Unplugged: Crumbl Crumbles, Cracker Barrel Comes Back, Botox at Book Club and Paris Hilton's Teacup

At the Brink with Erica Brinker · Nov 6, 2026 · 45m

Erica's holiday lights are already up. (It's November. She's fine.) Sara covered Black Friday at the outlet malls for the Star Tribune once and gives it zero stars. Neither of us is standing in a line this year, but plenty of shoppers are heading back to stores.

Then we played winner or loser with this year's retail headlines. Crumbl closed dozens of stores and bet on dirty soda. Cracker Barrel brought the old guy back and Wall Street noticed. Gucci called Mariah Carey for the holidays while its parent company closed 128 stores. Rhode gave e.l.f. what it calls Sephora's biggest launch ever…