
Forensic grade
Distress
Financial health
0.6
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
38.4
P / E (ttm)
10.0%
ROE
$1.1B
Market cap
6.64%
Dividend yield
0.4%
Revenue growth
This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence, going concern, valuation). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 0.6, placing it in the Distress zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
3.0%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 3.0% in the latest fiscal year and slipping across FY2023–FY2025 from 6.4%. After-tax operating profit was $109M in FY2023 and $50M in FY2025, with operating income at 3.5% of revenue in FY2023, 1.3% in FY2024 and 1.6% in FY2025. The capital base behind it barely moved across FY2023–FY2025 ($1.7B to $1.6B, -3%), so there has been little new capital for that return to be earned on. FY2025's operating profit carried a $18M asset write-down that alone took about 1.0 points off that year's return, so about 1.0 of the 3.4-point fall across FY2023–FY2025 is that charge landing in the latest year rather than the capital earning less. FY2024's operating profit carried a $16M asset write-down and a $5M goodwill write-off that alone took about 1.1 points off that year's return; FY2024 sits between the two ends of FY2023–FY2025, so the charge shapes the path between them without moving the change across it.
+0.4%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share count.Diluted share count changed +1% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+0.4%/yr). Roughly flat — the count is neither shrinking nor growing meaningfully. Per-share value isn't being meaningfully helped or hurt by the count.
$5M
FY2024–FY2024
Goodwill impairments.Took $5M of goodwill writedowns across 1 year (FY2024 ($5M)) — about 11% of net income over the span. Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
-80%
FY2024→FY2025
Dividend — cut.The payout was CUT ~80% in FY2025 (from FY2024). It still returns some cash, but it is NOT the dependable, rising dividend an unbroken streak implies.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$3.48B
Revenue Growth YoY+0.4%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+0.6%
Net Margin1.3%
Free Cash Flow$59.8M
Return on Equity10.0%
Debt / Equity1.05x
The forensic grade and screens above are free — no account needed. Want the AI investment read on top — the 0–100 rating, thesis, bull-vs-bear, red flags and the 12-month scenario, written from Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?