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Restaurants catch their share of flak in the culture wars

Working Lunch: Are Pizza Hut's reading selections a social threat? and what will a alternative "anti-woke" Chamber of Commerce mean for restaurants?

Pizza Hut is drawing fire in some quarters for the reading selections used in its highly successful Book It! program, a 38-year-old initiative aimed at turning kids into lifelong book lovers. The stuff is too left-leaning and disrespectful of traditional values, say the critics.

And that’s not even the jaw-dropping example of restaurant’s susceptibility to the culture wars, according to this week’s Working Lunch podcast. Co-hosts Joe Kefauver and Franklin Coley look at the creation by Republican congressmen of an alternate U.S. Chamber of Commerce that’s more in line with their style of capitalism.  

The stated mission of the new The American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce is to push back on the “woke” type of capitalism promoted by the actual Chamber.

It’s classic Beltway gamesmanship. But, ask the Align Public Strategies principals, will the gambit land restaurant executives and other corporate leaders in a political tug-of-war with the GOP?

Listen to what the veteran lobbyists have to say about that situation and the other political challenges facing the business, including the landmark Fast Act that advanced in California last week. You’ll find this episode and all the installments wherever you get your podcasts.

 

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