Reflections From a Murky Pond

Cracker Barrel’s current CEO, Julie Felss Masino, has apparently screwed the pooch again. :Roll: The vegan sausage folly taught her nothing, and the failure that was her “modernized” redesign of the iconic restaurants also seemed to teach her nothing. Now she’s decided to minimalize Cracker Barrel’s logo, removing everything about it that branded the chain.

Crackers Got Salty About That Logo

And, as you can see above, Americans have almost immediately responded – cruelly, sarcastically, and extremely harshly. They’ve decided that Cracker Barrel is now a Leftwing, Democrat establishment. Essentially, relegating the 55 year-old restaurant chain to locus non grati status.

And, despite Felss Masino’s people trying to play this all off as just griping from a “vocal minority,” this latest affront to their customers has already cost Cracker Barrel a barrel of money. In just 48 hours, shares of Cracker Barrel (CBRL) fell $4.22 (7.2%) to $54.80 during Thursday’s trading, shedding $94 million in market value. The stock had dipped to a low of $50.27 earlier in the day, representing a loss of almost $200 billion in its capitalization. And yes, that’s orders of magnitude worse than the $1.4+ billion in sales that Dylan Mulvaney cost AB InBev.

For the record, I didn’t care about the addition of vegan sausage to Cracker Barrel’s menu; I despised the modern decor – might as well be Bob Evans; and don’t really care about the new logo, which matches current trends in logo design. But, here’s the thing: I don’t need to agree with all the details of the outrage. I just need to understand that it’s real and that it has the power to fuck Cracker Barrel.

And, much more importantly, Cracker Barrel’s current CEO, Julie Felss Masino, needs to understand that and should have already understood it. Angering and alienating your existing customers, presumably in the hope of attracting completely different ones, is a non-success strategy almost every single time.

Honestly, Cracker Barrel’s BoD needs to fire Felss Masino… and possibly nail her in a barrel and send her over some waterfall. 😉

And, the very, very, very first thing either the BoD or the CEO needs to do is hire – and I don’t care how much she costs – Sydney Sweeney to shill for Cracker Barrel. 😆 Honestly, there’s not much else they can do if they want to turn things around in the next couple of quarters.

Tags: America | Americana | Business | Cracker Barrel | Failure | Felss Masino | Outrage | Society | Stupidity

This entry was posted on Friday, August 22nd, 2025 at 11:38 am and is filed under Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

That, sadly, describes both a large number of games when they’re 1st brought to market these days and a lot people who gladly fork over a great deal of money to be “the first” to play still unfinished and often broken content.

Ah well, from a business perspective, gaming design is at least as important as game design. 😉

Tags: Business | Gaming | Humor | Society | Technology

This entry was posted on Friday, September 30th, 2022 at 7:11 am and is filed under Humor, Society, Technology. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Some Beautiful Consolation Prizes

Scifi/Fantasy conventions are, if not the most, then one of the most hard-hit of “industries” by the pandemic has been conventions. They essentially went out of existence in 2020 and many of them will take years to recover … if they recover and resume at all.

So, to add to the effects of the Concellation 2021 FB group – a group as ragtag, chaotic, and eclectic as any Con, Gods bless them – here’s a grouping of cosplay babes for our mutual enjoyment.

Tags: America | Babes | Beauty | Business | Conventions | Coronavirus | Cosplay | Cosplay Babes | COVID-19 | Economy | Lock-Downs | Pandemic | Society

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 11th, 2021 at 6:11 am and is filed under Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Oh Yeah! Cue the Schadenfreude! The NFL – and the NBA and MLB – got “Woke” and are flailing about now, with plummeting ratings and merchandise sales, as America tunes them out for siding with the Blacks who are protesting and rioting against our nation.

The NFL’s ratings have been in steady decline since they failed to properly respond to Kaepernick’s antics in 2016, letting the rot spread throughout the Blacks that they hired. And it’s just getting worse for them as they double-down on their “Wokeness.”

Ah well, stupid should be painful, and sometimes that pain has to be lethal so that others can learn from it. And the NFL’s – and the other pro-sports leagues = are being mortally stupid. When, due to COVID-19 restrictions, your industry is looking at over $5 billion in lost revenues – a 38% hit to the league’s total revenue – the last thing you should want to do is further anger and alienate your customers by siding with the Blacks against America.

Hehe – as I said, cue the Schadenfreude. I find the prospect of a life without pro sports to be pleasant, especially since it would largely only harm the sorts that brought about their demise.

Tags: America | Blacks | Blacktivists | Business | Kaepernick | Kneelers | NFL | Society | Sports | Stupidity | Woke

This entry was posted on Monday, September 21st, 2020 at 9:03 am and is filed under Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Meetings, normally via Skype or Zoom, are the one bit of corporate interpersonal interaction left for many in these ongoing months of the COVID-19 pandemic panic. They’re important! So, remember to change out of your new-normal businesswear and into your approved meeting attire. 😆

Tags: America | Business | Coronavirus | Corporations | COVID-19 | Employers | Employment | Fashion | Future Shock | Humor | Meetings | Sarcasm | Social Distancing | Society | Telecommuting | Work | Workplace

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 5th, 2020 at 11:15 am and is filed under Humor, Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.