Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Bowling Green

Well after several, several months I decided to try Cracker Barrel again.

WARNING! WARNING!

The food was so bad that we threw all of it away except for one piece of "supposedly" blackened grilled fish and a few sides. Our order was two catfish dinners for $17 & 18 due to the number of veggies.

One was grilled and fried fish with fried okra, fries, and slaw. The other was fried fish with fries and mac n cheese.

Meal 1 had literally (12) tiny okra pieces and (10) steak fries. The slaw was running over with mayonnaise. The fish was horrendous -- like eating a bag of cornmeal with unseasoned meat inside. I ate the supposedly blackened fish only after having to doctor it up and camouflaging it with extra tarter for some taste. Oh, I did eat bread, my fries and 2 tiny okra pieces. My child only ate one bite of the fish, one of her favorite foods; the mac n cheese, 8 steak fries, and the bread. She didn't even drink the tea. Something was bad off with the food.

While my past experiences have been hit or miss with the service, the food has usually been passable.

I shared about the taste of the food with the manager. His reply was: "Well we do use cornmeal for our fish." My reply was: "As do I..difference is my cooked fish doesn't taste like cornmeal; it's tastes like "fish" battered in cornmeal with seasonings to make it edible, but not like a bowl of cornmeal that leaves a grainy aftertaste in your mouth."

I got two boxes to go, but as I saw the trash can when we walked out the door, I threw it all in there with the drink. I asked myself, "self why take this home?" It will still taste the same, like cornmeal and horrible!

We threw away: 3 Fried Catfish Filets 10 Fried Okra pieces 1 Biscuit Slaw - yuck

For a $40.00 Cracker Barrel meal, we ate: 8 & 10 Steak Fries, Respectively * no concern 1 Mac n cheese - child 2 Okra pieces - me 2 Pieces of cornbread - 1 each - very good. Lol 1 Biscuit - me - very good - Lol That's all y'all! We left hungry, still.....

I paid for the meal. I left a tip (wasn't the server's fault). I blamed "me"! I knew better.

Lessoned learned...don't go unless maybe for breakfast...

I generally LOVE Cracker Barrell. This time, not so much. We went for breakfast and had to stop to charge a device for a meeting. We asked politely for a table by a wall with an outlet. What should I say... everyone knows what an 'outlet' is, right? Well, Dillon didn't. He insisted they had no outlets! We found ourselves a table with an outlet, discovered, that Dillon had generously provided us with the lunch/dinner menus (before 10 am!). We asked to please get us the breakfast menu, and waited... and waited... Our waitress was very nice. The table wasn't so much. It was sticky all over, and I thought everything on me suddenly 'syrup-ed'. I asked for a wet cloth so I could clean it myself. Needless to say, I never saw one. But I had the rare chance to watch Dillon 'cleaning' the neighbor table. (Or what he probably thought is cleaning). He carefully used the cloth to sweep crumbs, smear, and little paper pieces from sugar/sweetener and straw paper off the table directly onto the chairs underneath. He smeared the rest of the spilled syrup across the rest of the table. I might not have been clean, but hey, at least it was spread out evenly - everywhere. When our food arrived it was not hot anymore. It was still good, though. However, the restrooms were not clean, which, at 10 am, isn't a particularly great sign. Overall, I would say: this was the first time since I knew Cracker Barrell that I saw a restaurant as dirty as a McDonalds after a kid's 6-year-birthday party. I'm used to wonderful, friendly, caring Cracker Barrell staff, problem solver, sharp, thinking individuals with wide smiles and a great sense of humor. And not someone who didn't know, nor care, what an outlet is, didn't give a hoot that we needed one, completely thoughtless handed out everything BUT breakfast menus, at 10 in the morning, and had no clue, whatsoever, how to make guests feel comfortable, appreciated and welcome, (or clean a table). Thank God there are other Cracker Barrell restaurants. If they had to count on this one,...

My family and I went in to eat at the Cracker Barrel #86. We were seated promptly to our table. The table behind us of 4 or 5 ladies completed their lunch and waited to get their to go boxes. Another couple who was getting their drinks as we came in got their order and began eating. The waitress brought the sweet ladies their tickets and they left. The manager came by and picked up a napkin from my daughter’s high chair(didn’t speak or make eye contact) another waitress cleaned four tables and didn’t speak or make eye contact. The blonde lady from up front came and looked back at us sitting back there and the kids going wild as they were hungry and it’s not like everyone didn’t know we were in the restaurant (lol they are 2&3 yr olds). The blonde lady once again comes down back around to a table behind us to straighten up maybe they were hoping we would leave anyways I had forgot to mention that I did look at the clock and I knew we had been sitting for 25 minutes with no one making an attempt to speak to us in and form. So that’s why I am writing this review we are a family from the town in Kentucky where the tornado hit and we have been traveling and I know we are tired but 25 minutes is too long for anyone to wait and the restaurant had 4 tables in our section not including us. There was no excuse Crackers Barrel be nicer and be more on top on things you do t know what people are going through. We got up to leave and a waitress came to take our order so I thanked her and I thanked the manager on the way out and let him know we had already eating at Cracker Barrel twice while we were traveling and we decided not to do it again so like I said DO BETTER...