Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Londonderry

I arrived on a busy Sunday morning at about 11:20 check in and told it's a 40 minute wait. I okay and continue check in. I grab a drink in the store and go outside and sit on a bench to wait. Around 11:55 I get the text and head inside. The person in front of me was told 50 minutes, and declined to wait. I sit down and look around. A full third of the dining area was in the process of being closed after breakfast, I assume this is due to staffing issues. I glance at the menu and the ad on the table. I try a Strawberry Mimosa, some water, and order some of the barrel bites appetizers, White Cheddar Bites, and Biscuit Beignets. The waitress brings my water and mimosa, pouring it right out of the split in front of me. It was not a traditional mimosa as it was basically Sparkling wine with some strawberry flavoring at the bottom of the glass. Then I waited... and waited... and waited... My waitress didn't check in on me for over a half hour. At around 12:40 my barrel bites arrive. The fried cheese was hot and delicious, and the Beignets were light, airy, and covered in cinnamon sugar. I loved both of them. I waited another 10 or so minutes for my Grandma's Sampler Breakfast. It was easy to see it had sat in the back for sometime maybe before I even got the appetizers. The eggs and meats were cool the cheese on the eggs had time to harden. The butter on the pancakes never melted and the grits had set enough to solidify a lid. It all tastes good, just not as hot as it could/should have been. I don't know how long they have had these barrel bites but they may be having issues with timing service with them. I was then given a check without asking if I wanted desert or take advantage of the $5 take home meal. I ask if I could add the Fried Chicken with Mac and Cheese. The waitress brings it back with the same receipt so I need to wait a few more minutes to get an updated check and then make my payment with my mobile phone. Overall while I was disappointed in the timing of my service, and the temperature my main was served at, I will be back I liked the addition of barrel bites, the pricing was the best for the size of the appetizers you get, and it is my hope that the timing issues can be worked out. UPDATE: Back in on Sunday Night at around 7:30 and waited at the host stand, and waited, and waited some more. Finally 5-10 minutes later an associate at the desk finally checked to see if I had been helped. Another 2 or so minutes and I get seated. As soon as I can I order the cherry lemonade and the same two barrel bites as previously. I ordered my dinner and again waited. They still haven't gotten the course timing down as they were served back to back again. Cracker Barrel: give me 5-10 minutes to enjoy the appetizer! Also, STOP MAKING THE MEAL BEFORE THE BITES. Again my main meal was cold. The waitress felt uninterested in my dining experience as I could have used an additional refill, and ask me just a generic did you want anything else at the end. It's so easy to say no and I did because it's juste wrote. If she had asked me if I wanted a slice of coke cake I honestly would have said yes as I forgot all about it. same with the $5 take home meal until I saw the table card with it. Not suggestive selling or even reminding the customer of their existence is costing you guys money. Cracker Barrel I enjoy when I come to eat, I really do, but you got to work on timing especially if you want these things to succeed. Barrel bites are great so are the $5 take home meals. Just remind...

Went to Cracker Barrel today and all I can say is that it was a very weird experience.

I've been to Cracker Barrel before but the Londonderry location seems to be the dumping ground for servers who couldn't hack it at any other restaurant.

Before I get into that, the restaurant itself is cute and the gift shop is a good way to kill some time. That pretty much does it for the positive part of this review.

After waiting a good 10 minutes to even be acknowledged, our frazzled server, Rosemary M., came over to tell us that she had to take another order and would be back to take our drink order...and then, after noting the sideways glance of disbelief between me and my friend, she decided to just take our drink order. We informed her that we were ready to order and Rosemary proceeded to tell us that the kitchen can't handle more than one order at a time (?!?!) so she couldn't take our order then...and then took or order, all the while babbling about what order she would place the orders in with the kitchen.

