The Glenn Beck Program - Ep 275 | Cracker Barrel CEO Finally Addresses ‘Woke’ Rebrand Controversy | The Glenn Beck Podcast    

Episode Date: November 22, 2025

“I feel like I’ve been fired by America,” says Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Masino in a vulnerable tell-all that goes behind the scenes into the explosive Cracker Barrel rebrand, which Glenn describes as “stupid from start to finish.” In August 2025, Cracker Barrel unveiled a minimal new logo with modern fonts, cozy colors ... but no nice old man and no BARREL for him to lean on. But it wasn’t just the logo; the restaurant chain was also getting a “modern” remodel. In short: We hated it. Social media erupted with brutal reviews, calling it “minimalist,” “soulless,” and “downright ugly.” Cracker Barrel stock tanked, its attempt to tamp down the pushback backfired, and it looked like this was the company's “Bud Light moment.” But then, Cracker Barrel surprised us. Its leaders listened. Within weeks, they scrapped the new logo, reinstated the original, and hit pause on every remodel. “COVID even made Cracker Barrel start drinking,” says Doug Hisel, senior vice president of store operations, as he takes Glenn behind the scenes as to what REALLY led to moment that brought Cracker Barrel to its knees. In Julie’s first interview since her time on “Good Morning America,” when she said the response to the new logo “was overwhelmingly positive,” she is here to say to America: “I’m sorry ... I regret it.” Now the question is: Will America forgive her?         GLENN’S SPONSORS: Relief Factor: If you’re living with aches and pains, see how Relief Factor, a daily drug-free supplement, could help you feel better and live better. Try the three-week QuickStart for just $19.95 by visiting https://ReliefFactor.com.            Audien Hearing: The Atom X hearing aid from Audien is a beautifully designed, ready-to-go device made by audiologists who actually listened to what people want — less clutter, less confusion, less fiddling around. Visit https://AudienHearing.com and take control of your hearing today.       American Financing: American Financing can show you how to put your hard-earned equity to work and get you out of debt. Dial 800-906-2440, or visit https://www.americanfinancing.net.      PreBorn: Together, we can end the tragedy of abortion, one mother and baby at a time. To donate securely, dial #250 and say the keyword BABY, or visit https://preborn.com/glenn.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And now, a Blaze Media podcast. Hello, America. You know we've been fighting every single day. We push back against the lies, the censorship, the nonsense of the mainstream media that they're trying to feed you. We work tirelessly to bring you the unfiltered truth because you deserve it. But to keep this fight going, we need you. Right now, would you take a moment and rate and review the Glenn Beck podcast?

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It was summer of 2025 when Cracker Barrel announced that they were going to go do something different and they were going to have a makeover. New logo. No nice old man, no Cracker Barrel, just Cracker Barrel. Any other time in American history might not have been a big deal. But it became a big deal and it was one of the biggest, dumbest moves, honestly, that I've, I've seen in my life of a corporation because people felt like something that they held on to and cherished and loved was under attack. Was that the intent, who are the people that made the decision, what have they done to reverse the decision? And quite honestly, I heard from the guy who picked me up at the airport, I heard from one

of the guys who was handling the baggage at the airport, he said, what are you here for? I said, I'm going to meet with the head of Cracker Barrow. And he said, give her hell. The driver said, I don't know what they were thinking, but tell him we didn't like it. What you're going to hear in the podcast today is my conversation with two people, the CEO and the senior vice president. Senior Vice President was brought in to fix the problems. There are parts of it that are very uncomfortable. Parts of it are, honestly, the usual blah, blah, blah, PR stuff that you get. Well rehearsed, quite honestly, because the last time the CEO was on television,

she was on ABC, Good Morning America. And it did not go well. This is her first television interview since. I don't know if they thought I would go easy on them, but I didn't. But I'm anxious to hear your thoughts, especially if you're watching and not just listening, because there is one moment that I think changed everything, at least for me. See if you see it or sense it. We have on today's podcast, the senior vice president of Cracker Barrel Store Operations,

Doug Hizel and the CEO Julie Messina. As we came out of COVID, trying to hire 50,000 people back. We got a lot of our employees original back, but we did, we lost a lot of very long tenured employees. A lot of them a little bit older and scared to come back into the environment. And so there's a lot of institutional knowledge.

It hurts. It really hurt. And in 22, as we started opening back up, We had that new menu that we had. So we lost all the people. We put a ton of training into that new menu. Now we're coming back, trying to open up. We're trying to get guests any way we can get them.

