Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Chesapeake

Host was pitiful. No smile..took me to table and said Happy Easter like it was killing him to say…no personality or smile. Well my Waitress was great but this location needs help with other workers. I was there on Easter Sunday arriving at 4:30 then leaving at 5:30. Waitress Maddie was great…good service, smiled, answered question, plus apologized for ham delay. Got the Easter meal. They forgot ham and took so much time getting to me. I didnt even taste it because I already finished and got a box. Ordered a meal to go! In tge meantime..While sitting and eating there, the young male host was cleaning tables. He passed right by the one my waitress removed dishes. He went to the table and sprayed the cleaner. Any trash he just pushed to the floor. On he went. Then the Male Manager goes by fixing the tables that the host did not setup right and called him on headset to come clean the table. Yes the one he walked past. Well, while eating he sprays the cleaner. OMG! I could taste the over spray. Then he didnt move things, wiped around, then again anything on the table all went onto the floor. A dumpling he slung onto the chair but left it there. The floor was a mess. He clearly did not care! Yes it was on Easter but was not very busy…well until I was done eating. Went to look in store. Noticed the time and took my items to register. Poor Hayden was by himself and training another person. On EASTER!!! Then this Africian American young waitress must have been cashing out.Did not get her name but clearly her mom worked there too. Told them her mom left early because she only had gotten $40 in her pocket so left her with rest of shift. The girl said she got alot of money. Poor Hayden had to get money out the other register to give her money. Again, he had no help. Plus the girl kept chatting and wouldnt shut up for him to think. Finally finished with her….THEN a guy waiter comes up asking where the bunny ears are and who has them. Hayden was trying to help me but this guy kept talking to the trainee who was clueless. This waiter expained that on holidays they can wear things to celebrate. Normally only able to wear regular uniform. I asked Hayden to please check me out. I was on a time line of getting home for my dogs seizure medication. Hayden was great. Got me out. Clearly help is needed with these workers. As for the male host…he made the floors look worse by slinging things from the tables. Nope, no...

I love Cracker Barrel, and this location is my usual go to. We went to get breakfast today, a Tuesday, at around 10 am. It was slightly busy and took a long time to get checked in. When we did, I got the automated text message saying my wait time was about 30 mins, at 1009 am. By 1050, we hadn't gotten any text, and plenty of people who had come in after us (including parties of 2 like us) were taken to be seated. We waited about 5 more minutes and asked, and the hostess immediately said it was ready right now. I never did get any confirmation text message. I had also had some items I was about to buy but the hostess wouldn't let my bf just go to the table and be seated while I did that, and the hostess said the cashier could hold the items for me, and the cashier heard her but just stared at me with a blank look when I asked her to hold them for me. I just set them down, she didn't say a word. The waitress was very nice, and I will assume that they were under staffed which is understandable but the lack of customer service was the issue. We were told a certain wait time and the place was even less crowded past the time given, and only when we asked was our table suddenly ready. The same cashier from before was ringing up a couple of customers in front of us and there was apparently a dispute with their receipt and the cashier was just being rude to them and cutting them off when they were questioning the charge, and even said to take us since we only needed to cash out too. The cashier ignored them and turned to the phone, and called for a manager to the register area. She just had a very bland and indifferent attitude, which is unusual for Cracker Barrel associates so it was sort of a downer for us. We did not end up buying the items from before, as I couldn't see them where she'd put them before, and we didn't have time by that point to go looking again. It was almost an hour to be seated and at least 15 minutes before even biscuits came out, and they said cornbread would come too but it never did.

The food was fine, no issues with that, but the service itself was just lacking. Even being under staffed, the attitude could have made it a lot better. It was not the usual mood Cracker Barrel gives off, which is sad. I think a bit of coaching would help, and possibly...

It started when we came into the restaurant area to be seated. Host wanted to seat us at one of the two person tables. We asked to be seated at a larger table. It was not busy, lots of empty tables. He threw the menus down on a table and said he would have to see if he could find us a server. Then he left with us just standing there. That's when we should have walked out. But it was my partners birthday, and we were trying to do lunch. So we stayed. A serve came by and asked us if we were ok, so we told her what the host said and that we were waiting for him to come back. She said she would take care of us, so we sat down. We never saw the rude host again. We ordered our food and a few minutes later the manager came over to the table next to ours and told them that there was a 20 minute wait for fried apples and asked them if they would like to order other sides or wait. I think they waited. We both ordered fried apples also, but when our server brought out our meals, she told us about the apples and asked if we would like different sides. So I ordered a loaded sweet potato, and Billy ordered loaded baked potato. My was good, but Billy's was so cold that the cheese didn't melt. And he didn't eat it, so it must have been cold. We tried to order apple pie for his birthday, but it was out also. So we ordered peach cobbler. It was horrible. It was nothing like a cobbler at all. It was like canned peaches with some ice cream on it with a piece of dough stuck on top of it. We have had their triple berry cobbler in the past. It was amazing. So that's what we were expecting. It was nothing like what we were brought. I'm so very disappointed. Wish we had gone somewhere else. No, I didn't bring it to anyone's attention that day. I did not want to make anything worse than it was. Why didn't the manager give us a choice about sides also. Why did we get our meal then have to wait for our sides. Why did the host have a major attitude with us. We now know why that Cracker barrel wasn't busy. With customer service like that, we will definitely never go...