Nope! …or at least, not yet.
After publicity about their “woke” rebranding gained traction among their customer base and the outrage grew, Cracker Barrel (CB) took a huge hit on the stock market, losing ~ $94 million in stock valuation in one day.
President Trump had even chimed in and scolded the popular, country-cookin’-style national restaurant chain.
With the ensuing drastic stock value loss and the nudge from POTUS, CB did an about-face in less than 48 hours. …Or did they? They “apologized” and said they are dropping their plans to change their logo.
But, as Robby Starbuck notes below, the woke problem at CB goes a whole lot deeper than changing their logo back. I was ready to forgive and forget, but after learning the facts outlined below, this once loyal customer of CB will never go to CB again…unless they make major changes in their Board of Directors and the new Directors follow through with dropping all their woke activities.
After the about-face, Trump posted this on Truth Social this past Tuesday evening. QUOTE:
@realDonaldTrump Congratulations “Cracker Barrel” on changing your logo back to what it was. All of your fans very much appreciate it. Good luck into the future. Make lots of money and, most importantly, make your customers happy again! END QUOTE
Perhaps DJT is unaware of the depth of their wokeness and heavy involvement in “trans” and other far-Leftist activities. Or perhaps he is aware and deliberately shone the spotlight on them by entering the social media fray so that others would do some research and put the public pressure on the once beloved eatery.
With the public awakened to CB’s boardroom woke decisions, DJT can now go back to other important things like bringing peace between Russia and Ukraine. I was planning to ignore the whole matter now that CB had apologized. But now I believe it is window dressing and they intend to continue their woke agenda.
You see, as it turns out, huge blocks of CB stock (controlling interest) are held by several mega-size Wall Street investment firms, including BlackRock, Vanguard and others. They long ago have put “their” people on the Board of Directors of CB.
I recall reading in the Epoch Times a couple years ago, how BlackRock CEO Larry Fink had claimed to have had a change of attitude towards ESG (environmental, social, and governance) policies that BlackRock and their ilk had been forcing upon many major American companies. Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies are like equally wicked offspring or children of ESG.
As controllers of major blocks of stock, the investment firms have great influence if not outright control, of many large companies. But that may have been merely a “head fake” by Fink as he may have been trying to fool certain state officials such as North Carolina’s State Treasurer Dale Folwell.
In 2022, Folwell “argued that BlackRock’s focus on ‘environmental, social and corporate governance’ (ESG) under Fink’s leadership runs contrary to its fiduciary duty—in other words, its legal obligation to serve its clients’ best interests.
Those many clients include the North Carolina Retirement System, for which Folwell serves as sole fiduciary. Of the $111.4 billion fund, $14 billion is presently managed by BlackRock, according to the letter.
Many other states joined in the threat to withdraw their states’ funds from BlackRock. Prior to NC joining the battle against BR, one of the cabal’s financial fortresses, Florida had threatened “to pull money from BlackRock—in its case, $2 billion in state-controlled assets.
“The state’s chief financial officer, Jimmy Patronis, explained that ‘using Florida’s cash to fund BlackRock’s social-engineering project isn’t something we signed up for.’ ”
Hence, the head fake from Fink. Added weight is added to our surmise with this article by Kevin Stocklin writing in the Epoch Times, dated February 19, 2025. Some excerpts (All emphases and comments within [brackets] are ours):
QUOTE: Despite recent eulogies for the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) movement and for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, many insiders say the funeral is premature.
“Their demise is inevitable, and it has been accelerated,” David Bahnsen, chief investment officer of the Bahnsen Group and formerly an asset manager at Morgan Stanley, told The Epoch Times. However, “they are not over,” he said.
[We highlighted the statement above because in our view of Bible prophecy, this is yet another a sign of the continuing fall of the present, world-controlling, beast empire known as Mystery Babylon the Great. Watch out, boys and girls! She’s comin’ down. Get out of the way!]
The ESG movement began two decades ago with a U.N. initiative, sketched out in a 2004 position paper called Who Cares Wins, to get private companies in line with the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Those goals included, among other things, climate action and gender and racial equity, and they aligned with corporate trends such as “conscious capitalism” and “stakeholder capitalism,” which redirected companies from merely serving their owners to serving employees, the community, and the environment.
Institutional asset managers gave the ESG movement critical leverage over companies because they collectively own about 80 percent of the shares in S&P 500 companies. Immediately upon its introduction, ESG was endorsed by 23 financial institutions collectively representing more than $6 trillion in assets at the time. …
“ESG is on death watch,” Daniel Cameron, CEO of the 1792 Exchange, an analytics nonprofit, told The Epoch Times. “You saw a lot of iconic brands last year walk away from DEI in particular.”
Companies stepping back from diversity programs include Amazon, Google, Target, Meta, Walmart, Boeing, Molson Coors, Lowe’s, Ford, Toyota, Harley-Davidson, Jack Daniels, Caterpillar, John Deere, McDonald’s, Nissan, Stanley Black & Decker, and Tractor Supply. [Or are they also head-faking?]
Rethinking or Rebranding
Some experts say this trend may be little more than rebranding.
