Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Carlisle

Stopped in at 6:30pm on Sunday evening Sept 1st. Ordered our food and told the waitress we would also be placing take out orders to go. It was not busy at all and we got our food in about 10 minutes and ate. Our food was very good. At 7pm we placed a take out order for 3 meals, biscuits cornbread and jelly along with 2 desserts and 2 ice creams. We waited and waited and at 7:35 our waitress informed us our take outs would soon be ready to which I told her it’s been 35 minutes and what is taking so long? Our waitress then offered to include 2 free drinks for our wait to which I replied no we just want what I ordered and paid for and this was getting to be ridiculous. Our waitress then brought our take out meals and I ask her if they were correct and she said YES! We went outside and we were missing a side, no cornbread or biscuits and both desserts and ice creams! We went back in and another waitress ask me what I wanted as I was at the kitchen entrance and I told her our take outs were screwed up! So over comes another girl and ask what the problem was and we took the food out of the bags to show her what was all missing! At this time here comes our waitress whom I already gifted her a $20 cash tip! I said to her our order is screwed up and she seemed to not care at all as she waited on another table. So I took our take outs out to my truck and waited another 15 minutes for my wife to bring out the bag with one side and the desserts but yet once again, no cornbread, biscuits and jelly! We just left as it was now 7:55 and we wasted almost an hour on ordering 3 take out meals! I cannot believe after being seated and served our meal within 10 minutes how placing a take out order can take 55 minutes and still not be right! Unbelievable and we won’t be going back to this Cracker Barrel again! Our bill was $89 and leaving a $20 tip that in hind site should have been a $2 tip. I’m sorry but my time is worth more than being offered 2 free drinks! This place can shove those “free drinks” straight up their “rear end” and sit them along side where their heads are!

• Update! Cracker Barrel responded to my negative review directing me to a guest review page and you are unable to enter your email address! It constantly says it’s an invalid email! ( how convenient ) When you call their guest relations phone number it says they are closed or else it rings forever and then you are directed to go to their guest relations page and email them! ( again how convenient that you cannot get thru to anyone by email or by phone ) It’s just one big runaround and they aren’t interested in hearing about any bad...

Above & Beyond in EVERY way! From cordial greeting, seating me by the fire, friendly & attentive young lady waitress that went above & beyond to come out and find me in the gift shop to let me know my dinner was served so it didn’t get cold. Not many kids today would bother to do that. Her shift lead was always looking out to make sure things were being done. And she was working right along with them! When I motioned her to.come over to let her know how impressed I was with how well my waitress took care of me, she could have just accepted the glory, but being the true team player tvat she is, she not only went back to the kitchen so the entire staff could give a shout out to my waitress, she elevated it to her manager, who came out and sat down with me with a very big smile! It was so nice to truly extend compliments, especially at this time of year, and especially when they usually are only called out for problems. He truly cared about his restaurant and his employees and it showed in every level from the first impression to checking out. I felt like a Secret Santa when I handed my waitress my tip which was significantly more even than the cost of my $18 chicken dinner and getting to know that the manager and I share similar interests in fine art, was like making a new friend!

I don’t want to turn this negative but within just the two prior weeks, I visited the Mechanicsburg location and had the complete opposite experience where after waiting 55 minutes for my dinner, saying something about the wait, to the kid who was literally brushing the crumbs from the next table onto me, and watch him sashay away with half a shrug and not in tbe direction of the kitchen, I opted to get up and pay for my drink and leave. No manager ever came to check on me even by the time I got to the register.

So if you can, avoid Mechanicburg at all costs & go to Carlisle. Its literally like night and day, with the Carlisle Cracker Barrel being superior to many restaurants, even other chsins & mom& pop’s, in every way!

And if you go out on a holiday to dine, you better leave a 25% tip minimum or just stay at home and put a tv dinner in the microwave. To go out and dine and not tip is THEFT, unless you experience a problem, & then elevate it so they can fix it! Thank you!

I haven’t waited tables for 40 years but I remember it like it was yesterday! Everyone should have to do it at least once...

Ordered takeout through their website and was given a time for pickup. Arrived at the store about 5 minutes after that time, followed the link they sent me by text message and told them that I was there, which parking stall I was in, confirmed my make/model/color of car, and waited. About fifteen minutes later, someone pulled into the stall next to me and got their order within a couple of minutes of showing up. The lady who brought it out for them gave me a weird look, asked my name, then said she'd be right back with my order. About ten minutes after that, someone ELSE showed up and got their order within a couple of minutes. Having figured out that she was not, in fact, coming back, I went into the store to ask what was going on, and was told that they were just bagging my order now (mind you, this is now over 30 minutes after I was told it'd be ready) and I went back out to my car to wait. It took at least another 10 minutes after that before someone came out with my order, asked me how my day was going, and when I told them what was going on received a very curt "Sorry for the wait" before he handed me my order. One of the jugs of tea he gave me did not have the lid properly secured, so when I put it in the car and it tipped over the lid came off and flooded my passenger seat with peach tea. It took him another five minutes to come out with a replacement for that and I received no other acknowledgement of the issues other than "Have a nice day." What should have been a five minute interaction turned into an almost hour-long fiasco that left me angry and frustrated.

When I got home, the food was extremely dry, having apparently sat under a heating lamp for the entire time that I was waiting. The sirloin tips were entirely inedible (my dog and cats liked them well enough, I guess), and everything else just tasted dried out and slightly scorched.

I have no idea what happened, my only guess is that for some reason the link given in their text message failed to report that I was there even though it confirmed my arrival and told me to "sit tight, your food will be out shortly". If you dare to risk ordering takeout from here, don't rely on the link, call the store and tell them...