Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Clermont

My wife and I chose to stop by the Cracker Barrel restaurant in Clermont to have an early dinner around 4 PM. Once inside we were seated promptly and received service quickly. My wife chose the daily special of Chicken and Rice with sides of Corn and Mac and Cheese. I choose the Chicken Dippers with honey mustard dipping sauces, sides of Mashed Potatoes & Gravy, Carrots and Green Beans along with Biscuits as a bread choice. We orderd drinks and they came first. My wife ordered water with lemon and the lemon never came to the table but she was willing to overlook that. I made a comment to the young man taking our order that the menu was different and I used to get Fried Chicken Tenders and he said yes they are the same with a different name. WRONG! Yep, the menu had changed along with the process and taste of the food delivered to the table.

My wife first noted that the rice on her plate was hard and crunchy and as we discussed this a couple at the table next to us told us they just sent their meals back for the same reason. We saw this happen after we sat down but did not know what was happening. If that was the case and someone already complained about it why would they serve that to another guest without checking to make sure they were not serving any more of that food that was not of good quality. I mentioned to my wife that we should send it back and that my meal was not of the same quality we normally find at Cracker Barrel. The chicken tenders were not the same, the breading was not like the old flaky breading on their tenders and did not taste the same. The mashed potatoes were very lumpy which was usual but this time was much more. The green beans that used to be cooked with perhaps some ham and onions were just flat out canned green beans with nothing added and literally had no taste and my wife felt the corn was the same way, just plain with no taste. The best part of my meal were the carrots. Now the biscuits. In my experiences here this was something they always did a pretty good job with was the biscuits! No, no not any more. I could drop these on the floor and play hockey with them, that’s how hard they were. And I am not overstating this. At this point we asked to speak to the manager and a woman came to the table and asked how she could help us. The first thing I did was to tell her this was in no way personal to her or her staff, but what ever changes Cracker Barrel was making to their food is not good. I spent too many years in food service to not recognize a corporate change that has affected food quality. She agreed and told us they were going through company wide cooking process changes and these were the results. She said the server should have never brought the biscuits to the table. Then I mentioned that once they set the chicken strips down in front of me that they were out of honey mustard sauce and would I like any other sauce. No I wanted tenders and honey mustard sauce! Well had you told me when I ordered them you were out of honey mustard sauce I would have ordered something different. The manager apologized and left and returned to our table with a bill for only half of what we ordered which we appreciated, but were not looking for.

This experience left a literal bad taste in our mouths! And with her telling us that this was a company wide decision, well this crossed a destination for dining off of our list all over the country. As a manager rather than comping 1/2 our meal I would have put a gift card in the customers hands so they would have to at least come back again to use the card, but I think differently. Anyways poor corporate decisions to make these types of changes to the processes and quality of food. My wife said it best, it will be along time before we ever visit a Cracker Barrel again as a dining option, and it’s to bad because we used to enjoy coming here.

Remember when Coca Cola decided to change the way Coca Cola tasted and introduced new Coke. How did...

We usually enjoy dining at Cracker Barrel often. This time unfortunately we did not. The service was slow and our waitress was inattentive to keep us informed of our orders. We had to ask for items to our order that weren't served to us. She also didn't inform us of the breakfast sides correctly that were an extra charge when asked about and were later added to our bill. We also informed her the salt and pepper shakers so were not cleaned with food all over them and requested clean ones to use. When the next were brought the salt would not come out of the shaker at all. I opened it to try and separate the big clump seen inside and remove what was in large salt stuck to the top to no luck getting the shaker to work. I informed the waitress and showed her how the salt was all stuck inside and to the lid and there is rust around the lid as well. When asking her for a new salt shaker she told me they were all like this caused from humidity. So I asked her can you take the Shaker back and poke through it with something to disassemble the salt so we can use the shaker. She repeatedly said they are all like this so I asked her again can you take it back and see what they can do to separate this salt so we can use it on our meal and that it shouldn't be that hard to do with something they would have available like a toothpick or a knife in the kitchen. What she ended up doing was bringing us travel packs of salt and pepper to the table. I said to her if the salt shakers are all like this then why are you bothering to put them on the table if they're no use to anyone to their meals and you can't find a way to correct this?? At this point she didn't have an answer. Upon checking out I spoke to the manager about the overcharge that she placed on our bill that she did not inform us about as an extra cost and I also told the manager about the salt shaker situation and how bad that looks in the presentation adding to one's meals. I ended up going around in conversation with her the same as I did with the waitress to the manager simply saying it's probably best if we don't put the salt pepper shakers on the table at all and wait for people to ask for them. I said how is that going to make it any different if the salt is still continually sticking to the Shaker inside and not usable? I suggested that if the humidity is the problem then they should fill them at the start of the day instead of letting them sit overnight or get the ones sold that are packaged and freshly available. I also informed her that the shakers were filthy and not seen as cleaned out for some time. I will think twice before deciding to go to this cracker barrel location again who didn't seem to care much about other items of food that are presented at their tables. So be wary of the salt and pepper shakers..etc people because they could be carrying some serious germs that are being added to your meals or not workable...

Me and my daughter went to go eat at Cracker Barrel and it was horrible. I’m not someone that leaves reviews but for this experience I had no choice but to. The hostess was very nice and helped out the server taking care of us as the women was busy taking care of other people. My daughter is a server at another Cracker Barrel location so that was all understandable we were just hungry and this was the closest to us since we were in the Clermont area. I ordered the momma’s pancake breakfast. And my daughter ordered 2 pancakes. We waited a bit and then when our pancakes came out they came out so small like kids pancakes, had like brown residue and was not appealing or what was advertised what’s so ever. When you order pancakes from a place you go to a lot and work at you know what to expect and that was not it. We kindly asked for the manager and at first “Delorias” seemed understanding and took them away with no hesitation. Five minutes later she brought pancakes that were undercooked in the middle and extremely light. my daughter tried it and she’s not even picky but she couldn’t even swallow it it was so bad I can not stress it enough. We called the manager “delorias” again and she became VERY passive aggressive, sarcastic, and condescending. Even the server looked at our food Disgusted. And then delorias goes to bring in white lies attempting to cover herself instead of recognizing the situation as the proof is right there in her face. there is absolutely no need to prove to her that these are horrible pancakes. She states that it is the butter that made it look the way it did so she brought it with no butter? Like what? Butter has nothing to do with a cooked pancake and size. I mentioned that to her and she says word for word “ the pancake is not supposed to take over the whole plate”. “ I’m not going to debate with you” and Then you goes on to mention my daughters managers etc. she was completely unprofessional. I never experienced such a rude manager who doesn’t know how to handle the situation the right way. and all we did was explain to her how the pancakes were. We weren’t planning on getting anything else we were just gonna leave with their knowledge of what went wrong so we can respectfully leave but it just went down hill with that manager. She doesn’t represent Cracker Barrel in the right way at all and if She continues to be that way the store is going to go down hill. Shame on you delorias. I’m sure you were taught better than that and Pray that your...