Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Florida

The unprofessionalism and lack of training was real here.Three people messed up taking my order. And my husband felt we were harassed waiting in the gift shop for our order to be ready. It was so bad we went to go sit on the porch area just to get away from the harassing employees. Let me start from the beginning. To begin with, we wanted to order to go. There were two lines. I went in one line, when I made it to the register I was told, I was in the wrong line, that I needed to go to the register at the other end of the counter,because that’s the “to go line”. #1 NO ONE WAS THERE-to take our order. They ended up finding a young lady to take our order. She took our order,asked our name for the order, then went to the back( never came back out) ( back ground I haven’t been on the inside of a Cracker Barrel since I was a child. I am now 32 years old) I only have ordered off uber eats, for breakfast within the last few years. But this day I wanted meat loaf. And Fred’s, a great soul food buffet restaurant was closed for Easter. So I thought I would try Cracker Barrel. BIG MISTAKE!!!

#2 HARASSMENT while my husbands and I were just looking around the gift shop. We were approach three different times in a five minute time frame. Twice was by an old lady( looked around 60) worker, with long grey hair in a ponytail. The first time she came up to us and asked “ can I help you”. I told her “no, we have put in an order, we are just looking around the gift shop wasting time untill our order was ready.” So my husband and I continue to walk around the gift shop, and at the same exact time, THE SAME LADY approaches me again, while at the same time a young man approaches my husband. Again the “ can I help you question”. So I reiterate Thai we have already place an order and are just waiting for our food. ( like I said before, we don’t normally go to Cracker Barrel, so we thought it was perfectly ok for us to look around the gift shop while we wait for our order, there were plenty of other people looking around the gift shop as well) At this point my husband felt uncomfortable and asked the employees can we just wait for our order outside? They told us sure, and asked did we want to pay for our order before or after. I told them “ yes we can pay for our order now, to get that out of the way” so they took us to the front registers.

#3 COULD NOT FIND OUR ORDER! The young man says he can’t find our order. I told him we just came up and ordered five minutes ago. He asked us “who took Our order”. I told him some young lady that took our order and went to the back, and never came back out. He then tells a lady that he can’t find my order. She asked what did we order. My husband whispers in my ear “ we are not welcome here, and he wants to go”. I start to tell her what I ordered, but I also told her, if they don’t already have my order placed, my husband doesn’t want to reorder, we will just go. She tells me she found my order. The person who initially took our order, just didn’t put NO NAME on it. They asked our name for the order, I told them Jasmine. They tell us they will let us know when our order is ready. I tell them “ ok, we will wait outside , on the porch, if that’s ok”. They tell us yes, they will let us know when our order is ready.

#3 THEY PUT THE WRONG NAME My husband and I go and sit in two of the rocking chairs in the front of the restaurant, to wait for our order. We wait a while and eventually we hear “ Jessica’s order is ready” , over the intercom announced. My husband looks at me and ask, “ you don’t think they put down your name as Jessica ?” I tell him “no”. We wait 10 more minutes. And I tell my husband “ I have a feeling they did mess up my name. So I go inside to check. So the older lady see’s me and says “ Jessica, your order is ready”. I then tell her “ my name is Jasmine” as she is giving me my food I let her know this was weird #4 MANAGER SAYS “ what do you expect it’s Easter! Manager was a brown skin man, with his black wavy hair in a ponytail. I just wanted him to know what happened. He didn’t...

Cracker Barrel – Gibsonton, FL 4 stars

Ayo dig this: we pull up, ridin’ dirty and draggin’ boots from that long haul up I-75, comin’ off that Miami grind, tired like a preacher after revival. Parking lot packed tighter than a can of sardines at a Baptist fish fry—but somethin’ told me, “Hold up, daddy… this the one.”

Walk in, boom. One minute flat, we sittin’ pretty. They slid us a table like they done seen the chosen ones roll in. Then out the back come Jacob—smooth cat, flowin’ like jazz, menu in hand and eyes sayin’ “I gotchu, fam.”

Two minutes, he was back with drinks. Boy movin’ like he had rocket fuel in them Skechers. I said, “Mmm… this Cracker Barrel runnin’ like grandma’s kitchen on Sunday morning.”

Dropped that country fried steak in twenty flat—hot, crisp, smothered in gravy like it just got baptized in flavor. Portion hittin’ that Goldilocks zone: not too lean, not too mean—just right, dig? Thirty bones for two plates? That’s a steal, baby. That’s highway blessing.

But hold up—here come the twist. My baby girl Chloe, lil’ gourmet in sneakers, she askin’ for pickles. But what they bring? Sweet pickles. Bruh. Sweet. You coulda seen her soul leave her body. She hit me with that “Daddy, why they do me like this?” look, like I just put ketchup on filet mignon. Pickles went back, but the damage? Done.

She cooled off tho’. Biscuit came through like a hero—smothered it in butter so smooth it should’ve had a Motown beat behind it. Took some corn, some bites of my steak, and found her joy in the chaos.

Now let me tell you—kids ain’t even wanna stop. They was like, “Let’s just go home, Pop.” But after Jacob laid down that five-star service and that steak hit like a gospel chord, they was like, “Aight, yeah… that stop was worth it.”

So yo, Cracker Barrel Gibsonton? Y’all did the deed. You fed the fam, soothed the soul, and made a tired man smile. Just one note: keep them sweet pickles away from the real ones. Ain’t no forgiveness for a pickle betrayal.

Jacob—keep slidin’, keep shinin’. Cracker Barrel—keep feedin’ folks like they grandma’s pullin’ strings in the...

Every aspect of our experience here was bad. It's actually shocking that so many employees at one establishment can be this incompetent. I used to wait tables so I have a lot of understanding for this work and am able to let things slide when it's so busy but this was just too much. First the hostess, we walked in, our family of 7. She took our name and we stood aside to wait and look around. The hostess came over to talk to our 5 kids which was sweet. She started showing Halloween dresses to our 2yr old daughter and started handing them to her. I had no intention of buying anything like that and then had to take it away from my daughter and have her be so upset about it. She then gave my daughter hand sanitizer and tried to also give it to my 1 yr old. You are not their parent, you should not be handing them items or hand sanitizer. Boundaries! Then we were finally sat, waitress took our drink order then passed us off to another waitress because her shift had ended. The second waitress missed one of our orders, wasn't there for food drop off. We were missing silverware, the meal she never put in and another meal that just hadn't arrived, as well as the biscuits that came with the meals. We waited 10mins before she checked on us so we could let her know we were still missing these items. Took another 10-15 to get then after she told us it would only be a couple minutes wait. After this she pretty much disappeared until it was time for the check. No drink refills, no trying to make up for mistakes. I just don't understand this. Between the kitchen and front of the house mistakes, I can't bring my family back....