Certain loud mouthed restaurant owner's anti-Obama rhetoric has resulted in negative perception from consumers.

Courtesy of Brand Index:

Anti-Obamacare rhetoric from Papa John’s CEO and a major Applebee’s franchise owner appear to have driven down both chains’ consumer perception with casual dining eaters in the US, and are still impacted two weeks after those remarks were made. 

Papa John’s CEO John Schnatter’s post-Election Day comments about passing on health care reform costs by reducing worker hours and raising prices coincides with a swift negative reaction among casual food diners seemingly accelerated by the November 13th class action lawsuit accusing Papa John's of sending unsolicited text messages to customers. 

Despite Schnatter’s Huffington Post op-ed on November 20th claiming his words were twisted, Papa John’s perception levels continued to experience one of its sharpest drops of the year, sending it well below rival Pizza Hut. 

Zane Tankel, the CEO of Applebee’s franchisee Apple-Metro, appeared on Business News and made similar comments, saying Obamacare would force him not to hire any more workers and consider cutting their hours. Applebee’s perception had dropped since his TV appearance. 

One exception to these two examples is Denny’s. Franchisee John Metz, who runs 40 locations, said in mid-November that he would add a 5% surcharge to customers' bills and reduce his employees' hours. Denny’s perception with casual diners declined afterwards, but much less so than Papa John’s and Applebee’s. However unlike those two chains, Denny’s has since rebounded close to where they were before Metz’s remarks, potentially due to CEO John Miller’s apologetic statement a few days later.

You know personally I really don't want to know what the political opinions are of the  owners of the restaurant or businesses I visit, but if I know they are assholes, like these guys, I will avoid them like the plague. Which by the way is not very hard in this case because I don't like ANY of these three restaurants and have not eaten at one of them in over fifteen years.

What I think these idiots are learning the hard way is that people like President Obama. And just because their personal Fox News driven opinion is negative, they are in fact in the minority.