A top investor tried to warn them four times that what they were doing was “folly.” He even made a 120 page presentation to illustrate that what they were about to do would be disastrous. He was dismissed as an “activist” investor because he was known as a Trump supporter.

When he tried to get board replacements so that Cracker Barrel would make better decisions, shareholders, led by Blackrock and other behemoth firms, instead voted in the company’s “recommended” board choices.

And so the Cracker Barrel executives who thought they knew better pushed ahead with the rebrand and distancing the chain from its core customer base.