Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Phoenix

We had I believe ezkial as our waiter(we didn’t ask his name but that’s what was on receipt),it started out great. He was on top of refills,expect for me at first. After getting my two friends refills,he disappeared. Didnt come check on us,ask if we needed anything. He came and bussed two tables near us,I had an empty glass that if he had just looked at our table he would have seen..my glass has been empty for about 10 minutes at that point. After he cleared the table he disappeared again so I went up front to ask for a manager because I was fed up,he saw me talking to the manager,rob and went over to ask why,to which my fiancé told him he’d let his manager talk to him. Still no refill and now the other two people we were with had empty glasses as well,my glass had been empty for about 20 minutes by this time and besides asking why I was talking to the manager he has not checked on us. A few minutes later he came and dropped our checks off,I had to ask for a refill of my tea..which is something pretty easy to refill. After asking I finally got my first refill…at the end of our meal. So I went to talk to rob again to say that I had to ask because he never checked on us even though rob had talked to him. After speaking with rob again our waiter came and confronted us,asking very rudely that he’s heard something about refills. At first I told him I had already talked to his manager and he could handle it. Our waiter became even more hostile,so I told him exactly what the issue was and he did not like that. The last time we came to this Cracker Barrel we had him as our server but it was a year ago so I thought things would be different but we ran into the same issue as a year ago,he ignored us and never got us refills. When we mentioned this to our waiter he very rudely told us to never sit in his section again if was so bad…obviously when we were sat we didn’t know he’d be our waiter and I was giving him a second chance since I figured if was still around that he had improved. None of us appreciated him confronting us and to be honest that’s horrible customer service on top of what we had been through. But because of rob and how kind and fast he was we will consider returning but not if ezikle is still...

I came here today for the first time with my mom, since she was recently given a couple gift cards to this restaurant by her boss. So needless to say, we decided to give it a fair shot and try a little bit of everything.

We started out with a loaded baked potato - which was halfway decent (imo Wendy's baked potato is better). My mom and I were so hungry that we forgot to ask for bacon to be taken off our potato. We both ordered the new eggs Benedict with impossible sausage - which I thoroughly enjoyed, but my mom did not care for the sausage. I ordered sides of grits and hash brown casserole, but my grits needed more flavor (shout-out to our server, Norma; for giving us maple syrup, butter and creamer to put on my grits) and the hash browns were a little soft for my liking. To drink we got the new watermelon lemonade and water respectively (only to find out their water tasted like tap). For dessert, we sampled the peach cobbler and their beignets. The cobbler was decent (ice cream was delicious) and the beignets tasted more like mini churros than true French beignets (but still delicious paired with the syrup!).

Besides the food, the service was subpar. We got the impression that Norma did not like her job very much based on her behavior towards us. When we asked for certain things it seemed as though she saw serving us as an inconvenience to her (we had to ask for extra dishes/utensils a couple times and she did not ask us if we wanted dessert).

As far as the atmosphere is concerned, it feels very comfortable and definitely gives off that old-fashioned countryside feel. The gift shop has a lot of unique novelty gifts but since there was so much to view inside, it felt a bit claustrophobic being there.

All in all, if you enjoy comfort food and (almost) all-day breakfast, this is the place for you. But I have no intention of eating here again...

Edit: I am now able to upload that screenshot of the chat.

I had a family member go to this store recently. He complained about stale biscuits on his first visit. He asked for fresh biscuits. The server returned in a few minutes with what appeared to be the same biscuits with butter spread across the top of them and microwaved to a million degrees. He couldn't even touch them.

He complained again and the server told him that they only serve day old biscuits in the mornings. He couldn't believe it but he went ahead and ate the biscuits with gravy.

Jump to second visit. The same thing happened and he asked for the manager. The manager told him that it was "Cracker Barrel Corporate Policy to serve day old biscuits, first thing in the morning if there were leftovers."

He questioned the manager. So the manager gave him a business card with the number for corporate and suggested that he called them. Really? 🤣

I'm a big fan of Cracker Barrel so I contacted the corporate offices via chat and asked for information on that policy. Totally bogus claim by the manager. I would like to include a screenshot of part of the chat. Unfortunately, the pictures and video link is not available from this review. It may be because this Cracker Barrel is not in my Maps timeline. Not sure.

Suffice it to say, the manager was incorrect. I was apologized to profusely and given a one free meal coupon. I will pass that along to my family member. The agent assured me that the store policy cannot override their corporate policy and, there will be some training at the Deer Valley Phoenix Cracker Barrel.

Cannot recommend...