36 Million wasted buying a chain in 2019. Makes me wonder how profitable are the locations still open?
2025 has not been kind to Cracker Barrel. I’m glad that my family never bought CB stock.
Link Cracker Barrel closes 14 Maple Street Biscuit Company locations
I’ve been to a Maple Street Biscuit a couple of times; the location I’d been to, in Birmingham AL, had been a Holler & Dash (a separate, but similar, restaurant concept which Cracker Barrel was testing), and got converted to a Maple Street Biscuit after CB bought that chain.
Both Holler & Dash and Maple Street Biscuit are/were a bit more upscale than Cracker Barrel, and AIUI, weren’t in the typical Cracker Barrel locations (at Interstate exits), and were much smaller – the one I had gone to was in a commercial are in a Birmingham neighborhood, on the same street as little boutique-y shops.
The food quality when it was Holler & Dash was noticeably better than at Cracker Barrel; my guess would be that CB was hoping that Holler & Dash / Maple Street Biscuit would be a way to expand into a market segment (and audience) that was a bit different from their core business, and thus diversify the company, in a similar way that Darden Restaurants, which owns Olive Garden, also has the more upscale Seasons 52 and Capital Grille chains.
But, I can say that, when “my” Holler & Dash became a Maple Street Biscuit, the quality, and the service, went significantly downhill. It sounds like they may be scaling back, or shutting down entirely, the Maple Street Biscuit concept, which happens quite often when a big restaurant company tries out some smaller concepts, to see what flies.
So, Maxwell House is apparently rebranding itself as Maxwell Apartment, because let’s face it—nobody can afford houses anymore. The marketers decided, “Hey, more people live in apartments, let’s make coffee sound just as depressing as rent day.”
The irony? The name Maxwell House came from the grand Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville, where Teddy Roosevelt supposedly declared it “Good to the last drop.” Regal! Historic! Coffee-worthy!
Now? We’re going from three syllables to five, from something that at least suggested coffee to something that sounds like a Craigslist rental ad. I’m not about to ask my spouse:
“Honey, can you pick up some Maxwell Apartment at the store?”
Nope. Doesn’t roll off the tongue. Sounds dumb. I don’t drink Maxwell House coffee. Plus, I don’t have a spouse.
I give it six months before it’s sipping instant with New Coke and Cracker Barrel’s “rebrand” in the Marketing Hall of Shame.
“Maxwell Apartment—good to the last rent increase.” 
How About: Maxwell Edison—majoring in java and minoring in medicine*
This sounds like an April Fools’ joke. (In October?!) If it’s not a joke then it takes the cake for the worst rebranding I’ve ever heard of in my life. The only thing that makes sense here is if they are trying to bring attention to the brand and is intended all along to be temporary.
Otherwise…it reminds me of an old joke in which a kid tells his new teacher he wants to change his name. When asked what his name is, he tearfully says, “Billy Shitty.”
The teacher responds, “I can see why you’d want to change your name! What do you want to change it to?”
The boy brightens and immediately says “Bobby Shitty.”
In the article itself, it says this is a ‘limited time rebrand’ of one year. Also, there’s nothing saying the regular canisters won’t be available.
Coincidentally, I am making a model of this car right now. I don’t think “Apartment” will fit the fender or the hood!
I dunno - I still find “Pearl Milling Company” a bizarre name choice. I get why “Aunt Jemima” was discontinued as a brand but with the new name they’ve managed to make syrup sound as appetizing as wet cement.
From TFA:
To celebrate National Coffee Day, which was on Sept. 29, the brand is offering customers a 12-month “lease” of Maxwell Apartment, designed to stock up coffee lovers nationwide — four 27.5-ounce canisters of Maxwell Apartment coffee for $39.99. (For context, a single, 27.5-ounce canister of Maxwell House coffee is about $13 on Amazon.)
…
Along with what the brand is calling a “full year of coffee,” the bundle of rebranded canisters, which is available on Amazon, will come with an official Maxwell Apartment “lease” to sign.
Maxwell House says the limited-time rebrand to Maxwell Apartment is in name only and the product inside is the same in “taste, aroma, quality and ingredients.”
It is a short-term promotional gimmick.
I would not be surprised that the name will be (playfully) shortened to Maxwell App. 
I got the Maxwell App on my phone. I thought it was going to give me the latest info on fine coffee, but instead it keeps trying to hit me over the head with a shiny hammer.
Heh. Good one.
Good thing it was not the Folgers App, getting hints about how to do incest is very icky. 
… 
$43.16
It’s a far reach all the way back to the 1880’s and the original mill that produced the first Aunt J. mix.
Perhaps the Maxwell Apartment schtick was aiming for a younger demographic along with this recent K-pop hit whose tagline is “meet me at the A.P.T.” pronounced all Korean.
Missed opportunity. Why not go for Maxwell Student Loan for a lifetime of coffee?
It’s like when IHOP “rebranded” to International House of Burgers.
They (Maxwell House) is succeeding in getting us to talk about it.
But I’m never going to buy it. And my 1/'25 scale Maxwell Apartment Thunderbird? I bought in in 1992.
That was charming, I liked it.