“Boeing, who just got rid of its [DEI] department, noted in the press release that none of them were laid off; they were distributed across the company in other roles,” Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research and a longstanding critic of ESG, told The Epoch Times.
And many companies, including Apple, Cisco, Costco, Microsoft, Delta Airlines, and JPMorgan Chase, have defended their DEI programs and insist they will keep them in some form.
Tim Schwarzenberger, portfolio manager at Inspire Investing, says the notion that “DEI is dead or it’s on life support” is wrong.
“I was talking to a major energy company, talking to their chief diversity officer—they have their livelihood on the line,” Schwarzenberger told The Epoch Times…
Whether it goes by ESG or another name, its underlying principles appear to be alive and well. END QUOTE
So, back to the Cracker Barrel situation. After reading his post and watching the video by Robby Starbuck below, we conclude CB is doing a head fake. As for me, count me among those described by the apostle John who will no longer be their customer.
This whole trend of the socialist-communist-Leftist cabal’s influence to turn the companies they control via the BlackRock-type investment firms into instruments of “woke-dom” and tyranny has led me to recall the prophecy in the book of Revelation describing the fall of Mystery Babylon.
Recently, the same biblical sentiment has become a maxim and modern proverb that if companies “go woke, you go broke!” …but here is how the apostle John worded it.
Revelation 18:11 And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her [Mystery Babylon, as she is being destroyed]; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more.
Now, here is a link to the post and here is the link to the 15 minute video by Robby Starbuck on X @robbystarbuck. QUOTE:
Cracker Barrel has been one of the most loved brands in America for decades… That changed this week with a logo redesign that infuriated the public but… the problem goes MUCH deeper than a logo.
@CrackerBarrel has gone fully woke and now it’s time to expose everything. Here’s the highlights you need to know:
• Cracker Barrel has funded "all ages" Pride events for many years like Nashville Pride and Third River City Pride.
• Cracker Barrel worked with the far left HRC [not Hillary; Robby tells you in the video below] organization and reportedly sponsored HRC events for 10 years. They even brought an HRC representative to their Tennessee HQ to do a pronoun and transgenderism training. We’ve included photos of this in the video. As a reminder, the HRC supports child sex changes and men in women’s bathrooms. They work to normalize/legalize both things and they work to force transgenderism in the workplace.
• Cracker Barrel worked with a group called Conexión Américas as part of their DEI efforts. This group helps illegal immigrants, providing them lawyers and the executive director opposes President Trump’s deportations.
• Cracker Barrel sponsored the Out & Equal LGBTQ Workplace Advocate Conference and presented a workshop on how Cracker Barrel has made progress supporting LGBTQ+ causes. This group works to push sexual topics and pronouns into the workplace.
• Cracker Barrel was awarded Out & Equal’s 2018 top LGBT ERG group award and they won the Nashville LGBT Chamber of Commerce "Corporate Diversity" award.
• CB created a special "diverse" suppliers program focused on increasing "diversity" among suppliers. To most people this just reads as: less white people.
• Had Coming out day pamphlets passed out at their TN headquarters as well as pamphlets about supporting "LGBTQ YOUTH" and creating "Safe Zones" at work, free from "heterosexist or cwordgendered comments and actions" (X will downrank my post if I spell that word out). [He is referring to the fake and “woke” word “cisgendered” which simply means a normal heterosexual.]
If you said anything activists would describe as "heterosexist" then you were told that you’d be "educated" by their LGBT office group.
• CB has had multiple DEI focused employees and had CB employees attend DEI roundtables.
• CB had pride flags at their corporate office.
• CB promoted the Stonewall riot to employees and on their website despite the fact that the Stonewall Inn was reportedly owned by the mafia, rife with drug dealing and also the site of teen "prostitution" for older men.
• Had a Cracker Barrel employee on the HRC’s business advisory council.
• Has ERG groups in the office that are divided by race and sexual preferences.
• A total commitment to DEI policies.
• CB has had MANY activist employees driving this far left policy agenda, including a head of training + management, top execs and a board of directors member who owns a DEI consulting firm.
To put it mildly, Cracker Barrel has forgotten who their core customers are. It’s time for us to remind them. They depend on YOU to keep their business afloat so now YOU have to ask yourself:
Do you want to fund people or companies that hate your values? It’s time to remind them who their customers are.
If you think their values don’t align with yours and you’re a customer who wants to speak out, you can write to them here: https://guestrelations.crackerbarrel.com/s/contactsupport
Reporters can also call their reporter hotline at: 615-235-4135 or email them: media.relations@crackerbarrel.com
Remember to ALWAYS BE KIND. Many in customer service agree with you. Being rude hurts our cause! I give everyone permission to use my video and what we found to make your own content. You can rip this, clip this, make your own content, etc.
You can even monetize my video. Just get this information to everyone you know. We have to take our power back as consumers. Every company needs to get the message that THIS ENDS NOW. If you support our movement then subscribe to my @X page for $5 a month or any amount at http://RobbyStarbuck.com/DEI Become a whistleblower against a woke company at: http://robbystarbuck.com/DEI END QUOTE
~END~
