Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Huntsville

If you want cold food you are at the right location, If you want rude, nasty and disrespectful service ask for Amanda to be your server. Please read why. You've been warned. On Jan 11 2024 My (4yr) son and I went to this location around 10:45 to eat breakfast. This was the worst experience I've had at this location, now I had 2 other not so good experiences but they were light and fixable. This time I have had enough. I walked to the host stand and there were two ladies. One was being trained and the other was training her. The one training advised me it would only be a couple of minutes they were cleaning tables. So since it would only be a few minutes my son and I stood right by the host stand. She got my name and moved on to the next folks that came in behind us. I watched them seat several people and after I began to notice that people that came after us started to get seated I spoke up. So the one that was doing the training and had supposedly entered our name was gone. There was another lady at the host stand and that's who I asked "what was our status on being seated?' Mind you this few minute wait had turned into a 15 min wait. She started to scroll their pad and I said excuse me you shouldn't have to scroll that far. We've been standing here for some time and others have been seated that came after us. She said I'm sorry but I don't see your name. Instantly I am agitated (I didn't mention we stop here on our way to an appointment so time is valuable). She said sorry I will seat you all now. We got seated in Amanda's area. She came and because I knew we didn't have too much time to browse and needed to order I advised her we were ready to order. I ordered the grandma breakfast for us to share. As we waited the couple across from us had to ask her where the pancakes that they sent back to be warmed up. That was a red flag right then but not a big deal. One of the other employees brought our food out and ice cold syrup. Now the waiter never came to check on us but I could tell she was swamped and seemed under pressure and agitated. She finally was coming back to the area to bring coffee to a couple 2 tables away, I said Excuse me she turned around and gave me the dirtiest look a person could, " I said can you bring us some warm syrup?" She gave me another nasty look and snatched the syrup and I said "oh she didn't like that" as she nastily walked away. This heffa stopped, turned around at the end of the aisle and yelled out NO I DIDN'T LIKE THAT I DON'T LIKE BEING YELLED AT. I said excuse me I didn't yell at you but I did need to get your attention. At that point I was further agitated. I felt my food was just as cold as that cold syrup. I said you know what I don't have to take this got up and my son and I left. Before leaving I talked to the manager on duty and he was just as bad as Amanda that I don't even know his name. Moral of this story If you want cold breakfast you are at the right place, If you want rude, nasty, disrespectful service ask for Amanda to be your server. Three times is a charm and I will never give these clowns another chance. I will never spend another dime at this place and truly think I will never go to another location at all. I will definitely tell my family and friends and have already started. Funny thing, a few people I talked to have already said I can't believe you went there anyway, they are horrible. If you wake up and are not in good mood and work in/with public please...

I get that most businesses are severely understaffed right now, so I am willing to wait for a table or wait longer for service and food. However, what I am not willing to do is spend any more money with a place with very rude employees. My mother and I visited yesterday for lunch, the older lady that was the hostess was more concerned with her drink than she was concerned listening to us. My mom told her that we had 2 adults and a baby in a stroller, she put us down and told us it was would be 10 minutes. About 20 minutes later she called us up. Immediately seeing the stroller, my mother, and myself, she rudely says, “Uh, I had three adults down.” My mom said, “no ma’am, I told you it was two adults and a stroller- maybe you just didn’t hear me correctly.” The lady got defensive and told my mom that she had limited hearing in her right ear, my mom said she understood, it’s no problem and we proceeded to go to our table. She (still having an attitude- like we were an inconvenience) told the guy seating us that he needs to make sure that the table had enough room for a high chair. I told her we would just keep him in the stroller because he is too young to sit in a high chair. She said, “well, the table won’t accommodate a stroller! we’ll just get a booster seat.”

At this point I’m frustrated. My mother and the man have already gone to the table and she’s still trying to argue with me. I said, “Ma’am, he is five months old. He can’t sit up by himself yet- he’s too young and can’t use that either. It’s no problem, I just will keep him in his stroller.” She snapped at me and yelled, “WELL, ALRIGHT THEN!” So I snapped the same phrase back at her. I have never ever been to a restaurant and been yelled at by anyone, especially a “hostess”. It ruined our entire meal. I’ve been going to this restaurant for 15 years and will never be back. Find yourself a more personable, friendly hostess.

The food wasn’t as good as it has been in the past and our table was not cleaned at all before we sat down. There were still crumbs all over it and it was sticky. So gross. The only positive was the nice waitress we had.

Still, it doesn’t deserve even one star. Drake Ave....

Cracker Barrel is 99% consistent wherever you find one. Huntsville's CB is no different. The menus have changed a bit due to the "current situation" but the old favorites are still available. Today I was looking for a reasonably priced, filling breakfast. The Smokehouse (meat, eggs, biscuits, grits and gravy) was tempting but I chose the Sausage, biscuits and gravy (3 biscuits, 2 pieces of sausage or bacon and gravy) for $3 less and easily as filling. The food was served quickly, hot and tasty. The coffee was fresh, hot and "bottomless" (I think the gravy 'refills' are also free, if you really wanted more). My server today was Melissa D and she was friendly and very good at her job-kept the ice water and coffee filled and checked on me several time during the meal. Speaking of the "current situation", the staff was doing a good job of observing precautions. The store area is marked with spacing locations on the floor, but the store is crowded with both people and merchandise and it's hard to keep distances due to the layout, but everyone was wearing masks in the public areas away from the actual dining tables. The only gaffe I noted was when the hostess was asked by two older ladies if they could sit while they waited, she pulled two chairs up immediately beside an older gentleman who was already sitting. The result was three "higher risk" individuals sitting less than 12" apart. Otherwise, the restaurant was clean and tables sanitized between seatings, with every other table "closed" to provide spacing. All of the staff that I saw were wearing their masks properly. Overall, a strong effort. I recommend Cracker Barrel. You know what to expect and you usually get it: it's not "fine dining" but very good and reasonably-priced food, a variety of menu choices, and consistent quality at all the locations. Do yourself a favor next time you go and grab a treat from the many "vintage" confections they keep stocked-it will bring back a little bit of...