Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Junction City

Absolute worst dining experience I've ever had and I'm 55 years old! Called ahead to see if they were busy and they weren't. We were about 15 minutes away, got there and the parking lot was mostly empty, got inside and there were a couple tables occupied in each room. The hostess stated they couldn't seat us for 15 minutes as they are short staffed in the kitchen and they would be overwhelmed. We weren't allowed to be seated and wait and oh, by the way our intercom is not working, so can you just come back and check in again in fifteen minutes? We spent 10-15 minutes walking around the store, 5 adults and 6 kids. We were finally seated at 7:03. By the time we got our drinks and order taken it was 7:20 but then we were told they can't put the order in all together, it will overwhelm the kitchen. They put in the 5 kids orders, then the 5 adult orders. My pre-teen grandsons ordered the Chicken BLT with fries. One of the plates had 8 fries on it. Not a serving, 8!!! Sending out a half empty plate is never acceptable. Adults food came 10-15 minutes later, kids were done and ready to go. They came out to tell my husband that what he ordered was not available, he ordered the Friday night special, coastal sampler, 2 pieces of cod with shrimp. They were out of cod but offered to substitute catfish which he agreed to. When his plate arrived he had 2 fish nuggets and a HANDFUL of fries, mostly crumbs, he said I thought they were sending catfish, no she stated they found 2 pieces after all. And I do mean pieces. Each the size of a large chicken nugget. They weren't a piece of anything. She did go back and get the catfish but by then everyone else was done and ready to go. When my and my daughters plates arrived none of them were correct. Not a single one. My older daughter got half a serving of Mac and cheese (you could see where they scooped half of it off) and no broccoli or fried apples. My younger daughter got loaded mashed potatoes but no broccoli or apples. I got the other half of my daughter's mac and cheese which I DID NOT order and no apples. Only after complaining did they say they were out of apples, instead of letting us know that, just dished up whatever they wanted. And did NOT fix the ticket to reflect that despite saying they would. Worst meal and service I've ever seen, anywhere. We left there at 8:46. We got there at 6:45 to an almost empty restaurant that had half the items unavailable at 7:20 when we ordered. We took pictures, what a disgrace. Never again. Don't know how to post pictures but...

I’m giving this location a 3 star simply because they have been really good in the past but today sadly is the first time we have ever been disappointed. They seemed under staffed like most places and that’s understandable. The waitress was clearly overwhelmed, it took her a while to get our drink order and it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal given the situation however, 2 tables behind us were sat after us and they were serviced first. So it kind of frustrated us. After she did take our drink order, seemingly wrote it down she brought coffee only and had to ask what the rest of our drink order was. After that it took her a bit to bring the rest of our drinks out. Our water cups looked dirty, she claimed it was due to mineral build up, ok fine however looking around our cups were the only ones like that. So it was a little hard to believe. Our OJ cups did not have the same “buildup” she claimed the water cups had. Finally we were able to order our food. Again, the tables behind us were served first and by the time they got their food, ate, the table had been cleaned and new customers had been sat and served their drinks while we were still waiting for our food. Our food came, it was cold. Our over medium eggs; my husbands were more sunny side up and mine were closer to over hard/fried and very hardly even warm. Even the hash brown casserole was cold right out of the kitchen. I’ve never had that happen before. When we ordered our bacon she asked if we wanted it crispy or regular. We both asked for regular cooked. Well unfortunately we got some pretty burnt bacon. Even the flavor of the bacon was burnt. Our sons confetti pancakes tasted burnt and honestly weren’t good at all. My husband asked for more coffee and was told it would take ten minutes before she could bring it out to him, I guess it was being made. He never got more coffee. At least the...

We originally called the Junction City KS location to place a to go order. The recording advised us that we could not do so on mothers day and we would need to place the order online. We placed our order, there was no option to remove gravy from our country fried steak, so we called immediately after the order was placed to have that corrected. The employee told us it was corrected and not a problem. We arrive to the store ahead of time, our food was ready, great. I checked our food before leaving to discover both country fried steaks had gravy, even though we called about it. The employee working the register took the order back to have it corrected. Our original order was left on the cart without anything to keep it warm. We asked how long it would take for the new country fried steak to be cooked and we were met with "I don't know I'm not a cook". At this point we are very frustrated. We were assured our food would still be warm as the container retain heat for 45 minutes. We arrived probably 10 minutes before our order was supposed to be ready and waited another 5 or so minute for the corrected meal to come back out. After we received the full correct order we headed home (5 minutes away) to eat our food. This is where the situation gets worse.

Our food was not only cold, but raw in the center. The fries, broccoli, apples, our sons meal, everything was cold. The rawness of the country fried steak was gross so I didn't eat any more of my meal. We called the store to speak to the manager on site to address our concerns.

The manager without concern or any form of empathy or responsibility told us he could have another one made for us. No apology was verbalized for the poor service or food. Its really a shame that this location is not living up to the quality of service I have known from...