Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Arlington

Eh. Haven't been here in yearrrrsssss but this was mom's easter pick. It was a bit of a let down. First I wish they would revamp the checkout experience. People stood in line but the way they created the line made no sense and apparently there should've been two lines because the 2nd cashier was letting people walk up to her even though others had created a line near the other lady and had been waiting longer. It just made no sense. They should reconsider this process. Maybe shift the cash registers to a different part of the store and put up a belt stanchion. And no I had no idea what they were called but I googled it just for this review so now we all know. Ha! Anyway on to the service and the food. The hostess didn't give us utensils. I had to go searching for them and finally saw they were at the hostess stand. The waitress took our order. When the meatloaf and beans came out , the guy that brought the food said he still owed her a baked potato. Well because she wanted to eat it all together she decided to wait on it. unfortunately her food sat and sat and was getting cold. Our waitress finally stopped by and said who brought you that? Lol and my mother was like. I don't know some guy but he hasn't come back with my potato so now my food is getting cold. She asked the waitress why he would bring out a partial plate and the waitress just apologized and said she would go check on the potato. I was still on my appetizer which was the biscuit beignets. They're supposed to come with a butter pecan sauce but oddly it tasted as if the container they put it in once had barbecue sauce in it and they didn't clean it out first before pouring the butter pecansauce in. I didn't say anything after the first couple of strange bites. My mother eventually decided to try one and she said why does that taste kind of spicy? I said to me it tastes like theres barbecue sauce in it and she tasted again and she said yeah that's exactly what it taste like. How odd! I decided not to ask to have it replaced. The waitress circled back and told me tickets were running about 30-45. I set a timer just to keep track. Thankfully it came out before then. Probably like 25min. I got the oreo cheesecake pancakes. They were very good. Tastes just like it sounds. I was happy it wasn't overly sweet. I had yet to take a bite but ended up calling the waitress over to ask for WARM syrup and i guess she thought I was complaining about the temperature of the pancakes because she said I just saw them pull that off the grill and I said okay that's fine but I still want warm syrup and the waitress said it wasn't served with syrup because it's already sweet ... well I want syrup anyway. When she walked off I took my first bite of the pancake and there's no way that just came off the grill unless whatever the cheesecake filling they use is cold and maybe that cooled the pancake off. I took off a piece of the pancake and handed it to my mother and even just from the touch of her fingers she could tell there's no way that that just came off the grill. I also got a to go order of the tenders and fries for later. They were ok. Nothing special. The Comeback sauce taste more like something that should be served with fried catfish instead of chicken tenders. The bacon mac n cheese was decent. Mom didn't like the taste of the meatloaf. I tasted it and didn't like it either. Very lacking. Also didn't help that it had gotten cold. She was too afraid to ask for it to be reheated or a new one made because people are petty. She didn't wanna take the risk of it being brought back out with sweat slathered on it or someones spit stirred in the beans. I wanted to talk to the manager but she told me to...

I ordered my food and was told it would be ready in 10 minutes I showed up about 12 minutes after I had ordered and then I stood there for another 15 minutes in the store waiting for my food this is the second time this is happening I had a very Stern talk with the manager I mean how long does it take to put mashed potatoes a side of Turkey and dressing on a plate it sure doesn't take 25 minutes it always seems as if nobody has any sense of urgency to complete orders when you pay the cashier you know they'll look over if it's not there on the shelf they just like oh well instead of saying sorry let me go check on your order make sure they know you're here and ready to pick up your food you know something that would show they care I just don't understand why that is not the protocol that should be said every time somebody pays for their food if I was a manager that person would go and make sure that food was done and brought back to that customer immediately they were seconds away from losing my business yesterday they lost another customer that didn't want to wait any longer as well while I was standing there so how much business are they losing. Now they always have somebody out there putting knick knacks on the shelves when you pick up your food that should be a designated runner who says something like now let me go check on your food I'll bring it right back to you and then they should bring the food back before they do anything else period. There's no reason to customers should stand there for another 15 minutes after they pay for their food it's just 1,000% unacceptable especially when there was me and one other guy in the lobby nobody else even walked in the store during that 15 minutes to go be seated or anything so it wasn't because they were extremely busy I would understand that if they were but that was not the case last night somebody dropped the ball in the kitchen after I hang up my phone call and the guy tells me to take 10 minutes I expect to be 10 or 15 minutes not 25 minutes and me having to yell and scream to get everybody to do the job it's ridiculous a good manager manages his people and would be back there making sure that to go orders were being...

Rude staff. First we were sat down and we noticed that no one came to serve us, even ask for water… we grabbed a waitress and she said no one told her we were sitting there but we were clearly sitting next to one of her tables where we could be seen… she never came back after taking our order.

Another lady came I guess the other lady didn’t want to help us and passed us along never saying a word just mean scouls. and we asked the new waitress for the biscuits we had just asked for..she said rudely biscuits aren’t free.. I told her I was paying for biscuits..that I ordered biscuits..she said she didn’t know our order but was just helping out..we got a whole lecture about how people think biscuits are free…like we didn’t have money to pay.. when she finally brought four biscuits she had brought 2 jellies. When I asked for more jelly she said we are only supposed to give you one jelly per biscuit. I told her I only got 2 and I have four biscuits so why is she lecturing me about the rules and they didn’t even give what they are supposed to…bad customer service. She left with an attitude over having to get me 2 jelly packets.

then this waitress brought our order out all wrong… apparently the other waitress didn’t want to help us so she gave the other waitress our order but it was messed up.. no orange juice, no strawberries for pancakes, gave hashbrowns instead of hashbrown tots, when I said the hashbrowns were wrong instead of leaving them there since they were getting thrown in trash and now I was eating my food without my side… after it was their fault switching waitresses and not getting our order right..

The grits were cold.

Orange juice came after we were done eating.

Had to get my own ketchup, etc.

Every time we asked for something the waitress had a mean look on her face.

The food was actually good after we got everything we ordered but the customer service was so rude it ruined the whole experience.

Wish I could give them zero stars for how bad...