Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Bakersfield

My whole experience with Easter was like a nightmare roller-coaster ride... To start the young lady that took my Easter family order was very pleasant and polite. I ordered the meal for 4-6 (family style)people and added a side of dressing.. Unfortunately what should have been a fairly quick conversation/order, took 28 minutes.... On Easter day my order was scheduled to be ready at 11am with the intentions to warm for 2hrs prior to serving ( per the young lady that took my phone order)... My guest were scheduled to arrive at 2pm.... Upon arrival the young lady working the Togo orders notified me that the kitchen was backed up and it will be 15-20 minutes... She graciously offered me a Free Pie for the inconvenience... At 11:47 I was able to puck up my order at the counter... I was assured by the cashier everything was in the box/ bags... I got home to discover I had 10 individual plates of food and 1 side order of dressing.. When I called and spoke to the Mgr on duty ( I believe her name was Alicia) she confirmed i received the wrong food and offered to replace it.. Before I could answer she said that I actually received more food this way and should keep it... Unfortunately I agreed not realizing how dry the meat and dressing were, absolutely no Turkey Gravy and brick hard biscuits... On Monday and spoke with Manny.. He had me detail out the events with an assurance his GM Chris would call me on Wed upon his return... Needless to say no call on Wed. On Thursday I called and was keep on hold for 13 minutes before getting disconnected... Today I spoke again with Manny.. Once again I was assured that Chris would be calling me from his personal phone.. Here we are 6pm and no calls... Very disappointing... Looks like dine in only if we...

All my scores are based on my comparison to my usual local diner, Spencer's Cafe on McNair Lane. Like my usual at Spencer's, I got the chicken fried chicken, hashbrowns and 2 sunny side up eggs with a side of biscuits and gravy, a.k.a. Grandpa's Breakfast ($15.99). They brought out the biscuits and gravy first, about 10 minutes before the other food came, giving the gravy time to cool. The chicken fried chicken portion was on the smaller side, but the batter was crispy and didn't fall off. The chicken was mostly juicy. The gravy portion on the chicken was lacking as well as the portion in the side. The texture of the biscuits were nice, a little smaller than Spencer's. They had a weird taste to them though, smokey maybe? The gravy had a smokey flavor to it. It might be the sausage they use. The gravy was also a little gritty, like raw flour. Maybe it wasn't dissolved/cooked through enough before adding the liquid. Their cheesy and onion hashbrowns are outside of the traditional plain. The said they had the plain available, but for $0.99 more. I went with the cheesy and onion. I was disappointed though. It was a weird texture and taste. In total, it came to $21.09 with tax for the Coke Zero and "Grandpa's Breakfast". With an 18% tip, $24.89 for 1 person. The service was good, but not as great as the service at Spencer's. In summary, the smaller portions, mediocre taste just wasn't worth it. The restaurant is along California Ave and the freeway, which seems to be a budding Skid Row with many homeless people wandering around. I'll stick with my usual. Spencer's comes in slightly more at $21.39 for the same dish/items, but the portions are bigger and the taste is...

So I grew up going to Cracker Barrel. Then I moved to California and there wasn't a Cracker Barrel anywhere to be found for the longest time. Then they slowly started opening them and I learned about the Bakersfield location. I was excited because I drive by there on my many trips to LA. Then, I finally got to go. The first time I went I was excited walking through the typical Cracker Barrel store front. We got our seats and I ordered my usual. But I waited for the biscuits to come, and waited, and waited. But they never showed. Then there was the food. It just was, blah. Wasn't bad, but definitely want good. Service was mediocre at best. Needless to say I was severely let down. So this last weekend we were making another trip that way and I wanted to give it another chance. We got seated right away, but our waitress was rude from the second she stepped up to our table to just take out drink order. First off, she decided to try and take this order right after she bussed a table with a ton of stuff on her tray and was clearly struggling to hold it, so she cut us off in the middle of our drink order because she needed to go set it down, took two steps and dropped everything. She then proceeded to go out of her way to be rude to my entire family throughout the remainder of the meal. This time we got biscuits, but they came out with our meal. No apple butter BTW. Every other Cracker Barrel I've been to this is standard. Or am I wrong? The food was just mediocre, AGAIN. It was not just a bad Cracker Barrel experience, it was literally one of the worst dinning experiences that I have ever had. So this review is not a knock on Cracker Barrel as a whole, just the...