Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Columbia Township

We went to Cracker Barrel for brunch on Monday, September 6 at 10:30. We knew there would be a wait, therefore we expected it. We waited an hour and ten minutes to be seated. This was our choice, it was fine. When we were seated, we waited a few minutes and the waitress came to get our drink order. We were not ready to order, so we waited for our drinks. We ordered at the time we got our drinks. Thirty minutes later, we still did not have our food. My husband asked "Are you backed up?" The waitress agreed without apology. Ten minutes later, we got our food. All the others that were in our section had gotten their food and were eating by the time we were served (there were four of us). My food came out cold. The meat had been under the warmer for many minutes, it was gross looking. My pancakes were difficult to cut, I had to use my knife. The butter was not even melting on the pancakes. My son ordered a medium steak and it had minimal pink and few juices coming from it. My husband had a chopped steak and it was not seasoned. The only thing we ordered that was even edible (good) was the Chicken and Dumplings and steamed broccoli. My family did not want to replace their meat as we had already waited on our food for forty-five minutes. When the waitress came back, she asked if the food was okay. I said my meat was inedible. She had a replacement within a minute. Therefore, what was the reason they served me the meat they did that was under the warmer? It should have not ever come out of the kitchen. The waitress never came back except to leave the check. She did not stay long enough to refill drinks or talk with us and make sure we were satisfied knowing we had some difficulties. On the way out, I asked for the manager. The manager was cooking (they were short staffed). The manager was just as apathetic as the waitress. He did come out immediately. However, when I said that I did not want compensation, and just wanted to ask him to fix the problems, he said only "thank you." He did listen, but there was not an apology. He did not even try to give me any compensation by way of sorry OR money (in my opinion, to get return customers, it is restaurant practice to at least offer even when a customer says no thank you). He did not ask my name to follow up, he did not apologize for the food or the service. I was appalled at the apathy to make us return customers. I understand them being short staffed. I do not understand the lack of concern. All the waitress had to do to make us happy is to say, "sorry", act like she cared about the slow service (come and say, they are working on the food, it should be out shortly, ask if she could do anything) and NOT bring out food that looked like it had been sitting out at room temperature. Even the manager was apathetic. Instead of saying just agreeing with me, he could have looked at the food I showed him with more of a cursory glance, agreed that it was unacceptable to come out like that, and asked what he could do differently. An apology would have been the first thing. There was no apology. There was no attempt to make things right for us at all. We paid $65 for a meal one of us ate and the dogs got the rest because I paid money for it and did not want it to go to waste. There are things I could have done differently, but we try hard to give people the benefit of the doubt. That is the reason I am not listing names....I still hope that things can be fixed...

Based on the other one star ratings I've just read in the last 6 months that have been posted... I can see why I'm not the first to do so. We were seated immediately -however- with the restaurant not being overly busy (4pm on a Saturday) we were seated in the back far reaches of the place. Waitress came over, very polite, answered our questions, brought our drinks... Came back and took our order. I requested a basket of biscuits and cornbread and then we waited... And waited... And waited. She came back and refreshed our drinks (no basket of biscuits and cornbread) and nothing was said about the status of our food. By this time, we noticed that other people were not getting their food either; and needless to say I was getting very Hangry... So after waiting roughly 25 minutes for our food in a half empty restaurant, I put $3 down on the table and we got up and left. I was extremely pissed! I can see why cracker barrel is slowly starting to go out of business.. for starters, no cornbread and biscuit basket. The waitress did not offer to see where our food was. Usually the manager walks around to see how everybody was doing; he was actually the one acting as the host from what I understand. When we got up to leave, the waitress did come over and I told her we're leaving because it's taking way too long for the food to come out. She said "oh, okay" and went towards the kitchen. Normally - the server should tell the patron " let me check on the food or let me go get the manager" but she acted like it was no big deal. To make matters worse, I counted four employees up by the registers standing around having social hour. In my opinion - time to lean, time to clean... Especially when you are in the restaurant business and your chain has been receiving negative publicity lately. I am 99% done with ever going to another cracker barrel as Long as I Am alive... And that is too bad, because I have been a faithful "cracker barreler" since 1989. It used to be, one could count on great service, excellent prices, and good size portions. Not anymore evidently! I also don't like the fact they have "sold out" and started selling alcohol... I always thought of it as just being a good family restaurant with good family values. In my opinion, selling alcohol does not portray their old...

We went to this location about 7:00 p.m. tonight. We had to wait about 10 minutes which wasn't very bad. When we were seated I noticed that the floors around us were filthy. There was literally a piece of bacon on the floor behind my chair. I also watched an employee spray down a table with cleaner and then wipe all of the crumbs and straw wrappers into the floor without sweeping them up. I thought maybe they would come back and sweep it up. Nope, they just seated someone at the table and did not clean the mess they wiped into the floor for the duration of our meal.

When we got our food, my son's mac and cheese had some brown looking stuff in it that looked like a potato skin. We don't know what it was...maybe burnt cheese? I had the chicken fried steak with okra, green beans, and grits. Everything was good but the grits as they were served room temperature.

The floors in the country store were absolutely filthy. It appeared as if they hadn't been cleaned all day. There were shirts for sale that were lying on the floor. The men's restroom had paper towels overflowing out of the garbage can and the toilet seats were filthy.

The waitress was great. She apologized a few times for not coming around as often as she thought she should, but she was just fine.

When we went to pay there was only one cashier and about 10 people waiting to pay. The line to pay wrapped around to the hostess station which created quite the traffic jam.

Not sure what is going on with this location. Maybe they are short-staffed due to covid? I have no idea but we will not be back. I'm really sad because I used to love going to cracker barrel as a kid and now it appears to be a shell of its...