Things really got bizarre when my friend asked for ketchup and steak sauce and the biscuits that she was supposed to receive but didn't. Rosemary M proceeded to basically argue with my friend over her requests - "try the meat first then decide if you want the ketchup and steak sauce" and as for the biscuits, we got to hear the harrowing tale of how she was barely able to get the biscuits that came with my order. Rosemary did eventually return with all of the requested items and then dropped the check off before we were even three bites into our food, telling us that it was "no rush".

Well, Rosemary M., I have quite a bit of experience as a server myself, so let me give you some advice.

If you keep a table waiting for 10+ minutes without a bit of acknowledgment, you had better at least be ready to take a drink order when you finally decide to show up.

Customers aren't in the least bit interested in what goes on in the kitchen. This is why we are paying to go out to eat- so we can relax and enjoy ourselves. It is HIGHLY unprofessional to make excuses and make it extremely obvious to your customer that you ARE rushing them, even though you keep stating the contrary.

If we want your opinion, we'll ask for it. It's none of your business if we want to put ketchup on our meat or our ice cream. It IS your business to promptly meet the customer's request with a smile.

After all of that, the food was just ok. My breakfast was decent, even though I ordered my eggs over hard and they came over easy. The grits were gross and I'm not sure why they include these on the menu in the North- it's just not our thing.

I can honestly say that I have never had an experience in any other restaurant in my life where the server was so contrary and unwilling to be of any service. And I have a feeling that the service is generally lacking in this location, based on the fact that the server waiting on the table next to us was actually complaining about being there to her customers!!!

The only thing that makes me glad about my experience today is that I now know that there's no reason to...

FOOD:

Food quality has definitely plummeted. Cracker Barrel used to be the place you go to get a big hot plate of home cooked meals. Now it’s become the smallest portions they can get away with serving, (while still charging $15-$22 a plate) at the kind of quality you’d expect to get out of a can. The food I ate made me feel nauseated, and my partner couldn’t finish hers because it was so gross. When she ordered a dish with steak tips, we were told it only came cooked one way—well done. They refused to cook it any other way, the meat itself was gristly and tough. My partner literally had to spit a piece out because it was all gristle. Overall, the food is cheap, low-effort, flavorless, and greasy.

SERVICE:

When we were seated it didn’t take long for our server to come greet us, she was friendly and took our drink order. However she was underage so another member of the wait staff had to serve us our mimosas. Which was fine, but after 20 minutes of waiting we had asked if our mimosas were coming. She said she would go get someone to bring them out, and someone did after some more time had passed.

We ended up having an issue with the mimosa we had ordered. It had been at least 15 minutes and we hadn’t even been checked up on once. I finally had to flag our server down to address the issue. This time she was combative about our concern, she kept cutting off my partner when she was speaking, and rolled her eyes at us and walked away.

When our app came out I asked for napkins, since we didn’t get any, and the server just said ‘okay’ and never returned. Now our hands were dirty (we got fried pickles) and we couldn’t wipe them off for the rest of the time we were there.

Finally our food came out and I again asked for napkins and also silverware, so we could eat our food. Same response; she ignored us and walked away. She delivered the table next to us their food, brought drinks to other tables, and kept walking past us while our food was getting cold.

I had enough and walked up to the manager who had been standing in the doorway of the kitchen the whole time, and told her that our server was giving us a horrible attitude, refused to give us any napkins or silverware, and now our food had gone cold. She just said ‘okay you can leave.’ Didn’t offer an apology, or any kind of solution to the problem.

So I asked for to-go boxes since it had been 2 hours since we’ve been here and we haven’t been able to touch our entrees. She was starting to argue something but all she really did was grumble and grab the to-go boxes so I could leave.

My partner and I have always loved Cracker Barrel. We don’t often go out to eat and this restaurant is an hour from our house, so we very specifically made the trip to eat at our favorite restaurant. It’s a shame that what used to be such a great restaurant is under incompetent leadership, and are employing people who are just rude and unhappy.

Will not...