Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Clive

From the point of entry to the exit, what a disaster. When we checked in, she asked us what my name is, and then on the intercom, she announces that my table is ready while I am looking at her. Is this a candid camera, or what? She looks at me and asks if I am Troy. Do we need to do drug tests?

After seating us at our table, the waitress took our drink and appetizer orders. Shortly after, she delivered 1 drink (out of 6) and then disappeared. A while later, she returned, asking if we were ready to order. I asked about the other drinks, and she told us they were out of Coke Zero and asked if we still wanted to order something to drink. Drug testing should be mandatory.

After a while of not seeing our waitress, she stopped by to see how we are doing. We still have not received any of our drinks or the appetizers. off she went.

More time lapsed, and she returned with our food. No drinks or appetizers. She said the cooks forgot to make the appetizers and will remind them. She returned shortly after, this time carrying our drinks.

We began our meal, having each ordered steak and chicken tenders. I asked if we could get some more steak fries, as each of us only received four. The steaks tasted like dehydrated, freezer-burned liver. The meat tasted so bad that none of us could eat it. Our struggle to make the most of the situation nearly turned into a comedy. until the appetizers arrived.

We ordered two cheese curds. As anticipated, the fried cheese curds turned out to be frozen! I informed the waitress about their frozen state, and she promptly removed them. All of our glasses were empty, and getting refills was impossible.

The waitress returned (mind you, she is staring at all of our plates of partially eaten dinners and too afraid to ask how everything was) and dropped off one order of cheese curds. Well, maybe we can get something decent to eat. NOPE! They, too, found themselves frozen. The waitress looked at me like she was on candid TV waiting for the cameras to pop out.

When she returned, this time with a first round of drink refills, she handed me the check and told me they took off the cost of the two appetizers. While looking at the bill, the appetizers were still there. However, Cracker Barrel's highly technical billing practices indicate that they deducted a percentage from every other item on the bill, giving the impression of being generous by discounting everything. But the amount of this so-called discount added up to the amount of the two appetizers. The attempt to deceive us into believing they were taking care of us is insulting. The real offense lies in their deceitful practices of providing subpar service and food. They then proceed to charge us for the substandard service and food. After all the problems we had, not once did the manager stop by to talk with us.

In today's economy, who dares to leave uneaten steaks on their plates unless, of course, they suck? Then to add battery acid to an open wound, have us deal with staff who all need to either stop taking drugs or stop staring at the sun. We still didn't receive the requested cheese curds or steak fries; instead, they simply dismissed us.

Cracker Barrel is no longer relevant! No wonder they are skirting the idea of filing Chapter 11. Wake up,...

TL:DR - I waited 45 minutes for cold fried chicken with no sauce, got slapped by an old lady at the checkout, and asked to pay for my food twice. Yikes.

So.... Normally this place does pretty well, but, today I did a curbside order and was treated unacceptably.

I had ordered the golden Carolina BBQ tenders and a take home meal + dessert.

I pulled in about 15 minutes early, received the notification to hit "IM HERE" on my email and waited. My pickup time came out and my food did not.

Waited another 15 minutes. Double checked my order confirmation. It said your order will be brought out when ready, thanks for confirming your arrival.

I waited until 30 minutes past due and guess what? No food.

Everything up until then I could forgive on a busy day but I went inside and there my food was getting cold on the curbside tray waiting for someone to bring it out.

So I go up to check the receipt dangling off the side to see my name on it, curbside order, and THWAP! An old lady working the counter actually slapped my hand- I'm not making this up, SHE SLAPPED MY HAND FOR LOOKING AT MY OWN ORDER THAT I HAD BEEN WAITING FOR, FOR 45 MINUTES.

AND THEN SHE HAD THE GALL TO ASK ME TO PAY FOR IT AGAIN. I told her it was a pickup order that I had ALREADY paid for and she asked if I had confirmed my arrival?!??!

YES. 45 MINUTES AGO I CONFIRMED MY ARRIVAL.

So she called for somebody else and threw him under the bus and said it was his fault, he asked me if I had confirmed my order and I showed him the confirmation on my phone and then he handed me my food, apologized that nobody had brought it out, and I left.

Checked my food in the car, all cold, and guess what? Only three pieces of chicken with no golden BBQ sauce to be seen.

I would have said something but I wouldn't have gotten anywhere with that old lady so I cut my...

So I want to say that this review pains me to write. I have been a long time customer and this time was the absolute worst experience that I ever had a Cracker Barrel. We got seated in a timely manner and our drinks came almost instantly. Thought that we were going to have a great night out. I was wrong my husband and I put in our order. I had the steak skillet sampler and my husband had buffalo chicken mac and cheese. We waited for a little bit for our meals but not too bad. The server seemed very stressed and didn't ask us once how our meal was. We also ordered cheese curds appetizer and my husband bit into one and it was green and tasted horrible. Then our food arrived and my husband had only a pea sized drop of hot sauce in his buffalo Mac and the chicken tenders tasted like rubber and were very old. We ate our meal in silence and then we noticed that every table had napkins except us. We had to ask for them. We ended up talking to the manager and she argued with every concern we brought up and told us that Cracker Barrel's policy is NOT to bring napkins unless requested. Like seriously are we supposed to wipe our faces on our sleeves. Couldn't you be able to tell if we needed them because of my four year old daughter who literally can't stay clean for two seconds was with us. This is a restaurant and napkins should be provided before being asked for them. She ended up still comping my husband's meal and the appetizers. I am still not happy that this was our meal. We usually like to look around the shop after we eat and this time we were so disappointed with the service that we received. You can do better...