Cracker Barrel (“CB”) recently announced with great pride (pun intended) that they have become woke and are implementing customer-facing DEI throughout their restaurant chain, a project that has been in the works for about a year. Proving once more that idealistic leftists are oblivious to anything remotely involving sanity. 

The Left never seems to learn. Their DEI agenda is so important that they willingly crater their own businesses. Even Left-leaning news channels and their famous anchors have learned that they are not immune to this effect. I have doubts about the success of this new direction, for a couple of reasons.

1) Woke people who pretend to live healthy lives don't eat there anyway -- you know, because of the biscuits, gravy, fried chicken, calories, fat, etc., where just one glass of sweet tea likely has more calories than they consume in a day. Somehow CB thinks taking the "country" out of Cracker Barrel, removing the old white dude and his barrel from the logo, and making the decor look like a latte cafe will entice them in. (I have a bridge to sell you).

2) Their loyal fans, including me, have no interest in overall DEI wokeness when it is an in-your-face action. Hire whoever you wish, as I don’t care about the proclivities of my server or the cook, so no problem there. But I do care about the thinking of leaders who believe this is a good direction to pursue as a business. I admit I limit my meals there to no more than one per quarter just because I get three days’ worth of calories in one very delicious meal.

CB will lose a big part of their base while not recouping that volume with new customers from the woke mob. That is not a good thing. After all, what self-respecting leftist would eat at a “Cracker” anything?

A mere side glance on CB’s part would show them what happened to Bud Light. And to Target -- who still hasn’t recovered from their LGBTQ+ foray into trans-restrooms and selling little girls bathing suits with ‘pouches’ so moms can cross-dress their five-year-old sons. Or Jaguar, with its recent bizarre un-commercial. Or Nike, Harry’s Razors, and Victoria’s Secret (I’ve been looking for a place to buy something sexy for my wispy trans [m2f] girlfriend), just to name a few.

If you notice, the reason for failure is that historically these companies primarily or significantly cater to customers who hold normal family values and the new policies offend those values (Target, Cracker Barrel, Harry’s), or market to men who are not attracted in any major way to DEI wokeness (Bud Lite, NFL).

Going woke turns off the very loyal audience following that is their forte. But it is a non-additive action, in that it doesn’t add more customers than it loses. An option such as adding Lo-Cal meal choices to the menu would likely increase traffic, for example. Instead, actions like CB’s turn off those core clients who will stop buying. Only a Harvard, Yale, or Sarah Lawrence graduate with a BA in Marketing would think this a good thing to do. 

The CEO, Julie Feiss Masino, who holds a BA in Marketing from Miami (Ohio) and who came to CB from Taco Bell is the mastermind of this conversion that caused a stock drop of 18% since last Friday. Guess she never met Alissa Heinerscheid of Bud Light fame?

Here is a neat video that sums it up well. The first 1:45 is a cute parody, but the rest provides some factual framing.

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PoX3M8trUgg" title="Cracker Barrel Goes WOKE: Destroys Classic Logo, Redesigns Restaurant, Loyal Customers RAGE: Boycott" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

When you think the Left has completely gone off the rails, they always seem to come back with a more outrageous “Here, hold my beer.” In this case, Julie must have been drinking a Bud Light.

Lewis Dovland is a passionate observer of America’s future direction with a focus on exposing the “Big Picture” end goals of the progressive Marxist movement and administrative state and how we can prevail. Email at Lewis.Dovland@gmail.com

Image: Mike Mozart