Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Calhoun

It is hard to describe how badly the food was prepared today. Whomever was cooking at 9AM on 4/24/2025 should not be allowed to cook again. This person is destined to get the place closed because of food borne illness. I was staying at one of the local hotels and decided to go get a"real" breakfast as opposed to the free heated from frozen stuff offered by the hotel. So I took a quick walk to this Cracker Barrel. It was the worse MISTAKE I had made all year.

I was a bit concerned when I saw their previous inspection rating was an 88, but I figured it is breakfast, how hard could that be? Well apparently too hard for the kitchen staff working at the time.

Simple order, scrambled eggs, bacon and grits was too much for them. I placed my order with a nice lady and it got worse from there. For starters the scrambled eggs were disgusting. It was apparent that they had beat the eggs, I assume placed the on the griddle or pan for a second and then folded them over like an omelette. This led to a folded egg product that was literally raw on the inside. You cut into it and the eggs ran out of the wrapping.............That is not scrambled eggs. Sorry, and the inside temp was cool, to the point that I did not eat the liquid mess for fear of disease. The bacon had obviously been on the heat for just a fraction of a second more than the eggs. You could tell it had touched the pan for a second, but was not cooked. The grits were just plain bad. They were lumpy beyond any I have ever had with several of the lumps were uncooked internally (I know grits get lumpy if you do not stir them regularly, but having uncooked grits in the center of the lumps in ridiculous).

All in all the worse meal I have had at any location in 2025 and all for the incredibly low price of $14 and some change.

Never again will I eat at this location. I will also be notifying the local health department about the temperature of the food so that they can follow up with another inspection. Having worked in the food industry, I can not believe this food was not cooked to temp or maintained above the minimum for safe food service.

I voiced my concern as I was paying for my meal and was offered a chance to speak with the manager, but I declined. To be honest, I can not believe the manager was not already aware of how bad the food quality was. If they were not, they were not managing and talking to them would accomplish nothing.

The sweet...

The absolute worst service I’ve ever received. Keep driving and skip this location, trust me I’m doing you a favor in saying this. It was so bad my daughter as offended and reviewed before I was able too. While driving during vacation we stopped at this location at 7:55 pm, I understand they close at 9 but was ensured it was okay to come inside and dine. Upon arrival we were greeted and informed of what was not available, which was no big deal. The deal breaker was the waitress, a young, blonde girl, who absolutely had no home training. We waited around 20 minutes to get drinks (we were still fine at this point), had to ask the manager (male who was pleasant) the status of our appetizer and bread at 40 minutes; to which he got right on and had “the waitress” bring out. She placed the items on the table without saying a word and walked off. At no time in this 40 minutes had she stopped to check on us. There was multiple people complaining at this point around us. The dealbreaker was at 50 minutes without food we could hear “the waitress” cussing at another staff member in the kitchen. This point I got up and went to the checkout counter to get another staff member. This lady was super nice and actually the person I had to seek out to get napkins for our bread earlier. I informed her I would pay for the drinks (at this time I noticed the cup was dirty, halfway down on the inside) and the appetizer to which we only ate half of one due to the excessive amount of cinnamon that was placed on them. She apologized for the waitresses actions and the delay and stated to not worry about paying. Upon leaving close to 9pm now, within a couple of minutes, we begin to exit and the waitress hollers out in the restaurant are they going to pay for the appetizer. I was mortified and hollered back to her she needs to speak with the other staff member at which time she ran in the kitchen. Absolute worst service due to this waitress. We were willing to tolerate the wait time, we were in no rush but I refuse to be treated like that. The young, blonde waitress needs to find employment elsewhere because her attitude is not needed in the service industry. She was rude to multiple people that we witnessed. Her personality is surely to drive...

Stopped by on a road trip since Cracker Barrel is a familiar favorite in an unfamiliar town but was met with blatant discrimination and horrible handling of our issue by the restaurant manager on shift, Shawna. This whole experience put us 2 hours behind on our roadtrip.

We waited over 1 hour for our food until we decided to leave the restaurant. I’m not usually the one to jump to discrimination conclusions, but we were largely ignored while other tables around us who were seated after us received their food. That can’t be a coincidence as we were the only non-white table in the whole restaurant. We had to ask for bread while other tables were given it, and even asked for napkins over 5 times before we received them. Granted, our server seemed very new, and very much trying her best, but we were also informed that my menu selection was unavailable 30 mins after ordering and my next order was also unavailable until I finally ordered Chicken Tenders. By this point, the menu wasn’t even handed to me but placed on the other side of the table- and my third order was taken 10 minutes after the initial unavailable order.

While we left, we asked for the manager and had to wait another 5 minutes before she even came out, and walked straight past us as if we were invisible. She very obviously did not want to speak to us, and barely offered assistance, much less an apology. She was extremely curt and had a sour expression the entire time. She had no care whatsoever about our experience and complaints, and constantly blamed our new server again and again when we already clearly expressed that we were not dissatisfied with our waitress and that she had no fault. Only when we expressed that we would file a complaint, is when the manager got fired up and we walked out.

All in all, I can't in good conscience recommend this location until the management is addressed. Blaming your employees and completely disregarding your customer’s experience and having zero customer service/ respect ruins the reputation of Cracker Barrel as a whole. Even though I am a rewards member, I don’t know if I want to come back to my favorite comfort restaurant ever again.

Kimberly in the front is great though, definitely by far deserving of...