Detective Gregory: Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?
Sherlock Holmes: To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
Detective Gregory: The dog did nothing in the night-time.
Sherlock Holmes:That was the curious incident.
Arthur Conan Doyle: The Adventure of Silverblaze 1896
At Instapundit there is a link to a pair of stories about the Nellie Bowles book about how the New York times decided to ignore reality in their reporting. This part really jumped out at me:
First, it was blunting my reporting. It was saying you can’t report on the most interesting stories of the day, which was really frustrating and crazy-making a little bit because it was like, “What do you mean we’re not supposed to cover the riots? What do you mean we’re not supposed to talk about” … you name it, hot-button issue of the day. And basically there was a media blackout for a while.
I call it now time wandering, which is all of the most interesting issues. You’re allowed to talk about it in the world of all the Substacks, the conservative media covers it, and the liberal media waits about two or three years and then they’re allowed to touch it.
Cracker Barrel’s stock has taken a beating since the restaurant chain held an investor call in which its new CEO admitted the Southern country restaurant chain isn’t as “relevant” as it once was.
Julie Felss Masino, who became Cracker Barrel’s CEO nine months ago, told investors during the May 16 call that the 54-year-old eatery “was not delivering the financial results that shareholders deserve.”
“Cracker Barrel is a great concept and a great company,” Masino said. “… But to ignite growth, we must revitalize the brand.”
Before Masino and Cracker Barrel’s leadership held the meeting, the company’s stock hovered around $60 per share, but a day after the call, it dropped almost 20%, to about $48 per share, according to NASDAQ.
The stock closed Thursday at $45.75 per share.
Now why would a CEO saying the chain isn’t “relevant” cause the stock to drop 20%?
Well, maybe it’s because it means the CEO is not addressing the reason why the stock had dropped TO $60 a share from the $102 it was at a year ago. To find the answer to that question you have to ignore the USA story and search instead at Ace of Spades HQ:
In June of 2023 Cracker Barrel went woke, deciding that it could bring in new customers and investors by sexualizing the front porch with rainbow-striped rocking chairs. As it turned out, that was not a good marketing strategy, and it had the effect of repulsing existing customers who don’t want country cooking to be sexualized, be it gay, straight, or otherwise.
Image via Ace of Spades HQ
The fallout was immediate, with consumers announcing boycotts and the stock price taking an initial hit. Despite a lack of headlines or buzz since then, the boycott has continued and has been devastating to Cracker Barrel. The restaurant chain permanently ran off a great many loyal customers, and the persistently “unexpected” decline in traffic is taking a serious financial toll on the company.
It was just announced this week that Cracker barrel is slashing its dividend by 81%. Cracker Barrel stock has fallen from $102 per share at the start of “Pride Month” 2023 to $49 per share now, a 52% decline.
Now one might think that this would be an important part of the story of the drop in Cracker Barrel’s share price. Particularly when there were stories as far back as September that this was a “marketing” issue:
In a rare downbeat financial accounting, Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores acknowledged that its marketing and media efforts likely worsened a traffic drop-off during the quarter ended July 28.
We had expected the traffic would improve in June and July with the onset of the summer travel season,” said [CEO] Cochran. “Unfortunately, this didn’t materialize, and our restaurants and retail sales performance came in below our expectations.
Note that a “downbeat financial accounting” was “rare” for Cracker Barrel until they went work, but even in that story they pointed to “marketing” rather then going all in on the gay agenda. Of course Don Surber didn’t shy from the actual cause of the Cracker Barrel crack-up
On Friday, USA Today reported, “Cracker Barrel stock plummets after CEO says chain isn’t as relevant, must revitalize.”
It turns out, the rainbow people don’t like rocking chairs. Maybe Cracker Barrel can become relative by offering Bud Light and holding Drag Queen Sleepovers for children.
Of course the rainbow folks don’t like Cracker Barrell, in fact back in the days when Pintastic NE was in Sturbridge my son and I would go for breakfast at Cracker Barrell at least once during the event we would play a game which I called the “woke offense game” where pretended to be woke leftists and too turns pointed to items on the wall and explained why we were offended by them. The last person who couldn’t find something to be offended by lost. Usually we could not reach that point by the time breakfast was over.
This is all a question of people not knowing who their customer base is. Buck Throckmorton has a solution:
the first thing Cracker Barrel needs to do is apologize for insulting its loyal customers by sexualizing the restaurant and for effectively smearing its loyal customers as being “unwelcoming” people.
If it doesn’t, Cracker Barrel might as well go full woke. Perhaps it could hire Dylan Mulvaney away from Bud Light and have him cross-dress in Daisy Dukes while drinking an old-time pop from a rainbow-colored rocking chair. Alissa Heinersheid has experience using for Mr. Mulvaney for such promotions, and I believe she is available. Or maybe Cracker Barrel could run a Gillette-style ad accusing its legacy customers of being loathsome bigots and sexual predators.
June is only a week away and we will find out if Cracker Barrell’s new CEO is interested in serving the shareholders or serving the agenda. She can
Take Buck’s advice, apologize for last year and promise customers their only agenda will be good food served in a country motif. (Plan A)
Say nothing but make it a point not to go near the June “pride” agenda and hope the offended customers notice they decided to give it a miss this year (Plan B)
Decide to go all in on the rainbow agenda let the gay flag & rockers fly and damn the stock price! (Plan C)
Whatever the choice and result is we can be sure that the MSM in general and USA Today in particular will not report on the actually cause of the initial fall of Cracker Barrel, after all, it might discourage others from falling into line.
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