Like, it is, we had patio dining. We were testing a rock garden dining. Like, they were going to sit out in the landscape. And I always say that COVID even made cracker barrels start drinking alcohol. Because that's how it happened. Like, it was out of COVID that it was like, How are we figuring out how to drive top line sales and try to get, you know, a guest stand? And is it, is this something that we could potentially do?

Okay, so that is a good example of you don't know any of the story. Yeah. You think, crack or barrels never served alcohol before. Why are you shoving alcohol? That's a cultural. Yeah. And so it's easy to think you're selling people alcohol now. What other values are you?

You know what I mean? That's fair. And I think it's at least that one, at least. understandable yeah and so now that you understand the story yeah exactly and so and you know as we got into to 23 I came out of my ops administration role and came into operations and I was leading field operations and best way for me to describe it is we were throwing Velcro balls at a wall to see what would stick it was like how can we get people in and not just guests staff like it was

yeah I can tell you many stories of us sending swel team's into areas to just find people to work. We couldn't open the doors because we only had four or five employees. It takes a lot of people to run it for rural. Like, I mean, you were how many do you think we're here right now? How many people do you think work? And this is not, this is normal Saturday. We didn't add anybody. I can't tell because they don't know, but 50? 52. 52. 52 on a set. There's a lot on the line. Yeah. And each store has about, average is about 100 employees, our volume stores like this and the legacy market's 130 to 150. That's total total. Total. And 50 at a total.

time. Yeah, yeah. And so it was hard. I mean, we were we were struggling to get staff. We were struggling to get guests in. We were struggling with the new menu. And so when Julie came in, she never said it to me, but if I was her, she was probably looking at us like, wow, like we are a bit in shambles. And we were, I mean, we were, like I said, we were throwing Velcro balls at all. We put menu items on that we thought would drive a new guest. We added complexity. We didn't start with the kitchen and let's make the heart of the house, the kitchen that can deliver the menu. We started with the menu in 2019. And so I think I've mentioned you on the line. It's a it's a mirrored steam line. Yeah, yeah. And it's basically the

kitchen is cut in half and you can operate the menu off of that one steam line. And the menu that we had in 19, it needed friar stations. And it needed a whole different setup. And unfortunately, we went after the menu first and not the kitchen, which impacted our employee experience. Yeah. So it was tough. So food quality, I would say service too. Some of our service opportunities has been just trying to get back up. The Janus of the world had been here 35 years.

We lost a lot of tenure, especially on our second shift. We've got some younger servers that are coming on, never served before. And so we had to revitalize our training program. And just a lot of new things that we, frankly, with a 50, your brand had never dealt with before. And we lost sight. I mean, we were, we were focused on going to take care of something instead of the base foundation. And frankly, we built a house on sand. The average person is finding it difficult to pay expenses every month. And in most cases, there's nothing left over to cover any extras. You feel like that? Most are not getting a big

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much you can save every month. Call American financing 800-906 2440. That's 800-906-2440. Americanfinancing.net. So when you came in, where was the company? That's a problem with eating and talking. I know. Sorry. No. Don't apologize. We're happy you're here. Look, the company had not been performing. At that point in time, probably, I don't know five or six years of TSR decline traffic had been down for TSR. Oh sorry total shareholder return okay sorry that's all right that's right that's right turn my business head off turn my turn my my guest head back on so our shareholders weren't happy we didn't have as many guests as we had been this is a business of I mean you can see right now

I'm looking around it like it's a lot of people like it's a lot of people like it's a lot of people Right. We have a low check in the industry. Our average check is $15. You look at even our competitors, like a Denny's or like an IHob, somebody like that, $18. Look at people like Chili's and Longhorn and Texas Roadhouse, $27. So for us to maintain that value, we need a lot of throughput. So did we count on a lot of people at a lower check? We're about abundance. Like, look at your plate. Look at my plate. Our guests tell us abundance at a fair price. That's what you. what they want. So we had been losing guests, as Doug described, since probably what, 2018. 18, 1718 is where the client started. So I was tasked with how do we, how do we create change in that? How do we get more people in? The people who love us, this is always about like, how do we keep our core guests and make them happy, delight them, and just get more people to love Cracker Barrel the way they do. So started in 2017, 2018, 2018. 1718, it was menu change.

