Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Nebraska

We usually come to this place and absolutely love the food and the hash brown casserole. This time was a totally different experience. First of all we arrive, Nobody was there to greet us for almost 5 minutes at the front end. We came at about 4:15pm and it was slow. We did that thinking obviously maybe better service and quicker food. So we get there we get handed a couple brown paper bags which I was told has silverware in them, which mine was shorted a knife. We were then we were told by the server that they had a knife shortage and they were still ordering 500 knives and some of the silverware that they served at the tables had knives and some didn’t, okay Lol??? Secondly, the server tells us she’s waiting to leave and they were supposed to be there somebody there at four to cover her and seem to really didn’t want to be there at all. So then proceeded to order our food. Our server didn’t even bring it out and was brought out by another gal in the back which was fine. My chicken fried steak was fairly decent and wife ordered the Roast beef. The rock hard biscuits and the extra crispy hash-brown casserole had look like they’ve been sitting under heat lamps since 8 AM this morning though and tasted like it. I know this being a retired chef that this was food that should’ve been thrown away many hours ago and not served. Then the server comes over, gets her phone out to check a text from her kid. Then starts talking to us while we are eating about what time she was supposed to be off and asked us questions about where my wife worked during our meal. I don’t normally mind talking but when we’re getting ready to eat it’s very frustrating. There was no refills offered by the server as well. She pretty much came over once, and then said she also apologized for not bringing the food out because she had to go to the bathroom. Once we were done with our food, she then proceeded to scrape the food off the plates in front of us onto one plate. Which, being in the restaurant business at one time, I would have probably fired her on the spot, no offense. Needless to say, not a very good experience with the server or the leftover food from breakfast. Expected more from a great restaurant at least at one time in point. We probably won’t be going back there ever again, unfortunately. Also, My wife had to stop at the bathroom on the way home and got sick. On one positive note I guess, the gift shop was still nice inside. I’m not expecting corporate Cracker Barrel to respond back, looking at the all the reviews they have only responded to the positive ones and not any negative reviews. I guess that one way not take care of the problem. Wow!!!...

Been to a few Cracker Barrel restaurants and expected so much more. We were hungry and relieved to see the parking lot was not full. It was 10am on Memorial Day Monday. Lots of open spots. There was a host checking people in within five feet of the front door. She asked if there was three of us and we confirmed. She let us know the wait was 15 minutes. We agreed to look around the gift shop. About 15 minutes later our party was called along with four other names. We then stood waiting at the restaurant entrance for another ten minutes or so while other parties were seated. There was only one person seating guests and it seemed like they should have waited to call us because they weren't ready. When he finally seated us, he led us to our table that had 1 menu sitting on it. When I sat in my chair it was broken, I almost fell to the floor and my husband grabbed me another. That's when we started to look around and see the condition of the restaurant. I understand restaurants get messy but this place was filthy. The cracks along the table were filled with gunk and what looked to be months of buildup. The floors were covered in grime like they hadn't been mopped properly in a long time. The lamp on the table was covered in food debris and grime. Even the table had a buildup of residue.

That's when we looked up and saw it, a woman sitting at a motorized scooter at a table nearby with her dog on the armrest. Not a service dog, a little dog she was feeding at the table. Our waitress came by within a minute of us being seated and asked us what we wanted to drink. We ordered and she asked us what we wanted to eat. I politely asked for menus. She seemed embarrassed and grabbed them for us. I still couldn't take my eye off the lady feeding her dog in the restaurant. See the picture.

The food, biscuits and gravy, bacon, eggs and a country-fried steak took 45 minutes to come out. While most of the food was warm, the gravy had cracks from sitting so long. The eggs, ordered over medium were barely cooked. The bacon, burned. The food was bland, the grits were watery and had no flavor. The waitress was busy and never asked us about refills or if we needed anything until we sat for a while just wanting to leave. Finally she came over to offer a refill but my husband just asked for our bill.

Even if the food had been perfect, I would worry about ever eating at this location. If the restaurant is this dirty, I worry about the condition of the kitchen. Not to mention, dogs...

Awful management. My family loves Cracker Barrel - we at least go once to every other month, but we usually go to the one in Council Bluffs since it’s closer to our home. We were out this way and decided to give this Cracker Barrel a try. We had a party of 10: 5 adults and 5 kids ranging from 18 months to 10 yrs old. The host “Sean” quoted us a 40 min wait, we decided we’d wait. After the 50 min was up my elderly mother went to talk to the host about where our place was in line. He said he was waiting on a table of 10 to get up so we could have their table. Mind you the restaurant was half empty. My mom asked if he could just push two tables together since it was past our quoted time and we were trying to keep young children occupied for the past hour. Sean rudely talked down to my mother like she was a child and told her she needed to wait for the 10 top to leave. My husband who is has been a restaurant manager for 5 years didn’t like the interaction and asked to speak to his manager. That wasn’t any better because the manager was also rude, unfriendly, bothered, and condescending. He didn’t even greet us or introduce himself, just continued on like we were a bother for even asking to speak to him. Then as we are trying to explain our situation to him, he cuts us off and says they had already pushed two tables together for us in the restaurant and we could be seated now. After Sean the host told us that wasn’t possible. The kicker of it all was, when we entered the restaurant portion, there wasn’t even a 10 top seated in there. And then, after 10 min of being seated they sat another 10 top right next to us who had just walked in the door. If you could see my eyes roll... Oh but wait there’s more… So Aaron our server takes our order and puts it in at 2:52pm. We didn’t get our food until 3:40pm! We only ordered 3 entrees, 3 kids meals, and 2 cups of soup. That’s it. Shouldn’t have taken 50 minutes to prepare. Aaron never came to check on us before, during, or after our meal. We didn’t have silverware to eat and had to go scavenging for another non existent server to get some. So in conclusion, just awful, awful experience here. Go to...