Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Columbia

Went to Cracker Barrel for a late lunch around 3 pm, the restaurant was rather empty as expected for that time of the day but yet I was told that I had to wait 30 minutes to be seated because they were short on staff.

I asked for a manager and explained to them that they MUST pay people more to solve this problem and they agreed but said corporate would not allow them to do that and for me to call the corporate headquarters to voice my concern.

I called them on February 17th and 23rd and was forced to leave a voicemail both times because apparently they barely have any staff there too, I have yet to be called back by corporate as of March 1st.

I told one person about my experience and they immediately said they have had the same problem many times and have just quit going there.

This company is falling apart and should be embarrassed at how they are treating customers.

UPDATE TO RESPONSE

I will not email or call anyone else, I suggest that the manager that replied to my post call their corporate office and demand that they contact me with the phone number I left them twice in voicemails. Since this post has a negative effect on YOUR location it is in YOUR best interest to spend YOUR time to get corporate to treat customers in a professional manner.

I wasted enough of my time trying to voice my valuable advice to this management team and corporate office.

This company cares very little about my concerns so I will dine with companies that do care about my experience in their establishment.

There are hundreds of other places to eat, why waste your valuable time and money at a place that disregards their customers concerns.

Another Update

Finally received a call on March 8, 2023 by corporate and they assured me that they will work diligently to make things better,

I will dine there again in the near future and will post that experience.

Final Update

Went back to same store on May 19, 2023 around 2:30 pm and must say the experience was as enjoyable as possible.

We were seated immediately by the most hospitable gentleman, the waitstaff was prompt, friendly and very attentive to our dining experience. It felt like a whole new atmosphere the moment we walked in.

The food was excellent and the new menu items are very much worth trying.

I am so happy that my original review may have been a motivating factor for this...

July 3, 2025 Cracker Barrel Store CB0635 I gave you another chance, almost 12 months later and guess what? You passed with flying colors. My meal was perfect and I enjoyed it. My husband enjoyed his as well. Today you get 5 stars!!!!!

August 22, 2024 @ 6:10 pm Store CB0635 It really saddens me to have to give you ZERO stars again!!! What is going on at the Kinley Road location? Is there any management here?? If so, replace them immediately. I knew in my gut that I should not have ordered dinner from you today, but once again I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt….smh! The fried chicken was extra dry and hard, the hash brown casserole was smushed and oily, the okra was fried to a crisp, the dumplings were over salted, the macaroni was missing…not even in the bag and you gave me one dry biscuit. This place is the worst place ever!! I should have turned around when I heard two other folks in line demanding a refund for their food. Make it make sense!!!!! Never again will this family waste our money at your restaurant. You are pitiful!

Dear Cracker Barrel, today you get 1 STAR. I had the grandkids over and they wanted pancakes so I placed my order, picked it up…got home and guess what? You did not give me any syrup. I had 5 orders of pancakes and not one bottle of syrup. It’s clearly marked on the receipt to include syrup in the order. Can you imagine the task of trying to get kids do to eat pancakes with no syrup? On the receipt it says that my order was quality checked by A&A….well guess what….your quality check system failed today. Disappointed 😫.

Fast forward to March 1, 2024… I decided to give you another chance, Cracker Barrel. You failed me again. You get 0 stars today. I placed my order online and my husband went out in the rain to pick it up. You left two items out of my order. I checked my receipt and guess what, It was quality checked by two people. The initials are G and K…well guess what G and K you messed up! I called the store to let you know that I was missing two items and guess what, I was placed on hold and no one came back to assist me. Do better Cracker Barrel. And the chicken tenders were...

We’ve just left this place and the manager ruined our whole experience. I’m so sorry for this Cracker Barrel to be managed by this person… we wanted to order to go pancakes from the app but there was an error so we ended up ordering at the end of our meal. On our way to pay we noticed a 4 dollar difference (between the app and the receipt) so we asked for a manager and that’s were it all started. The problem was very simple, check prices and adjust them accordingly to what we were getting but we found an unapproachable manager that wanted to explain the price difference (which we would have understood) saying we ordered the wrong pancakes “the mommas breakfast” and we just said “please add an order of pancakes” at the end of our meal, not even having the menus on hand and not knowing the names of the plates! He even said that the Momas pancakes were more expensive because they had eggs and bacon and there were no eggs nor bacon in what they gave us to go! Just 3 pancakes… anyway, we always go eat there, people are always nice and the servers are beyond! I can’t imagine how this place is managed by a person who decided confronting the customers without a valid reason is better than trying yo understand the problem, and make the best of their experience. We finally decided not to take the 3 pancakes so he gave us cash even if we hadn’t payed, yet! We pointed that out and he got even more annoyed and taking in a louder way… so so sad!

For anyone from CB admin who reads this review and can give feedback to the manager about this specific case so this doesn’t happen to anybody else, we visited the store at about 1130am Saturday 23rd March. Feel free to reach out, there’s no need to ask me to message your consumer reviews department, I already did.

Let’s make things better...