What was the thought at that time, what were you thinking should be done at that time? You just didn't know what was causing it? Yeah, well, one, I was in operations admin, so I wasn't close to the strategy or culinary piece. So I'm kind of receiving the information, but frankly, it was about how do we create new menu offerings that will attract a new guest? That was everything about 2017-18 and 17-18 was that, in particular, dinner day part. So breakfast, we are very strong. Yeah, yeah. At dinner, we've got the competition expands.

And we're trying to figure out, you know, what are those things they're going to bring the guests in? And Southern Fried Chicken was, it was kind of the anchor. That's where we thought we could potentially see an impact. Don't think we realize the complexity of put on the kitchen. Yeah, yeah. And then like literally right after we rolled it going to COVID. And think about how many more choices guests have today, right? I mean, even just from 2018 to today, brands that weren't around, you know, I say it all the time when you think about it, like Cracker Burles found it in 1969.

Like, there weren't a lot of brands at that morning time. There wasn't a lot of competition. McDonald's wasn't even big. Talk about, like, those things weren't around. And now look today, you drive down this road, you drive that way, like every brand. Every competitor is here. But you don't. I don't know.

When you said, you know, some of your competitors, Denny's, that doesn't seem right to me. Denny seems like an old brand. You know what I mean? Cracker Barrel has not, I don't know why. To me, it doesn't seem like an old brand. It seems like a brand you know, but it doesn't seem old and dusty. And I think, I think that's what, well, you tell me. The industry classifies us with that.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. But I don't think people do, but the industry money. When did you hire the consultants to come in? Well, I think you all have had consultants in over the years, but... The consultants. So when I got here, part of what I was tasked with was changing the trajectory, right? And so we really dug in first on where were our opportunities? What could we do better?

food and experience was one that raised to the top. We were not winning in that space. But there were other things that we needed to do as well. And that's when we brought in some consultants who helped us dig into our data, look at competitive data, look at people who used to come to us who don't come to us anymore, people who come to us, like, what's the magic there? How do we do more of that? And people who've never even thought to come to Cargarboro.

What do they think about at Cargarville? So really looking at all of those things to really say, how do we improve our food and experience? Because Doug is right, one of the first things that we really tackled, and that was one of our biggest problems is we were losing people at dinner. And dinner is an important day part for us because, believe it or not, we actually, your check is a little bit higher at dinner. Yeah, sure it is.

And so that's important when we don't have that traffic. Yeah, yeah, changes everything. Yeah. So we really started there. But we actually started at the other end of it, which was early dine. And so we put early dine specials out for our desk. because we'd heard like that was important to them. So $8.99, come in, you get meatloaf, home fried, home fried chicken, all of that stuff.

Really just listening and making sure that we had the things that people wanted so that they would choose us. I'm sorry. Let's just get it. Let's just get this out. Okay. What happened? The choices they were made. I said on day one of this, I remember,

when they rolled out New Coke. And I thought that was the dumbest marketing move, the dumbest thing I've ever seen. We're taking the original formula and ditching it, and let's start over with a brand that people love. The day this broke, I said on the air, welcome to New Coke. That's what this is.

And it was, no fancy. Stupid. just stupid from start to finish. Can you walk me through how that happened? Yeah, sure. Look, our guests have a right to be upset. I feel it in you when you're saying that. They have a right to be upset.

We messed up. The intent was not ideological. It was not to put the old version of Cracker Barrel in a box. That was not the intent whatsoever. The logo was one piece of a system. The old timer was never going anywhere. That's why actually when we said, okay, okay, we hear you. Like, it's because he was never going anywhere.

When you walk out of here, there's a big sign over there by the side of the freeway. Yeah, yeah. Huge. Bigger than this booth, right? We were never taking those down. That's so expensive. And they're beautiful. People love them.

It's a beacon to the weary traveler from the interstate. The day we rolled that, we brought Uncle Herschel's menu item back to the menu, which our guests had been asked before for like 10 years. It was like, it was so unfortunate that we, it, but I get it, like, what we didn't see in the data. Again, it was one piece of what we were doing, but what we didn't see in the data was that the way people see themselves in the logo. So when the old timer and when the barrel were gone, it was like we had taken them out of it and that we weren't valuing what they valued. And we've heard that loud and clear since we did that.

And I'm sorry. Like, I really regret that. That was not the intention. We were trying to make it, think about your phone. The logo has to be this big to fit on there. We were trying to simplify it because honestly, we got a guy, we got a barrel, we got a lot of stuff going on. I have to tell you, do I have the logo? I think I have the logos.

