Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Aiken County

I am from New York. We do not have Cracker Barrel there. Every trip to South Carolina, I make at least one visit to Cracker Barrel.

There have been some changes in the menu and I see they now serve alcohol.

Something else different this latest visit was service. I arrived on a Friday afternoon. There wasn't a wait and we were seated right away. Once seated, a server came to tell us our server has four tables and she is helping. Her name was Heather or Helen (sorry...trying to recall). She was very pleasant and personable. We were not ready to order. She said she would return. She came back and said, "Let me at least get you drinks". We ordered drinks and our meal with her. She took her time to answer questions and presented with smiles, being warm and helpful.

Our actual server Selin came with out drinks. What a difference. She never introduced herself and was a lot less personable. "Here are your drinks". The silverware I was given was not clean. I asked for a replacement. She returned about 10 minutes later with our meals. No silverware. I patiently waited as she disappeared in the back. She returned. Walked towards our table, turned left and gave the table next to us meals and served a beverage to the table in front of them. Never returning to give me silverware, although I had a full meal in front of me. I had to physically get, walk to to the front and retrieve it myself.

Let's discuss the meals. I ordered fried fish, mac and cheese, loaded sweet potato and cole slaw. I received meal minus the mac and cheese. The other table guest ordered a full vegetarian meal. It was dumplings, carrots, loaded sweet potato and a salad. Mind you, the waitress was told "I do not eat meat" by the patron, yet the salad came topped with bacon????!!!!

Now, back to Selin. SHE NEVER CAME TO CHECK ON US. NEVER OFFERED TO REFILL OUR DRINKS. I even put my empty glass at the edge of our table to drop a hint. She came out to service tables around us, but not once saw to us after dropping the plates. She asked the other tables if they wanted anything else. Inquired if they wanted more to drink and so on.

Oh...dropping the plates....let's talk about that. I ordered fries at the beginning of our meal. It took us maybe 15 to 20 minutes to eat while casually chatting. The order of fries came out AFTER our meals were complete. What fryer takes 20 minutes? She walked up fast, dropped the plate of fries at a high rate and kept walking. I think if she could have thrown it, she would. There wasn't any ketchup on our table. Of course me and the patron had to search and retrieve that as well. When we initially sat, we discussed getting dessert as well. I am sure dessert would have incorporated coffee as well. After our treatment, we didn't want to give Cracker Barrel another dollar or minute. A clear example where simple customer service would have equaled more revenue.

Now the icing on the cake the fact our check was riddled with errors. My fish meal comes with two sides, but I was charges for the two sides as if they were extra. The house salad that was bought out and immediately rejected due to the pork on it, was still on the receipt. On top of that, the veggie meal was charged AND the sides were charged separately.

When you visit a Cracker Barrel, you pay on your way out. We explained our situation at the register. The worker called for a manager. Chris came to assist. With very minimal explanation and with a smile, he quite gratuitously adjusted our check. He made up for the errors and for her poor service (by the way, I never told him about her service, just the billing error). His willingness to have the customer leave happy and whole means a lot. Thank you Chris.

With Cracker Barrel's checkered past in dealing with people of color, I am hoping this is just Selin's inexperience and not a reflection of a larger issue. Either way, if you like revenue Cracker Barrel, I suggest you make that query directly to...

Decided to go here for lunch since the husband and I were out this way. Never again. The food was good, don't get me wrong...but let me explain. Tables were open throughout the restaurant but we still had to wait about 30 minutes to be seated. When we finally got seated, it was about 10-12 minutes before our waitress came to take our drink order. We didn't get biscuits until about 10 minutes after our drink order was taken, so we are about 20-22 minutes in being seated. We waited and waited for her to come to the table even though she was constantly at the table behind us. She brought us our drinks, no straws (no biggie, right?) We finally decided what we wanted to eat a few minutes later, she comes to take our order. We ordered an app of fried pickles and the homestyle chicken BLT (both of us) with fries. We asked for more biscuits as well. When our food came out, we had maybe 6 or 7 fries, my sandwich had no bacon, and neither of our sandwiches had lettuce (which is fine, we don't care for lettuce usually so no big deal). About 8 minutes later she comes and refills our cups, NO ICE, pure hot tea. We asked for mayo, ketchup, and straws for our drinks. She goes back to the back and just stands at the computer for about 5 minutes. I go to another table and get a bottle of ketchup. I get sat back down and I am able to eat the few fries I had in my plate before she comes back with packs of mayo. I told her that my sandwich didn't have bacon on my sandwich and it should have. She goes and comes back with bacon about 6 minutes later (but they cooked it fresh, again, no big deal). Another lady had issues as well, something about her drink was not good or something so she sent it back - never got another drink. I will never go back to this location. The service was kinda crappy and I hate to say that because our waitress was very sweet and did apologize for everything, but don't apologize, just do your job as you should. Don't make people wait forever before you take their drink order. Don't make them ask for their main app (biscuits, bread, etc.) Make sure the food is right before you take it to the table. She really acted as if she didn't want to be at work, but again she was sweet, and most of this was probably not her doings except for the time it took for her to come to our table on those occasions. And the fact she clearly knew she was refilling glasses with warm tea and there was no ice in the cup to begin with kinda worries me. Maybe she had something on her mind, i don't know, but just wow. I have had some crappy service, and this definitely wasn't the worst, but I was not thrilled. For the price of the meals, you guys could at least give a...

First of all this is an accumulative review of three trips to this specific restaurant within about 3 days. Every time I realize that there may have been things that were beyond their control but upon reevaluation I realized that these are definitely things that need working on it. The first time I went I was greeted appropriately by the hostess and seated without problem ordered breakfast seemed like everything was going well when I received my breakfast I was not happy everything was cold the eggs appear to be the size of bird eggs all together are just a bad experience, that time I did not call on a manager I just left after eating my meal. The second time I had a problem I ordered the catfish, The waitress seemed to be busy with other customers I understand that everybody needs attention, but I requested a salad before my meal and as a time grew down I knew that my salad was going to be with my meal and sure enough it did come at the same time. Also I ask for some ketchup and hot sauce with the catfish that I ordered that I must admit was overcooked, The color was a dark brown which is not a good sign and the beans tasted like they had been cooked the day before. I finally had a flag down another server for ketchup in hot sauce while my meal is getting cold as I eat my salad. Finally a different server dropped off the sauce and ketchup to my table where my server is nowhere in sight. I did ask for a manager on this visit and she came to my table and apologized and concurred that the fish seem to be kind of small and they would talk to their supplier she said and that the steam table may need adjusting in reference to the beans as far as the service I didn't go into detail she took care of my check and I left without eating my meal. On the third occasion we went there was no host, server told us that there was no one doing to go deliveries as well these problems are not the customer's problems but once again I had a problem with the food. I ordered the chicken fried steak or country fried steak, when it came out the gravy was like not creamy it was stiff I didn't get the right side I got some brown looking supposedly homemade potatoes instead of what I had ordered. I finally caught the server again and she brought me the correct side in the meantime my helper who was eating with me was waiting in patiently for his refills on his soda and again not a good experience. I believe the server's name was Savannah it's unfortunate that she has to deal with the product problems but she needs to step up her game a little bit as well. We will not be going back to this cracker barrel I've had better experiences at other locations around...