Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Hewitt

Update 8/28/2025:

Well…we had breakfast again this morning at ~9:30 for the first time since all the CB rebrand brouhaha kerfuffle. The changes are pretty obvious, from the decor to the menus, although exterior signage remains unchanged (and apparently now will not change). The lighter color interior decor looks nice but was probably unnecessary. The menu changes appear to predominantly be in higher prices and confusing sides options, along with the new logo. Food quality and taste (had eggs, sausage, grits w/ biscuits and gravy) was ok however the smoked sausage patties didn’t taste smoked. On-table jelly choices were plentiful, as long as you love grape. They weren’t busy at all; maybe 20% occupied. I’m sure they’re hoping to be busier by this weekend. On the plus side, service was fast and friendly.

(3 years ago) Ordered Grandpa’s Country Fried Breakfast. When the meal arrived, I noticed some firm stringy residuals, which were similar to very light fishing line, lying on the eggs, which I had ordered over medium. I called our waitress over to ask about it and she said it was the crunchy part of the eggs and was ok to eat. I took a bite of it and soon began choking on the strings in my throat. I had to pull it out of my throat using my fingers. It was the consistency of plastic.

I looked at the eggs more closely and found even more of this stringy residue along with what appeared to be a number of human hairs. I asked our waitress to summon the manager since I had already brought the problem to the attention of our waitress and she made no offer to remake the order.

The manager arrived a few minutes later. I showed her the stringy residue along with what appeared to be hairs in my order. (The hair roots are clearly visible in the photos!) She immediately denied that anything was wrong in a condescending way and stated that she “has been in the restaurant industry for 9 years and there’s nothing wrong with my order”. I advised her that I had been eating at Cracker Barrel for 30 years and I know the difference between a quality breakfast plate and a contaminated one. I then ended the discussion and asked that she simply take my order off my bill. She’s said she would and to “have a good day” and walked away.

A few minutes later, our waitress brought me the bill. The “Grandpa’s” did not appear but instead I was being charged for a separate country fried steak and a separate order of hash brown casserole! The total of these two items was MORE than the cost of the my original order, the Grandpa’s breakfast. I decided to work out the problem at the cashier counter as I was leaving, since the manger was bent on playing games and treating me like a moron.

I explained the problem to the cashier when suddenly the manager appeared. I asked her why now is she charging me more than my original order after she had agreed to take it off. She said that I was right, that she shouldn’t have tried to charge me that way and she would (finally) take the order of my bill.

I told her that she obviously has no concept of true customer service.

This whole problem should have been immediately resolved at the waitress level with an apology and a cheerful remake...

The ONLY reason I am giving this a 1 rather then a 0 if I could is because both the cashier and our server was wonderful. The rest of everything was disgusting. When I arrived, they were not super busy and we were seated near the fireplace at a table with wobbly chairs. I can excuse this, most restaurants have that these days. What I can not excuse is the absolutely abhorrent grill worker that they had on staff for breakfast. You know there is something wrong with your cook or kitchen staff when you can not get the simplest egg preparation right. I should mention before I really start that I was here at 9:30 am - 10:30 am, so there during what should have been prime breakfast time.

Let me clarify here...I ordered the Bacn N' Egg Hashbrown Casserole, yesterday.

It is supposed to come with hashbrown casserole layered with cheese, crispy bacon, SCRAMBLED eggs, fried and green onions and diced tomatoes.

What I received however was what I have no name for. The hashbrown casserole was cooked to perfection but it was topped with a single layer of what looked like a super flat egg crepe thing that wasn't even half cooked... and when I say half cooked, as I went to poke it with my fork, the egg ooooooozed out of the sides and under the thin layer of what egg was done and into the hashbrowns in a watery snotty looking mess (SCRAMBLED INDEED...not). How the heck do you mess up scrambled eggs....

To make things worse, the bacon was browned on one side but somehow cold on top of the warm dish and the underside of the bacon still looked half cooked.

The fact that the tomatoes and cheese were altogether missing was the least of my worries, as the entire dish to the muchly raw egg on my plate that was barely warm made everything inedible. When I pointed this out to the waitress, she took care of it immediately and upon request gave me a lunch menu, as at this point I refused to order ANYTHING breakfast. I should not have been surprised when I then asked for the chicken fried chicken and got it in less time than it takes to cook it (almost immediately after ordering), only to be told by my server that it came out so quick because it had just finished 30 minutes ago.... meaning that my meal wasn't even fresh...joy of joys...

I will NEVER, ever, ever, ever... be eating here again, despite the redeeming wait staff... and I suggest many others take their business elsewhere also before someone gets sick from undercooked food or food that has sat too long...

It was a cascade of errors for the whole experience. We had a party of five on what appeared to be a slow Tuesday evening and they must have been understaffed because there were a lot of tables open. Seating could have been quicker but hey, first world problems.

We were finally seated and it took a long time for a server to come to the table, like five rounds of the tee and wood block game long, and she was friendly enough but stated immediately that she was very busy and it was "going to be a long night". I guess that meant for us as well.

Apparently, at Cracker Barrel, the new type of service is to pass the drinks to one person seated closest to the server and then that lucky patron gets to pass the drinks to their table mates. The pre meal biscuits and cornbread were both dry and a bit hard. The main courses took quite a while to get out and as a bonus, the piece meal approach to food delivery starts with some getting their whole order, some the wrong order and some a partial order. On top of that, it was pass the plates down the table homestyle again. I wanted to ask if I also get a brown apron with my name on it. The wrong order is easily fixed because it was a likely pre-made item. The rest of the partial order arrives approximately 10 minutes later.

The scrambled eggs were heavily salted and obviously sitting at the warmer for awhile. Bacon was underwhelming. Pancakes were inedible. They were almost fried due to a large amount of grease that must have been on the griddle and doughy on the inside and lukewarm.

No one came to check on the status of the meal after delivery to the table. It was only at the end of us sitting there with mostly non-consumed pancakes, eggs and bacon that we get a last refill of drink and the check.

The check was split between two parties and of course, had items switched. By that point, we just decided to cut any chance for another disappointment, pay the bill as is...