Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Cold Spring

I am local so I enjoy coming here for turkey and dressing day on Thursday like I have a million times. Today’s experience however will be the last time I visit this location. The restaurant was not busy, our greeter seats us, then 5 minutes goes by Billie visits the table, asks us for our drink order, we all order 1/2 cut teas and I specifically said 1/2 sweet & 1/2 unsweet to which she repeated back to me and as did the guests I arrived with. Moments go by our drinks arrive we order all the same things turkey and dressing where I am for my usual and state that I would like an additional side because it only comes with one side due to the sweet potato casserole being part of the meal. We then try our drinks much to our surprise they are unsweet all the way. We wait and wait and wait, finally we see the server and one of the members of our party said “ma’am” , server looks up, continues what she is doing closes her server book “then looks at our party member, rolls her eyes and walks away. Now thinking to myself as I am a hard and busy worker it’s stressful working in the food industry maybe that was just an oversight and not directed towards us. Moving forward, we wait about 10 more minutes an finally are able to get our drinks corrected which seems to have hit a nerve with the server. Mind you she had been gone a lengthy amount of time and to our surprise when she dropped off drinks she must have taken a smoke break because it was surrounding our table! Our food order arrives but not by way of our server it seemed to be a manager of some sort in a light pink button down. We tell him we are missing cranberry sauce (which we asked for along with extra gravy) a that I was missing sweet potato casserole. He says no biggie leaves and comes back, however instead of brining me the side I asked for he seems to explain to me how the menu works for this meal which … RUDE my guy. I come here so often and I clearly told this server I wanted an additional side. Needless to say he seemed shocked that I told him I know how the menu is laid out and he began to state well I guess I can just bring you the side…NO thanks, as my food is here and clearly there is an issue with taking an order and brining it out to your customers. I have reached out to corporate and I encourage you guys to make sure you share your thoughts because it is getting very expensive to go out these days and pay high prices and have awful...

the last time I was at this CB was Oct. 2023. the experience I had in Oct. was awesome which is the reason I went here instead of Florence which I am closer to. Today’s experience was ok but one major item that stuck in my mind was THE GRITS! 🤢 I have never been served grits in a paper cup. Every time I have ordered grits from any CB they are plain, so you can add the amount of salt/butter you want. These grits, I noticed immediately they were swimming 1/4 cup of butter, clumpy and discolored. I didn't want to complain as I already had to ask for a spoon for my coffee. I just did not want to be that type of customer today. I reluctantly had a few bites and there was something off but I didn’t realize until I got home and was thinking about it. I think these are re-used grits!! I have always needed to salt/butter my grits and there was no need for any salt, and the massive amount of butter didn’t make any sense and the grits discolored like other food had mixed in with them. I really believe that these were scraped off other peoples plates now that i think about it they had other flavors mixed in from other food. 😳 that’s why I couldn’t figure out what that aftertaste was because it’s a mix of different food, and why would you serve it in a paper cup vs a ceramic bowl? Is it possible they were low on grits and had to make do? 🤔 I posted a picture they were pretty gross. I know I will eat at this location again but it’s a shame that I’m going to have to tell my server next time about today and I would like grits with NO butter/salt as they should be that way as i have gotten at various locations/states for over 30 years. always plain, white and smooth.

I had erased my other feedback, because I really want the focus to be on the grits. I never want to go through this again. also, judging from the response no apologies or acknowledgment of my bad experience, Just a thanks for stopping by. It doesn’t seem like my concern was heard or valued or will even be...

Okay, we have been coming to the Cold spring store since it has opened, regularly. Tonight was the worst experience ever. Our server cameron, who may be 16, was very nice. We waited 35 minutes to be seated which is understandable for a Saturday night. Once seated at 7:50, Cameron came out and gave us our drinks. At 8:30, we still have not received our food. No sign of cameron. Four tables were seated after us anywhere from a half hour to 40 minutes after we were seated and they were getting their food before we received ours. So finally after we waited 45 minutes for our food we asked another waitress where was our food was and she said "oh your ticket is next in line." Whatever that's supposed to mean. Long story short, we waited 1 hour for our food. We are good people but waiting 1 hour and four tables being served before us was mind-boggling.

We know that times are tough with getting waiters, servers Cooks etc.but a courtesy of letting us know saying, "hey we lost your ticket or hey your waiter forgot to put the order in or hey we had to kill the pig for the pork chops", we would have understood. But no courtesy was giving to us.

The sad part about the whole experience, it was my husband's birthday and we were celebrating a milestone for him. The whole experience was so sad. By the time we left there we were not in a celebratory mood.

The cashier who was working when we cashed out our check was also 16 years old. We told him about the experience. He said "oh so sorry." I said you ruined my husband's birthday dinner. He again said "I'm sorry, oh by the way happy birthday."

So, in a nutshell, we won't be back for a while. Do not recommend Cracker Barrel in Cold Springs to anyone right now until they get their act together.

Happy birthday to my husband. So sorry Cracker barrel made it miserable.

Cracker Barrel - please get your...