I Don’t Even Like Cracker Barrel – But Come On People

Let’s start with this. I don’t even like Cracker Barrel. I find their décor way over the top, and frankly, the food is too heavy and lacking in flavor. But, seriously, have the people who run the place been in a coma for the last several years? Do they have some sort of corporate death wish?

Cracker Barrel’s entire appeal centers on nostalgia. You are supposed to go there, admire all the farm implements on the wall that make you think of a “simpler time”, eat way too many carbs, and tune out the chaos and anonymity of modern life. Just for a minute, you can forget about the bills and the talking heads on television screaming at each other and imagine you are living in that America so many Americans fear we have lost forever.

So, of course, Cracker Barrel has hired as its new CEO, Julie Felss Masino, who has changed the corporate logo and seems hell bent on neutering the brand and turning the restaurant chain into just another soulless corporate entity. She has directed the “decluttering” of stores, among other things, which boils down to taking away the entire “old-timey” feel of the place.

I don’t know if Ms. Masino is “woke” or just clueless. She came to this job from Taco Bell, and her resume reads like a list of every generic company in the modern American food industry. What I do know is that she is apparently completely out of touch with reality and with her clientele. The center piece of her plan for remaking Cracker Barrel is to destroy its appeal and alienate her customers.

The results are predictable. Cracker Barrel’s stock is tanking. Major investment websites are advising their readers to ditch any shares of the company they own now. Customers online are pushing for a boycott.

But, to be fair, Masino is not alone. Apparently, corporate boardrooms across the country are filled with people who never actually talk to their customers and have no idea what they are thinking.

We all know the story of Dylan Mulvaney and Bud Light. A company that sells cheap, tasteless beer to working-class Americans decided it would be a good idea to hire as a spokesman a guy who puts on what amounts to a modern-day “minstrel show” in which he ridicules women. A guy soaking in a tub pretending to be female and talking about shopping online all day sure did seem like a good way to get the guy coming off shift at the loading dock to buy a six pack, didn’t it?

Bud Light sales crashed and burned after that debacle, and yet the corporate geniuses in America continue to trot out similarly mad ideas. The Minnesota Vikings have now decided to hire male cheerleaders who prance and strut around the field pretending it appears to be women. Yeah, that’s what you want to see after your team sacks the opposing quarterback and forces a fumble.

Target also discovered, much to its chagrin, that it was completely out of touch with its customers. It adopted a very aggressive DEI posture and pushed Target Pride displays nationwide. The stock crashed and burned. Customers organized boycotts. Now their CEO has stepped down, and the company is faced with the mammoth task of trying to win back shoppers and avoid bankruptcy.

Disney is yet another company seemingly run by people who never actually talk to the Americans they want to watch their films. For years now, it has been trotting out movies pushing all sorts of leftist messages. It has ignored or often openly attacked much of mainstream America. A company built on films and television shows about Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, and Pinocchio thought it would make a lot of sense to begin to make “woke” films, telling its viewers they are the problem.

Now, Disney, predictably enough, is scrambling to regain market share and survive. According to Variety, leadership at Walt Disney Studios has been pressing Hollywood creatives in recent months to suggest ideas for movies young men would want to watch. “Young men” is defined as ages 13-28, aka Gen Z.

So, the boys and girls at Disney are so lost that they not only did not foresee that the soulless, loveless remake of Snow White would bomb, but they now have no idea what their customers would actually want to watch. Maybe they ought to ask somebody who doesn’t live in Burbank.

All snarkiness aside, this continuing phenomenon tells us something very troubling. It tells us that there is an entire class of individuals, most of them very well off, who have no idea what average Americans are thinking or how they live their lives. What is obvious to most of us is completely invisible to them.

I mean, come on, guys, I don’t even like Cracker Barrel, but really?