Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Joliet

We went today 9/20/23. It was 4:30 pm. There were only a handful of customers in the restaurant even as we left at 5:30. Our server was very nice but she was very new and on her own. She was having difficulty taking our order and placing it on her tablet. There were 3 of us with 3 drinks and she left only 2 straws. My diet coke was very flat. Food came and the cornbread had been way overcooked. It was burnt in appearance and hard as a rock.Biscuits were good. We asked for fresh cornbread and were brought out the same overcooked and hard as a rock cornbread. Waitress even said that they looked burnt but still served them to us and did not offer us any from a fresh batch. My fried Chicken breast was warm but not hot, the fries were just warm and not hot and fresh. The coleslaw was cold and tasted ok. On Wednesdays they have a chicken special that Sandy had but it wasn't hot and fresh either. My son, Ken, had the shrimp and thought they were ok but left all the fries. He didn't like them but he usually finishes everything. We had the apples as a side and they were still cooking them but were hot and fresh when they came out to the table. Even though are glasses were empty, the waitress did not refill them until we asked her too. Overall, this was another not so great visit. We have been here when everything was good, food was hot, and service was on point but not today. As we were leaving, I asked the cashier to speak to the manager. The manager that had been on duty that afternoon left at 5 pm. He was a older guy and his clothes looked as fresh as I imagine they were when he came in that morning. He must have spent alot of time in the manager's office that morning. I spoke to a younger manager and gave him one of those rock hard cornbreads. He acknowledged they were extremely poor quality and should not have been served once and definitely not twice. I told him that we would have been completely happy to have waited for fresh ones instead of being served these rocks twice. He stated that he had some in the oven and would give me 4 to go as soon as they came up. He did and they were what cornbread from Cracker Barrel were meant to be. Hot, moist, and delicious. My fellow diners ate them in my car on the way home. Please, Please, Please, if your food is not up to standards, do not serve it to customers. It just hurts the entire Cracker Barrel chains name and desire for folks to return. Empower your servers to reject poor quality food and serve only the best. Any potential customers who are reading this, please make sure that you do not accept substandard quality food. Staff and management will not care if you don't care about food quality. Thank you for the fresh cornbread.

This was original review from 6 years before my updated review.

We were there today and our server was Jude. Jude is a new server. We placed our drink and food order at same time. Drinks came about 5 minutes later with hardly any ice which is not good if your having ice tea. Asked for glass of ice 3 times for the tea. It never came until the 4th time we asked about 20 minutes after our drinks arrived. At this time our server realized he never placed our food order! What? 5 minutes later we get biscuits and cornbread, more drinks, and server looks really overwhelmed. Restaurant was not busy. He only had 2 or 3 tables. We finally get our food. We eat and go to pay the check and when asked "how was everything" I had to speak up. Cashier was very concerned and called the manager. She apologized and discounted our check and promised to work with Jude and give him more training. I have never stiffed a server before but tonight I did. We go to Cracker Barrel at least once a month and it's a favorite when we are travelling. The service is usually very good. Very disappointed in the server but happy with the rest of the staff. Hope he gets the...

DO NOT GO ON THE WEEKEND OR A HOLIDAY!

Update 6/4/22: they need better wait staff. 2 Meals were smaller than normal and got charged for extra side when complained about small sides. There are 2 pictures of grits below and none were eaten from either because hubby doesn't like grits. The smaller of the two is what was served in the restaurant as a full order. The 2nd was a take out. Neither is full like normal! Waitress took take out meal to front when asked for it to be brought to table and it sat for about a half hour! Nothing was ever said that the meal was taken up front till hubby asked where the take out meal was. It was ice cold by the time he got home. He had to be at work by noon and he had say in the testator for over 1½hrs for the food. He had to ask for refills on his drink. My steak that was supposed to be medium rare & asked for no char was definitely charred. See pictures.