Yeah, yeah. To me, I'm not upset. I don't care. Okay? I mean, that is a very busy logo. This is a more modern logo. I don't think it was about the logos. It wasn't.

No, it wasn't. What was, what was America saying to you? Yeah, they were saying, our values, our traditions, that's what Cracker Girl represents to us. The story, look around, the story of America is on the walls. Yes. And they thought when we did that, that we were saying that we didn't care about that. And that's not, that was not the intent. And we are so, I'm so sorry for the misunderstanding.

I regret it. I don't want people to be mad at us. My job is to make people love Cracker Barrel, not be mad at Cracker Barrel. We're all getting older. I don't know about you, but I felt the aches and pains that come along with that kind of thing. I even used to suffer from horrible pains in my hands. I mean, to the point where I couldn't write anymore, I couldn't hold anything in my hand, I couldn't paint anymore.

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of clinics provides free ultrasounds, maternity care, diaper, baby clothing, counseling, and so much more, meeting women with compassion when they need it most. This holiday season, don't let another life be lost? Let the hope for hurting moms and risk at-risk babies. Just envelop you. Just say yes to life. Today, donate. Pound 250. Say the keyword baby. That's pound 250 keyword baby or go to preborn.com slash glen. Preborn.com slash Glenn. Look, Air Canada, does a sold mondial? Super. A new offer for the assort. Station Thermal, Volcan. Parlant of Volcan. You've seen the price for the Japan? Hmm, eparg and sushi. Wow. The solds

They're good for Mayork, also. We could go to the beach and make a a run-doney. Or it would say a long march on the border of the sea-sile.

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agent of voyage. The conditions can't apply. What was the what was, A, the thinking of the remodeling and was it

ever intended to get rid of all of this? Because it seemed very sterile in compare to this. I'm glad to yes. I think a lot of people think that Doug and me and other people sit around are like, let's remodel Cracker Barrel.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The notion for some of that truly came out of a lot of the work that we were doing on how do we improve food and experience. When we were talking to our guests, they said stores could be a little bit more comfortable. They're real dark. I can't read the menu. Seats are real hard.

Tell him your Memphis store. You'll love this, but maybe not. I don't know. We were in store. I had maybe been here a hot minute. Two or three months. Yeah, two or three months. And we were out in Memphis, one of our older stores.

And we were talking to the team and we were working. And I literally saw this man walk in with a stadium cushion. No, I've only been here a couple months. I'm like, what is it going? In my mind, I'm going, it happens all the time. I've seen them all over the country here in stadium cousins. I finally stopped in my tracks. I'm watching this man with a stadium cushion.

And I'm like, I got to talk to him. So I waited until he got his food. And, of course, interrupted it while he was eating. But I said, sir, I've just got to understand. Did you just have surgery? Yeah, are you? Yeah, right. And he said, I love your food.

I love it here. But your chairs are so uncomfortable. And he's like, oh, yeah, this has to all the time. It's all over the country. And I'm like, wait, what? This happens all the time and like we haven't done anything about it. Literally, Glenn, I was having breakfast with my nephew and his girlfriend, not four weeks ago, on Charlotte Pike that way, in a store.

And you're sitting in one of the window seats. And gosh, darn, it didn't happen to get a guy gets out of his pickup truck, nine o'clock on a Saturday morning with a stadium cushion and starts walking in. I'm like, look at my husband. I'm like, what's happening? And that's really, really. where it all started is how do we make the stores more comfortable? We also heard from our guests that that's why they weren't coming as much for dinner because they want to sit in something like this.

You are sitting in the second booth ever in a cracker home. Oh, you're kidding me. It's the second one. And the reason this corner is kind of like this is because the first one is over there in the corner. And it was a square, it was a square table. And we have a group that comes in for a Bible study three times a week. And they couldn't get around the corner. They call themselves the corner crew now because they helped us learn that we needed to do this. So the remodels have been a test on learn project. How do we get the right balance of investment, of comfort, of nostalgia, of the tradition that everybody knows and loves here, but in a way that's easy for our teams to take care of?

It's also heard to clean some of these things. Oh, I bet. So how do we make sure that we do all of those things while keeping the stories and the traditions and the things that people love about Crockerbrot. And the feeling, for me, it's like the feeling when you come in and the fire's going. Yeah. You know, so that's really balancing act.

