Company Man wonders 'Cracker Barrel - The Rise and Fall?' A tale of the Retail Apocalypse and consumer pressure

I promised another tale of the Retail Apocalypse, so watch as Company Man wonders Cracker Barrel - The Rise and Fall?

The national chain of restaurants has been having trouble over the past few years. This video explores what has been happening with Cracker Barrel.

Company Man Mike held off on compiling one of his trademark lists until the end. Here it is.


 Looks like things were going great for Cracker Barrel until the pandemic, which exposed the weaknesses in its business model, reliance on older customers. That doomed Stein Mart, whose customers "weren't going out or working because they are the ones most vulnerable to the pandemic." The same turned out to be true for Cracker Barrel. Trying to attract younger patrons didn't work well, either. They liked the nostalgia factor as well.

This is the most political I've seen Company Man get in his videos, but I don't think he went far enough. Watch CNN report Cracker Barrel quietly removes DEI, Pride pages from its website after logo upheaval.

After backing away from a controversial logo rebrand loudly opposed by many right-wing influencers, Cracker Barrel also quietly made changes to its website this week. The Tennessee-based roadside restaurant chain deleted a dedicated “Pride page” and scrubbed references to employee resource groups, including its LGBTQ+ and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging groups, from another part of its website.

“On behalf of Cracker Barrel’s LGBTQ+ Alliance & DEIB Team, we want to celebrate YOU for being YOU. It is our greatest Mission to ensure that Pleasing People means ‘all people,’” Cracker Barrel’s now-deleted Pride page read, according to a CNN review of the Wayback Machine.

CNN business and tech writer Claire Duffy reports.

That's depressing. As I wrote in 'Star Trek: Lower Decks' and 'Dune: Part Two' win Hugo Awards, "The Hugo Awards successfully fought off the Rabid Puppies, but they have infected the rest of society. File that under winning the battle, but (so far) losing the war. Sigh." Cracker Barrel knuckling under to their pressure shows how far that infection has gone.

Time for some comic relief from Jimmy Kimmel, who returned from vacation this week. He mentioned the controversy in last night's monologue, Trump Stops ALL the Wars, MAGA Mouth-Breathers Mad About Cracker Barrel & Ted Cruz Shows Off Accent.

The NFL season kicked off tonight between the Dallas Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles, Donald Trump went after Rosie O’Donnell and threatened to take away her American citizenship, the MAGA mouth-breathers were all up in arms about Cracker Barrel changing their logo, Kim Jong Un reportedly brought his own personal toilet with him on his trip to Beijing, Trump is constantly blabbing about all of the wars he stopped, Ted Cruz popped on Newsmax yesterday to show off his authentic and not-at-all unconvincing accent, the surgeon general of Florida announced that they are doing away with vaccine mandates, and even though Robert F Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Oz claim to be against big pharma, they never miss an opportunity to cash in.

Welcome back, Jimmy, your fans, including me, missed you.

That's a wrap. Stay tuned to see if I write this year's version of Star Trek vs. Star Wars at the 2024 Emmy Awards for Star Trek Day so I can cover Andor's Creative Arts Emmy nominations or post the video from Weathered on PBS Terra that I was originally planning on posting today.