Famous Dave's of America Inc. — faced with sinking sales and fleeing customers — admits it even botched the cornbread.
The restaurant chain on Wednesday reported a steep drop in second-quarter profit and harshly criticized its recently departed chief executive for changes that upset customers of the barbecue chain.
"The changes included smaller portions, different plateware and changes to iconic items such as cornbread muffins and other poor decisions," the company said in a statement. "Ultimately, the significant changes made by prior management were not received well by our guests, extended beyond the restaurants and led to this poor second quarter."
Famous Dave's also fingered "prior management" for its failure to implement a happy hour promotion.
Ed Rensi, who abruptly resigned as CEO in mid-June after just over a year in the job, was the Minnetonka-based company's third CEO in three years. Rensi, a former McDonald's executive, had been hired by activist investors who snapped up Dave's stock over the past two years and now own about half of the company's shares.
With Rensi's exit, the company installed board member Adam Wright as temporary CEO. Wright is a co-founder of Minneapolis-based Blue Clay Capital Management, which owns about 6 percent of Famous Dave's.
Wright told stock analysts Wednesday he replaced "the prior CEO because we were not satisfied with the direction of the company." Rensi could not be reached for comment.
Rensi had big plans to remodel Famous Dave's restaurants and refresh the menu. Smoked meats were to be tucked into new dishes like flatbreads and tacos to better appeal to a younger demographic. Some traditional flourishes — like cornbread — were dropped.