Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Lakeland

Cracker Barrel Lakeland, Tn April 9, 2024

We went to celebrate our Anniversary today! Waitress seemed great, but truly not sure, if a waitress issue or manager who blamed waitress.

Anyway sharing, so hopefully a district supervisor over this store & management can prevent future disappointments and bad service!

We ordered and started with great service with coffee and biscuits prior to meal arriving. All was well until we received main meal. I ordered what my husband always gets which is the hash brown breakfast. It’s always tasted good when I tried some of his! He selected a different meal for a change. When the waitress bought us our food she looked and she said oh, they forgot the toppings; as I also looked and was thinking the same thing.

Before I asked for her to get a manager, she offered to get a manager and said she was going to see if they were out of the topping because I asked that question! I also told the waitress that if they were out of those toppings they shouldn’t be selling this item or at least tell the customer, so they can make the decision, if they still want it!

It did not taste the same at all! I didn’t want to eat it because I was waiting to see, if she was gonna bring some toppings out and I was also waiting for a manager who never showed her face. My husband has already finished his meal. When the waitress told me she was going to cut up the toppings herself and bring them to me and I told her, “ Oh you don’t have to do that’s not your job!” I felt bad that she was having to do something that the manager needed to correct, if kitchen issue. Still, no manager throughout our meal showed up to ask us what was wrong. When the waitress finally brought out the toppings, my food was pretty much cold, but I tasted it, and it made a true difference in the taste. It was still a different consistency when it was just hashbrowns, cheese, and a scrambled egg on top of it and two pieces of bacon. I could’ve just ordered one of the regular breakfast with two eggs, bacon and biscuits and whatever side meal , if I’d wanted that!

So I went out to the checkout area and asked one of the clerks out there to get the manager for me. The manager came out. I told her about what happened with the meal and she pretty much blamed the waitress, so at this point I don’t know who’s at fault, doesn’t really matter the whole thing was that my meal was wrong, simple as that! The manager came out. I had to start telling her what happened. All she wanted to do was tell me the procedures of the kitchen, and who was doing what and that it was the waitresses fault, but she wasn’t offering any solution for the Problem! I told her I didn’t expect to get my meal for free, but I at least expected a discount; of course, having been in customer service for years an apology would’ve been very nice! She went to check us out and give a discount …all she did was give us my husband hash brown casserole side off, which was like a two dollar discount, so the bill was originally as you can see on the receipt; $37 and some odd cents and once she took the casserole off, it was only $35 & odd cents. I truly felt like an apology would be the number one importance for a manager just tell the customer & to correct the problem to their best of their ability and to be fair on both sides. At least give half off on my $11.99 meal that was done incorrectly that would’ve been truly fair on both sides! She acted like I was “pulling teeth” to ask for discount, and there was no excuse for all of her excuses being given to me! If I had not insisted on least some type of discount, I believe she would’ve just walked off and let me walk off too, and pay my bill!

Truly disappointed and disgusted of the improper way the manager handled everything!! I know that there are some people that go to restaurants and they eat and they complain to get their money back because I have a daughter that’s been a waitress, this not us! We will not be going back to the Lakeland Tennessee Cracker Barrel for a while!

Receipt/food...

highly don’t recommend. Today was graduation day for a lot of people and i understand that. When i got here and checked in my family of 4 adults and the kids, i was told the wait would be about 30 minutes. completely fine. i understand a large party having to wait. The hostess proceeded to tell me she didn’t need my name and that we needed to be inside to be sat. well we went outside anyway because of the kids and all of the breakable items in the store. i sat outside for about ten minutes and came inside by myself to wait on the hostess to let me know we could be seated. i walked around for a bit and then went to see how much longer it would be and not only did i see the party that came in BEHIND us get sat with the same amount of people but then was told there was another party in front of me that we had to wait on. I did become a bit irritated but kept my patience. we finally got sat at our table and after about ten minutes, our waitress came to let us know she would be with us shortly. i could tell she was extremely busy so i continued to be patient. she took our order maybe 40 minutes later being completely attentive in between and getting our drinks and whatever else we needed. after about 30 minutes of waiting on our food i was getting annoyed as i started to see people who came in after us getting their food. about an hour after we ordered and still didn’t have our food i asked to speak with the manager. Well then all of a sudden our food was done and it was rushed out by our waitress and the manager. My mother in law and i explained our frustration and experience and she was absolutely no help at all. she proceeded to tell us that our ticket had only been up for thirty minutes and basically she wasn’t going to do anything to help our experience at all. And then on top of it all. my brother in laws ham literally smelt like feet and tasted awful. my food was barely even warm. On the bright side our waitress was wonderful. she apologized not only just on her behalf (even tho she had nothing to apologize for) but also for her rude manager and the slowest kitchen in the business. Her name was Deb. if you ever go, ask for...

Easter Sunday lunch after church our server was very attentive on such a busy day! 10-16-23 I must update my original review. I went to have dinner tonight with my fiance and our friend from out of town. We were seated immediately and the server took our drink order then when we got our basket of biscuits & corn bread I asked for napkins, because they gave us silverware in a brown bag but no napkin was included. That's when our server informed us that they were out of napkins. We actually thought they were kidding with us but they weren't. They said they were getting a delivery later this week so they will have some then. I asked them if they could bring us some paper towels and the two servers were unsure. We asked for the manager she came out and explained that they had no napkins and we told her we could not believe that a restaurant would be serving food with no napkins available. They she offered to bring us paper towel, which they did and gave us a tri fold single-ply paper towel like what you see the bathroom. And we got one for each of us. I went into the bathroom and got more from the dispenser myself. On my way back I ran into a lady that was waiting to be seated and I told her that she may want to get extra paper towels from the ladies bathroom due to a napkin shortage. She had the same reaction that I had, disbelief, then told me that her parents came a week ago for breakfast, they ordered pancakes but they was out of syrup. When I returned to my table my group told me they brought us some real napkins. The young man came by to let us know they found napkins in the office. We were glad to have real napkins but we all wondered how does a busy restaurant like Cracker Barrel run out or so low on napkins that they are hidden in the office and not freely given to paying customers? So bring your own napkins and maybe even pancake syrup! The food was not the quality that we have had there in the past and because it was so disappointing all the way around, we won't be returning...