Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Nicholasville

UPDATE: wife and I tried to give this place another chance this morning. Should have saved my money. I ordered fried chicken mashed potatoes and pinto beans. Server comes back, no pinto beans, truck didn’t bring them. So I got mac&cheese. No biggie. Food comes and the chicken is super greasy and the breading is not as it usually is. The chicken seemed to be reheated from the day before. The mashed potatoes had either sat under the hot light or was a reheat as well due to the edges being dried out and hard as well as the bottom of them. Wife’s food was decent. Fried pickles were literally sitting in a pool of grease. The whole restaurant had a foul odor that came and went similar to boiled eggs or sewage. From our seat my wife could see a table at the entrance to the kitchen. There was employee drinks sitting on counter tops, food as well, and an abundance of dirty dishes. I can say I will not be back period. This place is absolutely dirty and gross the food is garbage.

Original post: My wife and i come here often, its her favorite place for breakfast. Over the past few months food quality and service has been on a major decline. I understand its tough times for everyone right now and we are all over worked tired, supplies are short and frustration is high but none of these are excuses for poor people skills, customer neglect and bad food. Our last time eating here was last night. We will not be back. We stood at the hostess stand for 10 minutes while being passed by numerous workers, never once greeted or spoken to in any way. Finally a young lady strolled over while twirling her hair and talking to a younger man and seated us...at a table that had water all under it. I asked to be moved to another table and she did. Our server came over shortly after and my wife and i had a few questions in which he couldnt answer any of them and didnt make any effort to find an answer either. Our food came out approximately 25 minutes after ordering as we sat with no drink refils (they were not busy at all). My food was maple bacon glazed chicken tenders and hers was the same, she finally decided to try something new. Our food was unexceptable. No "glaze" at all. NONE. Her mashed potatoes were old and a solid chunk and her hash brown tots were burnt. My chicken was hard and my fries had been fried and re-fried again to warm them up before being put on my plate. We asked the waiter if he could get us some of this glaze that was supposed to be on our chicken thinking maybe it would make dinner a little better. He returns with a soup bowl 1/3 full of ice cold "glaze" and says "here ya go thats all we got we are running out..." at that time we decided we needed to speak with the manager. I hate to complain and i hate to say that this happened but it is what it is. She apologized, comped our meals and we left. Poor service, poor food and...

Why does Cracker Barrel Corporate request more info on these reviews? They never follow up... Where do I start? The food we did receive was delicious. That being said... there was a consistent foul smell in the restaurant. Ten minutes to get drinks. My coke tasted flat, server asked if something was wrong. I told her the drink tasted weird. No offer of exchange. Ordered fried pickles and biscuit beignets with our drinks. Fifteen minutes later apps arrived. Beignets were hot, fried pickles extremely cold. I reported that to her. She said they just came out. Our son reiterated that they were definitely cold. She said again, they just came out there is no way they are cold and walked away. She took our order wo writing it down. I ordered chicken fried chicken with extra gravy, turnip greens w vinegar, dumplins, and croutons instead of biscuits. She looked at me and said "Well, that's weird but ok". Hubby's salad arrived, he had to ask for silverware. We also flagged her down for more coke. Meanwhile, dirty dishes from our apps remained piled up at the end of our table during entire dinner service. Three of four meals arrived with silverware for 3. We reminded delivery person we were missing one meal, mine, and we needed a 4th fork. While everyone was finishing up their meal mine arrived. Chicken fried chicken, no gravy, w half an order of green beans, & dumplins, no fork. We flagged our server, again, and asked for the extra gravy, turnip greens, vinegar, croutons, and fork. Hubby's coke was empty but at this point we were not expecting any refills. The rest of the food arrived, minus the gravy, when everyone else was finished with dinner. Still had to ask for gravy and fork. If Server is new I feel bad for her. Never a visit from a manager. If staff is new they obviously need support. Food timely...

Idk what happened but our experience Friday 5/12 was beyond terrible. Service very slow, server forgetful/inattentive. My mom didn't get a refill the entire time we were there, my husband and I had to ask for one and mine took literally 30 minutes...for a drink. My husband legitimately thought maybe our server had quit because we didn't see her for a while. We didn't get ANY silverware until after our food was served... so we had none to spread butter on the biscuits, which also didn't come out until after our food should have already been there. no plates for them either. Didn't get napkins or jelly until i got up to find the waitress and ask for them. Anyway when we finally did get silverware they didn't have any knives and not enough forks so i got one singular spoon instead. My husband's food was super nasty for some reason (he has gotten it many times before here), server forgot to bring part of my son's meal, my food took waaay longer than everyone else's -- everyone else was done when it arrived. When it finally did arrive it was half the portion it was supposed to be. I didn't bother asking where the rest of it was at that point. I just sat there and ate my half portion fish with my spoon. Lol. At the end we sought out a manager and told her everything and I don't think she even said sorry. She just smiled vacantly and nodded, said ok and went to talk to our server. She took 50% off one of our checks (that was good) but not the other. The server did apologize though. She really seemed like she was done with life. I gave 2 stars only because I've been here before and everything was fine before. Not sure if it was a fluke bad night or if this is how they run things now. Regardless, I think the manager could have done a better job...