Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Franklin Township

The hostess sat us at a table in the back corner. It was pretty cold. We noticed multiple employees walking around the dining room, but none of them approached our table for at least fifteen minutes. The waiter, who had walked by us at least five times told us that he never saw us. Finally, we got to place our orders. Our drinks came out first and we had ordered a coca cola, an ice water and a half and half tea. When the waiter brought the drinks to the table, I noticed that the half and half did not look like any half and half tea I'd ever seen before. I took a sip and it was the most sour thing I ever tasted. I asked him if he could exchange it and make it a little better. Maybe add some more iced tea to it. He also forgot to bring the glass of ice water to the table. When he brought the tea back, it was absolutely disgusting.I don't think he understands what a half and half is. I asked him to take it off the bill and just bring me an ice water. We ordered the fried pickles as an appetizer. The batter on the pickles was a bit heavy for my liking, however my boyfriend enjoyed them. For our meals, I ordered the Chicken Fried chicken. A side of hash brown casserole, which is usually one of my favorite things to get on my plate and the onion petals. My boyfriend ordered a country fried steak with mac and cheese and mashed potatoes. When our food finally arrived, nonchalantly, may I add as the waiter did not pay any care or attention to us whatsoever, but when it arrived, i noticed that there was no gravy on my Chicken Fried chicken. I've ordered this dish at least fifteen times in previous visits and have never not had gravy on my chicken.There wasn't even any on the side, and I had to ask the waiter for some. I noticed that my hash brown casserole was slightly burnt on the bottom, not as creamy as usual, and it was very cold.It almost seemed as if it had been left over from breakfast. Mind you, we were there at five pm. The onion petals lacked flavor. The sauce that comes with the onion petals, i'm assuming they expect you to dip it in there because that's where all of the flavor was, but a bit too much for me because it was extremely spicy. The best part about my dish was that the chicken was cooked perfectly. However, the two different chicken pieces were very different in size. The country fried steak meal was decent. The only item on the plate that my boyfriend complained about was the mac and cheese as he said it was very bland. During our visit, the waiter never once asked us how our food was. He never checked on us except one time to ask my boyfriend, only my boyfriend, if he needed a refill on his soda. When we got up to the register to pay normally, they ask us how the meal was. No one asked us how the meal was. They just asked us if we wanted to sign up for the rewards program.I told them not after that meal. Overall, I would say that the waiter that we had was very aloof and did not understand what serving a guest meant. The food was extremely lackluster, and as disappointing as it sounds, I don't know.If I'll ever visit this location of a cracker...

We drove about 45 minutes to this location as it's the closest/most direct from home. Upon arrival we were greeted by a host/manager who was huffing and hawing before acknowledging/seating us. Our server was very upfront that there would be an approximately 40 minute wait for food, information that the host did not mention. We drove all the way there, we're fine waiting. During our wait, we were privy to many disgruntled guests who had waited 45+ minutes for their order with little update. They eventually got up and left with just a drink bill. Others' orders were simply "lost". The same host would be seen and heard roaming the floor while muttering obscenities to himself. At some point a family was seated at a table adjacent to us with garbage still on it, with the host giving a cursory wipe with a dry napkin. All while making digs at the server "who thought it was 'funny' to put garbage on a clean table". That family was rather put off and immediately up and left. When the host returned with a wet rag to "finish the job" on the dirty table and saw the family had left he exclaimed anger in the middle of the floor. While waiting we had to ask multiple times for biscuits and cornbread, which arrived with cornbread that seemed maybe underdone? It was just weird. After about 50 minutes we received our food with issues. I ordered meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and steamed broccoli. My meatloaf portion was tiny, my broccoli was cold and barely steamed, and was told after waiting that they had no mashed potatoes -- which was pretty upsetting after waiting that long, especially after seeing other nearby tables have mashed potatoes. Another member of the party was given fries instead of fried apples, but that was quickly resolved. Absent potatoes I took the erroneous fries. Overall the food was mostly good of what we received (other party members were mostly pleased) and our server did well under fire from a large number of angry diners. I appreciate the transparency from our server and could tell she was very frustrated with everything.

Normally, I'd just chalk this up to a bad night, but there were symptoms of a staff in disarray, poorly managed, and everyone fending for themselves. The host's outward behavior was deplorable. The kitchen staff seemed extremely overwhelmed. I won't blame the server because she was taking hits from all sides while getting no support from the host/manager. Running out of key dinner menu items at about 6:30pm is wild on a Saturday night. Whether that was true or a story given to us to prevent us from waiting another 45 minutes for mashed potatoes is irrelevant. That's what the customer is being told and paints a picture of unpreparedness. While not enough to prevent us from coming back, it will make us not want to return any time soon considering the time it takes...

This was hands-down the worst experience I’ve ever had at a Cracker Barrel. I wrote a review 6 months ago for another location in PA and gave them 5-stars, but tonight the Cracker Barrel in Clinton will be lucky to get 3. I’ve eaten here before and have never experienced this type of food or lack of interest from any Cracker Barrel manager before. It started with the food taking over 45 minutes to arrive. When we mentioned it, the manager claimed they “got swamped.” It's after 8pm when the food arrived. So, that simply wasn’t true. We watched the table next to us arrive after us, get served, eat, and leave before our food even hit the table.

The waiter dropped ½ my order. That was minor we all have dropped and broken a plate before. It had my eggs and bacon on it. No big deal, but by the time it did come out again we were all done eating.

Anyways when our food finally arrived after a long wait, my granddaughter and I finally got our pancakes, they were basically inedible (not the waiter fault, but the kitchens fault). They were hard and thin or maybe they were just old and stale. Either way they weren’t good. Hers was even worse than mine if that was possible. When she went to pick out her candy, we looked at her pancakes and noticed the top looked dirty. We then flipped hers over and saw the bottom was filthy from a dirty grill. You could see the black carbon and lard from the grill and when you tasted it you had to spit it out. We showed the manager, and you could clearly see the grime from the grill. His response? “I’ll let the kitchen know to clean the grill before fixing pancakes.

The only saving grace was that my husband’s food was good enough for him to swap plates with me halfway through, and the two other grandkids enjoyed their mac-n-cheese. But when the best thing you can say about a meal is that the biscuits were fine, that’s a problem. Cracker Barrel should be embarrassed by the food quality and lack of care we experienced here.

We will be back even though this was a bad experience, because I do know that this isn’t their norm, and I do so like Cracker Barrel in general and enjoy shopping for home décor for each holiday. We have eaten at this location before and will eat there again. I will post another review for this location after my next visit and hopefully they will be back on track with the other...