So, it turns out that I know someone who was a consultant at Prophet for a long time. I worked with him at my first job; he was in brand management. Despite the fact that this guy had an MBA, and has made a career out of being a marketing consultant, he struck me as absolutely dumb as a post, and lacking any creativity or insight. Whatever he might be good at, coming up with good marketing ideas isn’t one of them.
To be fair, the stock market, as a whole, tanked today, in response to Trump’s announcement of new tariffs on China, on top of the ongoing government shutdown, and the news that a large number of federal employees are being fired.
So, today’s decline was likely not entirely due to investors’ discomfort with Cracker Barrel’s business decisions.