Brooks Shaw's Old Country Store — Restaurant in Jackson

This may not be a fair review. I am judging it against previous visits rather than all possible places. It is a wonderful place to stop for a first-time visit. I did so back in 1990. I have been stopping every time I come through and they are open ever since. My last several trips east I hit Jackson late at night and it was closed, so this was my first time since Lockdown. The parking lot is newly enlarged with more construction ongoing and mostly full. There was a wait. Maybe that is good news because it tells you the food is still good. There is a person just inside the door who takes your name, the number of your party and phone number. She has the day's buffet list available upon request. There is no individual ordering anymore. The cost of the buffet is about what I spend at a restaurant off a menu and you can see what you are picking, get as much as you want and as many items and it speeds up the service. While you are waiting to be seated you can shop in the general store. This may gain back the time you spend waiting as you probably will want to spend time looking over the offerings on your way out. After checking in you get a text with your approximate waiting time. Later another text that you are next. At this point you report to the cashier and prepay, including yourvbeverage order.. If you choose to tip with your card they give you cash back for the tip. I was there Nov 10 and overheard the cashier asking if people were local and a veteran. If they said yes to both she ask if they wanted to return tomorrow when their meal would be free. You can save more time if you feel you saw enough of the general store during your wait time and want to check it out now also. A hostess took me to a table and placed wrapped utensils. She also asked for my became order. I proceeded to the buffet. I was there at dinnertime. I was surprised to find the big grill on and a chef preparing fresh pancakes. I did mistake the chicken nuggets for fried squash. They were tasty if a little tough, real pieces of chicken not squished together shavings to make them perfectly sized. My only other problem with the food is I didn't find bar-b-q sauce as a condiment for my shredded pork. It was still good when I stuffed it in my roll. When I returned, my drink was not waiting. My waitress arrived promptly with a drink for a man seated at the table next to mine, that had been filled with two people finishing when I arrived. She then turned and asked what I would like to drink. And promptly left. This caused me to look around. All the tables seated four but very few had that more than two at them. I cannot review the restrooms for handicapped accessibility as they were being remodeled that day. Probably discussing accessibility I would say, if you are comfortable at Cracker Barrel you will be fine here. It is now very much like a buffet style Cracker Barrel, not the same real country place I found...

The worst dining experience I ever remember. The buffet was offered as if it were the only option and it cost almost fifty bucks for two people. We had to pay before being seated. That was a red flag. The food was all cold and rubbery and had clearly been sitting out all day. My mother and I tried to give it a chance (we had already paid, you see) but the veggies were room temperature and tasteless. The biscuits were hard. Sailors in the 1700s had better bread. The corn on the cob was shriveled up and caramel color. We mentioned these things to the waitress when she asked "how was everything?". She said she was sorry we didn't like it and would "tell them back there". We did not explicitly ask to speak with a manager, but we assumed that two people paying fifty bucks for a buffet and putting their forks down after two bites would be the kind of thing that would bring the manager out with an offer to discount the bill at least. Instead, the waitress came back out and told us with a shrug (!) that she "told them back there and they said they were putting out some fresh stuff now." As if it were all just bad timing on our part. You know, just go through the line and try again. No offer to refund, no real apology. The setup and the food and the service were all so bad it felt like someone was playing a prank on us. The hostess was rude, on top of it. They asked for our phone number to text us when our table was ready. We were the only ones waiting. It was five p.m. and the seats were 3/4 empty. They could have just said "hey, your table is ready" without all the unneeded tech. Now they have my phone number and will probably spam me with coupons for more expensive, inedible food served on dirty tables. Every part of the place was wrong. Paying ahead of time to be seated like it was a broadway play, when it was like eating at a church potluck you arrived two hours late for. You could get better food at the wakes of unidentified homeless people. Prisoners of war in third world countries had a better supper than I...

This has to be one of the worst places that we have ever reviewed. Now given most of the staff was nice. And there is obviously different parts to this place. But as for the buffet part and most of the staff on that area of the place was really not friendly or even cared if they came by and checked on us or refill our drinks. Everything that was in there was hard as a rock other then a couple of the items. Which was kind of good I will have to say there homemade strogan off and catfish was the only eatable thing they had on the whole bar. And there was dirty dishes where you get the clean ones. They where charging people to come in to eat and they never filled anything back up and people was like hey where is the food and they just said oh we are closing in a couple of hours so we are not putting nothing else out in the empty trys and that is so wrong to charge people to eat if you are not going to refill the buffet if you are still open for 2hrs. People save your money do not eat here. Oh and the walls where so filthy look like they had never been clean befor with splattered food and everything else my daughter got mash potatoes and went to eat a bit and there was a ball of hair in it. This place is nasty we ask to talk to a manager and all they would tell us is there is no one available...