This is very different than the drawings or the... Yes. And so there were only four of those. There were only four of those. And so, and they were, again, we've got all different levels of kind of testing and learning that we were doing. And that was out there.

Are these corporately owned or are these franchises? We own. We own them all. We own them all. The thing I thought people were going to not like about that is that store has so many booths. Like we actually took out because people have been loving the soft seating in the rentals that we've been doing. And so that has, I mean, usually Cracker Burrell is a sea of tables. Like when you look around, we've got a lot of tables and chairs. And that one is all

boost. And I thought, they're going to kill me for the booths. It's too many booths. It's too many booths. And it wasn't that. It was the black and white and the decor. So that's why when people got upset about it, we were like, oh gosh, that's not the intention. We can revert them. Like, no problem. Change the logo, painted them around. Like, we're in the process. There's a couple still because of Florida permitting that aren't fully turned back yet, but we're getting there. There are only four. Some people think losing their hearing just means missing a few words here and there. But it's more than that.

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Audion, bringing back the sounds, the voices, and the connections that make life worth hearing. Don't wait. Go to Audionhearing.com and take control of your hearing today. Audionhearing.com. In some ways, I'm going to get so much heat for saying this. In some ways, I think it was unfair. Because I don't, doing my research, I don't. think it was intentional. I think it was, it wasn't political. It was just a lack of understanding

of the brand and the time in which we live. You know, we, I can take it from Nike, but Budweiser, any of these, any of these brands that said they were like me, I don't care how you vote. I don't care. But don't slap me across the face. And I think it felt like that to a lot of people, that you were just like, we don't care about your values. We want new customers. This is who we are. And this is unfair to you.

There was that one picture that was going around of the rainbow seats. That wasn't you. That wasn't part of this new deal. But was there DEI and all that? crap going on in the company? This was truly about, you know, we, as you look around, we embroidered that logo on so many things, and shirts, and it was truly about making it more simple as part of a system. No, but I mean, was DEI, was, was the, had the company embraced DEI as a culture?

Look, we, the Cracker Barrel has always been about welcoming everybody in. I think before I was here, we had different policies. We're here to take care of people. We're here to make sure everybody can work here, can be welcome here. Right. But there's a difference between, I think every American wants that. There's a difference between that and promoting, you know, when a brand, I don't even know which one did, it's probably Nike, all of a sudden makes it a point of saying boys can be girls and they should be in the girls locker room.

I don't need that from my brand. I don't want that from my brand. You as individuals can make whatever choice you want, but don't preach to me from a corporate place. Don't preach to me on that. Just leave me alone. I'm here to buy your shoes. I'm here to eat your meal.

Can we just not have that thrown in our face? What I'm asking, Was that part of any of the strategy that this was becoming, we have to make political statements? No, it's pancakes. Not even one down. Yeah, we're not trying to make political statements. Your point earlier about you think it potentially unfair. I think the logo was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I think from 2018 forward, we had frustrated him so many times with menu items we had deleted. horrible service, bad food. We couldn't execute food out of the kitchen. We're holding guests for 50 minutes to an hour when they want to get out in 45. Like that, and they were telling us, our guests, they keep coming back and keep coming back and keep coming back. And every time they come back, it's like, come on, guys, we're going to give you another shot, get the food right, get the service right.

And we did not see that as our North Star. We had, I call them blinking lights. We had all these blinking lights happening, forgetting about, you know what, our guests coming in to eat and and and we've got to provide that experience and then it becomes a experiential brand where unfortunately it was it became transactional because the guests they couldn't take time to even understand what's happening on the walls because they're frustrated we can't get food out or get it right or the quality um our focus right now is food and experience right i mean we we have to it it sounds so simple but it's it's why you're here you're it does it all the time

You're here because you're hungry. Maybe you need a gift on your way in and out, but you're because you're hungry. But we've got to make sure that we're doing that. I know your, I don't even know if it's your mission statement. It's part of your mission statement. That whole. Pleasing people. Plack.

Yeah, that whole thing that has all the different. And part of it was to be a family. That's why the fireplace here. That's why the checkered bore is there. Because it's meant to be a warm. safe home away from home home. It's like it's like

Uncle Ted moves in and he's now taking care of grandma but he's getting rid of all of the doilies that have been on grandma's table and you're like that's not grandma. Even if grandma was saying I don't care about the doilies that's grandma's house and you were messing with grandma's house

and we're sorry that that's what people feel that was not the intent. He's not the And it hurts me because I don't want people to be mad at Cracker Barrel. Our job is to make people love Cracker Barrel. The way that our guests do, right? And so even trying to invite new people in, it was always about how do we show them the magic that is Cracker Barrel, the stories of America, the stories of our guests, the stories

of the people like Janice and Doug who've spent their lives making it great here. That's what we want everybody to love. We missed the mark. We missed the mark. You were on Good Morning America. That wasn't fun. And this is your first interview since then. I thought we weren't having an interview.

