Cracker Barrel is becoming a TRR ongoing miss. Just when you thought its earnings release showing positive numbers was a good thing, a few paragraphs down, there was the classic retail pitfall that has tripped up so many companies over the years. In a lease/buyback deal Cracker Barrel sold 26 of its locations to an outside investor, reaping immediate cash, but in the process becoming a tenant that has to pay rent every month to its new overlord. This strategy rarely works out well for other retailers. You may remember this trickery from “Fast” Eddie Lampert who successfully drove Sears and Kmart into the dust. Given Cracker Barrel’s revival following a disastrous rebranding last year (a TRR miss), it’s disappointing to see it’s now relying on financial engineering to spruce up its books. They jury’s out if the company has the right restaurant model now; in fact, we actually liked a few of the changes it tried to make that have since been pulled back. Lease/buyback deals are usually short-term fixes for long-term problems and, excuse us for going for a cheap laugh here, but they are just placing the company over a barrel.