Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Douglasville

We were taken to our table once it was our turn which was in Brandy’s section. We sat there for quite some time watching servers walk by us to greet other tables who had been sat after us but not one person acknowledged us. At this point we had time to look at the menu and knew exactly what we wanted. I was still surprised the others servers around Brandy’s section didn’t care that we were only table not being noticed. Teamwork is definitely not a thing here. After about 10-15 min I walked back up to the host stand to ask for our server. I went to sit back down and noticed Brandy had been by briefly to put a basket of napkins on our table. She told my boyfriend she’d be with us in a minute. Mind you, the napkins that were in the basket had BBQ sauce all over them. Red flag. I saw that she was busy speaking to the table next to us so I sat there hoping she’d greet us once she was done with them. Once we saw her walk back to the kitchen after speaking to them I got up and asked the host if we could be sat in a different section. Brandy just seemed completely disinterested in tending to us at all. I did not want to rest of our time there to foreshadow the first 20 minutes. We were taken to Robin P’s section instead. Robin immediately greeted us after asking us what happened. We explained and she got our drinks and our order very promptly. It was already a night and day different. But unfortunately the bad service didn't stop there. It took quite a while for our food to come out. We both ordered Mama’s French toast. Once our food finally got to our table, both of our orders were ice cold. The yolk inside the egg that had initially been runny had time to solidly. The butter on top of the French toast was still intact (it melts instantly if the toast is hot). We sat there in disbelief while looking at our cold plates. Our food HAD to be just sitting there in the window being ignored just like we were ignored when we were first sat. At this point we think it’s some type of sick joke. We tell Robin that our food is cold and suggest microwaving it because at that point we just wanted to eat our food and leave. She went to get a manager (didn’t catch her name) but she was a middle aged black woman with shoulder length hair and glasses. It took the manager a bit to come talk to us and while we waited for her appearance our cold food was still just sitting in front of us. When the manager finally showed up she asked us if everything was okay as if she had not been told what had happened. I told her our food was ice cold and she told us that we had brand new plates coming out as we speak. She also mentioned that our food had been sitting under the heat lamp that just so happened to be turn off. My thing is, why was it sitting there so long? Sure the food would get cold if the heat lamp was off but isn’t it the entire wait staff and manager’s job to pay attention to food just sitting in the window not being ran? Why didn’t anyone notice this? And on top of that why didn’t anyone care that the heat lamp was off? So many questions. The cooks had done an excellent job making it for it just to sit under a turned off lamp for 15-20 minutes? I saw tons of other orders being ran out.. just not ours. Once again, seemed like a sick joke. Especially since Robin had known about our experience with Brandy’s section. You’d think she would have been keeping an eye out for our food to come up. She did have a party of 10 she was tending to as well along with maybe another table but like I said before, where is the teamwork? The manager then proceeded to take the cold food back to the kitchen. An hour had gone by from the time we walked in to the time we finally received hot food. The food was delicious. Once we received our check, I was astonished that there had been zero compensation for ANYTHING. I waited tables for years and if we were my table I would have made sure to somehow compensate for everything that had gone wrong. We aren’t tight wads either. I just know customer service. We tipped $8 on $25 and left without inquiring....

I placed an order to go via DoorDash. I don’t know what it is about ordering through DoorDash, there’s always food missing however, that wasn’t the case this go round.

I ordered for the house:

Biscuits & cornbread mixture Dumpling’s Two side orders of Mac & cheese Two side orders of mashed potatoes & gravy Side order of carrots Pancakes Spicy chicken sausages Grilled tender meal with Mac & cheese and hash brown casserole Home style chocolate chip cookies

The biscuit and cornbread mixture were fine, I was told it did taste like bacon, my spouse doesn’t eat meat. The dumplin’s was a single dumplin, it was one giant gummy ball and my niece didn’t like it. There wasn’t any moisture either, not one drop. The Mac and cheese was good, both nieces loved it. Mashed potatoes and gravy, them being chunky wasn’t a big issue but, them lacking season was the issue. The side of carrots were good just overly mushy. The pancakes, I was told by the individual who they were for that they were dry and only 1 bottle of syrup was given. When the syrup was poured over the pancakes, it was if it never happened. Spicy chicken sausage was good, there wasn’t an issue with them. The grilled tender meal was deceiving. The tenders looked like nuggets however, they were moist. The hash brown casserole was super salty. I was advised that it was overwhelming salty and they couldn’t eat another bite. The biscuits that were supposed to go with the meal were missing so, I stand corrected when I said nothing was missing. The chocolate chip cookies, the homestyle chocolate chip cookies….. wow! I was flabbergasted when I opened the bag. They sent prepackaged FROZEN cookies. Is this normal? The cookies are served frozen and in a plastic package?

I gave a one star because the last couple of times I ordered, something was missing or something was wrong. The last time I ordered, the white gravy tasted like nothing but bacon grease, the chicken tasted like the fryer needed to be changed as it was burnt tasting and they left the biscuits off. The time before that, I saw on the menu they had pecan pie so I ordered it. When the pie came to us, it was a chocolate pecan pie. There was no indication that chocolate was in the pie and the person who the pie was for is deadly allergic to chocolate.

Cracker Barrel has definitely changed from when I was younger to what it is now. I guess with this being the third time that the food quality was unpleasant, I have to let this...

If I could give less than a star I would. This is sadly not my first bad experience at this location but it will be my last. The restaurant itself was cold, like Waffle House cold! They had a nice fire built but they weren’t seating anyone even near it. I ordered the new steak and shrimp combo off the menu. The waitress came back about 15 minutes after I ordered to say due to me ordering steak our meal would be “delayed”. I’m fine with that, I ordered a well done steak and I don’t mind waiting for it to be cooked to my liking. An hour goes by, she’s not brought out biscuits or cornbread yet. I finally ask if I can at least get those brought to the table and she brings a basket with 2 biscuits and 1 cornbread muffin for 2 people, no butter, no jelly. I ask about our food because again it had been well over an hour by then. 2 other tables had seated, been served and were now leaving by the time we finally got our food. My steak was paper thin, no flavor and thrown on the plate with a handful of fried okra. No shrimp in sight so I had to ask for that then wait another 10mins for it to arrive. I asked to speak to the manager who advised my meal was so delayed because they had to thaw the steaks. No apologies, other than that. I pointed out that the restaurant wasn’t even busy. Again no apologies, just staring at me like “okay and” so I then informed him that I would not be paying for this “meal” and asked if he could handle that or did I need to contact corporate, to which he responded with I’ll handle that, enjoy your “meal” and walked off. Our waitress who agreed the restaurant wasn’t having many issues but she could not change them alone seemed apologetic at our table but what they fail to know or don’t care is you can see the 10 employees gathered in the kitchen talking and acting like I had the AUDACITY to complain. Yes, your customer is the reason your service is HORRIBLE! Anyway I won’t be back and I’ll make sure no one I know or come in contact with visits THIS...