You told me we were talking. Didn't you tell me? Discussion. Just a discussion. I was talking about to talk about to talk about. I'm sure this is not your first discussion since then. Would you learn from that? Anything?

From Good Morning America? From that interview and the response on that interview. that so many things have gotten in our way of, and we've lost focus, focus on the things that matter, which is what we're talking about, food, taking care of people, telling the stories, letting people see themselves in this brand. You know, you asked me earlier about a place that I've worked, and the thing that struck me about Cracker Barrel and that continues to strike me about Cracker Barrel, this is a humble brand, humble beginnings here in the center of this great country.

Other brands that you go into, you sit down, and when you look around and you see things on the walls, they're the brand's story. They're telling you about the ingredients. They're telling you about their founding, whatever, whatever they want you to think. We don't do that here at Cracker Barrow. There's nothing on the wall here that's Cracker Barclay. This is America's story. This is our guest story. This is Janice's or Doug's story and people's ability to feel that when they come in, whether it's grandma's house. And so we don't want to move the doilies around.

We want to make it comfortable for you and comfortable for you to bring your friends in place. So can I ask you how do, because part of me, part of me absolutely agrees with the way people reacted. But part of me also is like, that's a little irrational, you know. it's a product of the time. And it's a, it's honestly, it feels like a corporate boardroom not understanding what people are feeling about the overall picture of their life. You know what I mean?

And of other things too that are going. Right, right, right. Politics, everything, everything. I mean, I hate the fact that everything is about politics. You know, it's ridiculous. We can't survive if everything is about popcorn. Pancakes are pancakes. Football is football.

Politics are politics. But how do you, if we don't correct this, I'm asking you to put a philosophical hat on here. If we don't, if everybody is afraid to change, afraid that everything's going to mean six layers down, something else, how do we survive? How do you make change in business? So, very existential question for coffee and country French turkey. By the way, very good. Yeah, you like it. Very good. It's a star. Guy who picked me up at the airport said,

have you had this? And I was like, no. So that's why I'm having it for breakfast. It is. It's a home run. And you've got to get it while you can. We usually sell out like right around Thanksgiving. We bought a little bit more this year. So, um, so. Hopefully it'll last through the holidays. Look, I think that's why, frankly, that's why I was anxious to sit down and chat with you. Because I do think a lot of things have been in as construed. And I want to set the record straight. I want people to know that this is the brand that they've always known and loved.

And that our job is to take care of it. And just set it up for the next 55 years. And that when you walk in here, it feels like Cracker Barrel. the spirit, the feeling, the legacy, the traditions, the food that you love that's made by hand by people who care, it's still here. Are you surprised? This is probably very unfair to ask you. We'll see. Were you surprised you weren't fired?

I feel like I've been fired by America. I bet you do. That's probably worse. Yeah, because it's hard because, again, all I've wanted to do is help people love this brand the way I love this brand, the way Doug loves this brand, the way everybody who works here. I mean, the responsibility for the 70,000 people who work here, I bear that every single day. They are here to make a better lives for themselves, to take care of their families, to put a roof over their head, food on their table. And my job is to make sure that Cracker Barrel helps them do that. And it's not just those 70,000 people.

Like Doug has four other people depending on him. They all keep people depending on them. And that's why we're doing what we're doing, because this brand deserves to have another 50, 60 years in front of it. We're trying to set it up for the future so that people, the stories are here and they're told, and people can come in and feel that. The feeling that you get here is,

so special, it's so unique, and I'm talking about you personally. And I want, I want, but my job is to keep that, you know, protect that, you know. And I feel like people don't think I can do that sometimes. But my job is to invite them in and let them see that it's that they know and love. I mean, hopefully you feel that today, but. And maybe your listeners can feel that through you. I do feel this. The beginning of that answer, which is all that mattered to me, was the most genuine thing I have heard from somebody in your position in a very long time.

I can see that it actually, I can see in your eyes right now. That hurt deeply, personally. I want people to love this place. Just a reminder. I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people.