Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Staunton

If Cracker Barrel is truly worried about losing customers, they should probably spend less time changing their menu and more time training their staff.

TLDR: poor service, disgruntled staff, undercooked food, overcharged, unlikely to ever return to this location barring apocalyptic event wherein they are the only food source for 100 miles.

I went to this location for dinner tonight where the sign on the door shows it closes at 10pm. I arrived around 9:05 and went to the host stand where I waited. And waited some more. Several servers walked past and saw me waiting. Nothing. I went to the checkout where a young man was playing on his phone and asked if there was a host. He replied that he let them know I was waiting and went right back to playing on his phone. It was a quarter after 9 when a host finally appeared to seat me.

The waitress came fairly quickly and I asked to order since I knew what I wanted. I asked if it was possible to order just a side of pancakes, she said yes, and I ordered that. For my meal I ordered the new breakfast burger. She asked if I wanted fries as my side and I asked if there was anything I could substitute. She said sure, the pancakes. Awesome. Things were looking up.

As I am sitting at my table, voices are drifting out of the kitchen/prep area. It is the servers and kitchen staff complaining about customers. One even going so far as to say every server should get the right to slap one customer a night. They went on complaining about how everyone should just leave- it was a bit before 9:30 and there were about half a dozen tables still eating.

Now, I have worked in food service and customer service a lot. I get that some customers are completely unreasonable and horribly demanding. HOWEVER, staff loudly complaining or even joking about hitting them within earshot is just never okay.

Then my food came out. It looked great until I bit into the burger. It was just this side of raw. Red liquid immediately covered the plate and turned the bun into a sodden mess. Had I not just overheard the staff's conversation, I may have asked for it to be cooked more. I certainly wasn't asked how "done" I wanted it when I ordered. Not wanting to eat a spit burger, I focused on my pancakes and picked the egg and bacon off the bun. Those were good at least.

As I am trying to eat, I run out of Coke but I haven't seen my server since she dropped the food and retreated back to trash talking in the kitchen. I choke down most of my food dry and finally wave down a different server to ask if I could get a little more drink and my check. Now my waitress comes bounding out all smiles and asks if I want one "to go". Since I am done eating and they all want me to leave now, I say sure. Out comes a tiny kids sized cup, a check, and a "Have a good night!!!=)" which, given what I have been overhearing is so brazenly fake.

Fine. It is quarter to 10 and I have had enough. I get to the checkout to discover my pancakes weren't, in fact, substituted in- I was charged extra for them. Again, understand that sometimes things can't be swapped and that is fine, but now I was shorted out of a side which would have been nice since I couldn't eat the burger (which the server also just looked at and ignored) and I paid for it.

Normally I would have asked to speak with a manager at this point but, given the staff's behavior, either there wasn't one there or whomever was in charge cares as little about their job as the rest of the staff. Now, I did not take the internet's most beloved punishment of withholding a tip but I did not give her the 25% I usually do.

All of this is to say, if someone in management or corporate reads this, Cracker Barrel needs to teach its servers appropriate behavior and their cooks how to cook. It is expensive enough that people are avoiding eating out already but spending $27 to get ignored, insulted, possible food poisoning, and tricked into a higher bill have ensured I will not be visiting this location again for a long...

We were traveling home to Charlotte, NC on New Years Day & decided to stop at the Staunton, VA location. We noticed right away that the restaurant was understaffed. We figured because of it being a holiday. We waited atleast 25 min for our server to come to our table just for drink orders, and another 25 min to get the basket of biscuits. The restaurant was busy, and there were 3 servers waiting on 40+ tables. Some of which were parties of 5 or more. My fiance ordered the country sampler of chicken and dumplings & the meatloaf. I ordered the steak tips, marinated chicken strips & fried shrimp. By the time we received our food, everything but the vegetables we had ordered were cold. It was obvious our food had been sitting awhile before being brought to our table. We decided to not say anything to our server because it wasn't her fault the restaurant was understaffed or that the food was cold. As we were eating, I took notice that the meatloaf on my fiancés plate didn't look done. The burger was very pink. After inspecting it, I saw that the beef was actually raw. I told him to stop eating it. It's one thing for a restaurant to be busy and/or understaffed, but to serve food that isn't cooked to safety standards & could potentially make someone sick, is another. This easily could've been avoided if the cooks had used a meat thermometer. Especially ground beef. As much as we didn't want to complain, we felt we needed to tell our server about it for the simple reason we didn't want others to get I'll from consuming it. I did not mention the temperature of my food or how the steak tips were more like a medium rare verses being well-done, or there being absolutely no chicken in the chicken and dumplings. She offered to get him another order of meatloaf, but at that point we had spent 2+ hours there & needed to get back to driving home. The server did take his meal off of our bill, which wasn't necessary but appreciated. A few hours into our drive, my fiancé became very nauseous and sick on his stomach. We arrived home much later than we wanted to because of the multiple bathroom stops. We are hoping that this experience was a 1 time thing & not a common occurrence. Please inspect your food when at this location. This is by far the worst experience we've ever had at a Cracker Barrel. We dine often at Cracker Barrels, so we were very surprised that...

WOW! I know that restaurants are having a tough time with help but THIS place needs NEW help. My waitress was pleasant and informative. She brought me 1) my blue moon and was carrying the glass with her fingers INSIDE the glass rather than from the OUTSIDE 2) took my order at 4:47 PM and two other couples were served their dinners that arrived after me and 41 minutes (yes I timed it after she brought me a fresh glass) after I ordered. She apologized for the wait but "somehow the ticket never made it to the kitchen so I had to redo the order" - 3) The steak was great but the corn was cold and almost completely covered in water so there was literally no taste to the corn and the mashed potatoes were drowning in gravy and asked for the gravy on the side. She came back 10 minutes later, handed me my bill and noticed I hadn't touched the vegetables and asked why - after telling her the reasons I asked her to please bring me a side of mac and cheese to go rather than take the 2 items off my bill....4) she said, "I don't have that authority, I 'll go ask my manager....HERE WE GO.... 17 minutes later no one showed up so I scanned my bill, went to the front and spoke to the cashier.... she asked how my dinner went and when I told her she said she would get a manager right away..... I told her "it isn't necessary I'm sure my Editor will handle it,......" o'am? Oh boy....talk about snake bites....she said, "your editor?" I said, "Yes, I'm a food critic and I have my own column..." she kept calling "Ma'am, I'll get someone just wait....Ma'am? Ma'am could you come back please? Ma'am?".....I snickered on the way out....THEY NEED HELP!!! Sadly, I had to give this review at least 1 star in order...