Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Crestview

Update: this was sent over to the CEO of Cracker Barrel, who just forwarded it to HR, the CEO did not respond. HR did respond saying they would do an investigation and from my own personal perspective and information I have collected, nothing was actually done…. Just want to leave that update.

During a recent visit to the Cracker Barrel in Crestview, I was shocked to learn about unacceptable practices within the restaurant. After asking general questions about employee well-being, several servers—some of whom are no longer with the company—reached out to share their experiences. What I’ve learned is deeply troubling.

These servers, who will remain anonymous, revealed that they risk being reprimanded by management for bringing out bread before meals. This is outrageous, especially as I personally requested bread for my one-year-old while waiting for our food.

Cracker Barrel has built its reputation on hospitality, including offering biscuits and cornbread as a core part of the dining experience. Quietly removing this service without notifying customers is dishonest and unfair—particularly when it directly affects servers’ ability to provide the experience customers expect, ultimately hurting their tips.

More disturbingly, the servers I spoke with described a toxic work environment that includes: • HR ignoring legitimate concerns raised by employees. • Management calling employees with disabilities offensive names. • A clear disregard for employee well-being.

These accusations are not just disappointing; they are unacceptable. As a consumer, I am horrified to learn that a young server or someone with a disability could be berated for something as simple as fulfilling a reasonable customer request, like providing bread and jelly.

To Cracker Barrel corporate leadership: You are now aware of these issues. It is your obligation to act. Retrain your management teams, hold them accountable for treating employees respectfully, and communicate openly with customers about any service changes. Continuing to ignore these problems will only damage your reputation further.

The next time I visit, I will request bread directly from management to ensure no server faces backlash for doing what customers expect. For a company that prides itself on Southern hospitality, these failures are glaring and unacceptable.

Do better. The spotlight is now on you corporate. I will continue to share these personal experiences in hopes something will be done THIS TIME. To everyone else reading this, ASK THE MANAGER FOR BREAD.

Let me add, HR contacted me. I was also informed that one of their former employees that the assistant manager there allegedly hit an employee during business hours. I even told that to HR. I was given a very “copy and paste” response saying that they did an ‘investigation’… yet absolutely nothing came from it. I will not return due to the way management and higher up treat and...

This experience was the worst I’ve ever had at any Cracker Barrel. We had a large group which has never been an issue before. It is sad to say I will probably not be going back to this location until I know they have made some changes. Like I said we had a large group so a few of us showed up early to make sure that we could get in the request for a table. We wanted to shop in the gift shop look around. Well we went to ask for the table to give them a notice that we had a large group coming in. Brook was the hostess and was rude and not helpful. The dining room was not busy at all and she made a big deal that it’s policy to have you whole party present to be seated as we told her 10 of us were there and 2 more were coming a bit late. We asked for the manager (Paige) she came out and said that yes it is policy but she could accommodate us since it’s 10 of us only waiting on 2. Once seated we had to wait quite a while before Matthew took our drink order. Then it took him even longer to bring the drinks out. We had mostly finished our drinks before he made it back to our table to take our meal order. Granted by this time he was cashing out his only other table so it wasn’t like he was helping anyone else. We were now his only table. He takes our orders and goes to the back. Never once did he check on us to see if anyone needed a refill or anything. Eventually our food comes out. After placing on the table what was brought out 2 of our guests didn’t have meals. As he is trying to step away from the table he asked if we needed anything else and some of us said the 2 guests needed their meals and he says” oh we are out of that” instead of coming to our table before everyone else’s meals were served to ask who could order something else instead, Matthew just brought the food they had served up and at no point let anyone know that 2 meals were not going to be served. When asked why he didn’t say something sooner he raised his voice and very rudely said “I just found out.” We again had to ask for the manager to come to the table and Paige came out and got the 2 orders and compensated the 2 new meals. At this point everyone finally has food but Matthew is MIA and never comes back to our table. We had to ask another server (Tamara) to help us to get refills on our drinks and togo boxes. As we never seen Matthew at our table and no one else was assigned to pick up our table. Tamara came right over asked what we were drinking and helped all of us like it was no big deal. And I thanked her for that. She was a pleasure and I made sure to tip her for her taking care of us. As everyone is standing and trying to gather up to leave Matthew is still MIA from our table. I had to go ask the hostess Brooke for our check to be able to pay for our meals. It was the absolute worst experience I have ever had at any Cracker Barrel restaurant and I was very...

To start the evening off at Cracker Barrel we asked the Hostess, Brooke if our table of 12 could be seated once 10 had arrived as the last 2 would be late. Brooke proceeded to state that policy was all in the party had to be present in order to be seated. We would have understood completely if it was busy but they already had half of the dinning room closed down because of the lack of guest in the restaurant. So we then asked for the manager and the manager, Paige stated that it was policy the whole party has to be present but it would be ok to be seated with our 10. Once the party of 10 had arrived we got seated and the waiter, Mathew immediately seen our large table and he aggravatedly sighed. Mathew made half the table repeat ourselves when we ordered and still got the orders wrong. Mathew took a while to get our drink orders and once we finally received our drinks most of us drank all if not most of the drink. Never once did a single person at our table get asked if we needed a refill. We asked for refills as we ordered food even. Once the plates started to come out he started with the first half of the table, and then proceeded with the second half then asked if there was anything missing. Myself and 1 other family member at our table did not receive a plate. We asked Mathew where the plates were, he raised he voiced and and stated he just found out from the back they ran out of the chicken and dumplings that we ordered. Immediately we asked for a manager. Why is it that 4 people total at the same table order the same meal and when 2 of the plates can't be served we aren't told until the entire table is being served and Mathew acted as if he had no idea and got very rude when questioned. We asked for the manager yet again, there was no need for the reaction he gave. The manager Paige did well with deescalating the situation and replaced the 2 missing meals as well as compensating the 2 new ones. We still had to ask another waitress, Tamara for assistance so we could get refills and to-go boxes as Mathew never came back to our table and no one else was assigned our table. We had to ask Brooke to even get our tab from him so we could just pay and leave. Cracker Barrel was a place my family had gone to for years in Crestview, this has been the worst experience I...