The only redeeming factor is their manager Angel. She's wonderful & always so polite to correct things.

Prior to 6/2: First off, I was a cook for a bit in Germany. I have a really good palate I've always been told.

This place is good ONLY If you dine in and you can send anything back that's not good orb correct.

We ordered 2 of the country samplers and I'm just so done with take out at this place. The manager refunded one meal, but they were both pretty gross. The meatloaf had huge chunks of UNCOOKED RAW beef, was heavily salted and yet little flavor(stopped eating everything when I found the raw bits).

The country ham was so extremely overly salty that it was inedible. The manager even said it is heavily salted. So then say that on the app and the menu! It's not.

Then the dumplings... Zero flavor. We put the dumplings, ham & meatloaf in the fridge and they will now be trashed because nobody wants to eat them!

The corn muffins are supposed to be a country corn muffin and my grandparents and parents are all from down south, so I grew up on country corn muffins &all the good 'ole fixins. They have zero corn and very little, if any, sugar like a good country corn muffin normally has.

The fried okra, which has been my childhood favorite for over 40 years, was soggy!

The Mac n cheese was bland. I give up. If you can't make a good Mac n cheese DO NOT CALL yourself a country restaurant! Period.

DO NOT EVER order their greens unless you like unclean chitterlings( some spell it chitlins), because that's what they tasted like they cooked them with: nasty, unclean pig intestines. So yeah, the whole meal was gross. Did I leave anything out? People who like their cooking obviously doesn't know what good country cooking is all about. Now when you sit in, it's a totally different experience! And if it wasn't for Angel, the manager, we wouldn't have came back. We're picky, but we just want what we pay for. Angel is worth 5 stars, but had to deduct...

Drove 30 minutes to come to this location… gave it a shot. I told the kid (hostess) that I needed a table for 2. I feel like his soul left his body, by the way he led us to a table. He took my boyfriend and I to a table that was still being cleared off… when there were 6 tables, we passed that were already cleared off and cleaned. On our way to the tables he drops our napkins… and just walks to the dirty table. My boyfriend went up to the kid and told him that we could sit “here.” (An already cleaned table). We sat down and waited for our waitress. After 10 minutes of waiting for her, she finally came. Normally the waitress would be like, what do you want to drink? Right?! Not at this place!!! The waitress asked us to order. I was already ready, but my boyfriend had questions to ask about the menu selection. Her responses were so bland. She was also talking very quietly, my boyfriend and I couldn’t hear her. We had her repeat what she was saying 3 times, PLUS we asked her to talk clearly and a little bit louder. We put in our order for the drinks and food. She brought out our drinks & food. Ummm… okay… so, we couldn’t enjoy our coffee first? My silverware was spotty. I was going to ask for newer, cleaner silverware but was afraid that we wouldn’t see our waitress for another 15 minutes. Our waitress was gone for a long time.. she didn’t come to check on us. Ask us “how was everything?” My boyfriend wanted toast.. He had asked another waitress. Guess what? She brought it out too! With in 5 minutes. And asked my boyfriend if it was okay?! Our waitress finally comes by.. asks if my boyfriend wants a box? I said yes. (Boyfriend stepped away to use bathroom). She came back with a box and placed it on top of his food. Yep! This girl is surely NOT deserving 5 stars!! Then another 10 minutes went by and she dropped off the check. We looked over the check and they charged us .99¢ each for a side of hash browns. The waitress told us that it came with the meal!! It was a side. Not an “extra cost” side. We spoke to the manager. She was explaining how we could have gotten the hash brown casserole with cheese. Umm yeah!! Nope. I don’t eat cheesy meals. I’m lactose intolerant.. We didn’t have a good experience at this location, in Joliet.

I didn’t look through the store. I did see a giant KitKat bar for $20… saw they had some planners by the door. Christmas ornaments by the register. Christmas stuff out as well. The cashier was friendly but didn’t know how to handle the situation when we asked...