Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Branson

TL:DR I won't be back! Poor customer service and complete lack of empathy by management.

My lady and I have weekly date nights and we like to stop off at random places for dinner after a long day at work. Today we visited the Branson Cracker Barrel and I can honestly say it is the last time we will visit or spend our money here.

Our waitress was very pleasent. You could tell she was new working here. I asked for gravy on the side of my meal. Not a big request but one I prefer as you never know if you are going to get a soup bowl or a dollop.

Gravy came poured on, thick... No biggie. When the waitress asked how our meal was I stated that I would have preferred the gravy on the side as I had asked but otherwise good. Immediately she apologized and brought out a new plate very quickly allowing me to eat with my partner. My next request was for some BBQ sauce. She replied with, "oh that's easy enough" she proceeded to help all tables around us while I picked at my food waiting for my dipping sauce for the chicken. It never came and I am not going say anything since I was half way through the meal. Before the waitress came back I excused myself to go outside and smoke. I wasn't happy to pay for something I didn't enjoy. So, I left my card to pay for the meal and I walked out.

When approached by our waitress, my lady informed her that I was not happy and had left, the waitress offered to pay out of pocket for my meal but there is no way we would ever accept that. They work hard for what money they take home and the big Corp should have no problem offering a comp for a meal that a patron did not enjoy. My lady asked politely to comp the half eaten meal by Corp and the waitress asked her manager, who apparently said No because I got 2 meals. (I never asked for the incorrect first one.) And their BBQ sauce is free so they couldn't comp that. (seriously???) Those are the words from Stacey the manager on duty. In the end without much fuss and not causing a scene we were comp'd a $3.50 glass of coke. ($3.50 for a glass of coke??? Really??)

As a person that eats out frequently for both personal and for my business clients, I have great things to say about most places I dine out at. This is the first establishment I will not return to. Not because they did something atrocious, but rather, because they did nothing special and dismissed an unhappy customer with what I can only call zero empathy. This can be chalked up to...

Yesterday, December 9 2023 morning We gave cracker barrel one last chance, we are from out of town but this was the straw that broke the camels back. We waited for 30+ minutes to be seated, others were going to have to wait even longer upwards of an hour. After finally being seated We got our order in and waited 25-30 minutes for the food to come out. part of the order was forgotten by the person that brought our food to us.

We at that point didn't really care any more and just dropped the issue, the original server who was doing good with keeping out coffee filled, which was about it, came back and started arguing with us , all they had to do was bring out the other pancakes that had not been brought out yet.

The food was disgusting, eggs cold, steak tips tasted like they had been stored near fish, and were also cold and pretty much un-edible. the pancakes were the only thing that was warm. We also had some fried cheese which was ok, but it was not very hot either. gravy, cold, biscuits burnt.

We were hungry so we ate what we could but honestly we would have been better off with gas station food...

Over 40 dollars for cold food that tasted awful!! I left a tip of $12 only because the waitress up to the point of the food being disgusting, she was doing a pretty good job we thought.

Last, when checking out, the survey "were your drinks fills as expected" was not an appropriate survey or question.

We had planned on staying until Monday but we left town right after that, after the morning starting out with crappy food from Cracker Barrel and rude people we wanted nothing else to do with the town.

It was suppose to be a special time for us but the bad food from multiple restaurants combined with other "tourist trap" factors made the...

We love cracker barrel and waited happily for 30 min wandering through the store. we got seated and our waitress said I'll be right back, she wasn't. we couldn't even order or get drinks, nothing! over 30 min went by and other guests had come in 15-20 min after us, seated, had drinks and food. while we still sat and other waitresses said they would get ours. we finally ordered our drinks almost 35 min after being seated. fast forward to finally getting our food over and hour and 15 min later, and we were missing items and my sons food was so burnt on top he had to peel the cheese snd toppings off to even be able to somewhat eat the meat below it. we got our biscuits another 20 min later and one tiny bowl of gravy even though three of our meals had biscuits and gravy, and she said here this is for all of you and walked away. no drink refills no is there anything else I can get you no butter no nada. it was horrendous. the other waiters and waitresses seemed to be doing an amazing job, ours, ours was horrible. and for $100.... we really expected better. every other staff member was sweet and wonderful. she was not. I'm sure she went on break and left us to sit. not professional at all!! Definitely somewhere to avoid if visiting Branson. unless you get the other staff to wait on you. and trust me, I thought about this review long and hard because I prefer to post good reviews!! but seriously ruined our morning. and ate up over 2.5 hours of our time to do other things before we headed back home...