Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Temple

If I could give them 6 stars I would. I meet my mom for lunch and I haven't been to a Cracker Barrel in several years. There was about a ten minute wait for the table witch I thought was fine. Great thing about Cracker Barrel is the environment both on the patio, in the waiting area and the dinning area. The waiting area is loaded with all kinds of excellent gifts and random things that just about anybody would love. Candles, t-shirts, Post cards, jewelry, keychains, toys, candy, specialty sodas. Just about everything is 25%-70% off witch I think is awesome. I'll be going back on payday to get several things myself. Then we were shown our table and the service was way over the top. I've been to streak houses and fine restaurants that didn't have this kind of service. My waiter was Zachary. Guy went above and beyond and I had a phenomenal experience. I ordered the NY Strip Steak with loaded Backed potato and broccoli and the Fried Mozzarella cheese bites with ranch. Really really good! They served their buttermilk biscuits and cornbread muffins. With blackberry jam and salted butter. That was really awesome and very tasty. The steak was really phenomenal. The loaded potato surprised my expectations. Bacon strips, not bits. Scoop of sour cream and a scoop of butter. I ate the whole thing, peel and all. Zachary was the kind of cordial and overly attentive and polite that you expected from multi diamond hotel and restaurant staff. I was amazed and very impressed. So much so I had to ask to see the manager. Rair for me to do that with service. Waited less than 2 minutes and I spoke with Little Cindy. Apparently there are two Cindy's. She was very kind and very encouraging. She said they strive to deliver just such experiences to everyone. I not only believe that, I know it and it shows in every facit of their restaurant. The bill was $50 for two with an appetizer and two drinks. Their tea is also really good. I'm blown away and sold. The area offers Chilies, IHOP, Olive garden and Cracker Barrel. It's not even a competition in my honest opinion. The other places are not even on the same level in anything, let alone everything. I had the best dinning experience in years for far less than a $100. That's very rare in my experience. Would absolutely recommend to everybody. I'm definitely going...

I have been going to this Cracker Barrel for years and I have never had the experience I had today, to include Manager response. We came on June 10, 2023 and we arrived at 10 am. It was just 2 of us. We came in and were promptly seated. The issue starts here. After we were seated, we were not approached by a waiter or waitress for approximately 20 mins. The waitress was helping other tables next to ours and we were visible. We tried to flag one of the waitresses and she ignored us and kept assisting other tables.

I approached the host box and explained our situation. She promptly went to the kitchen area and it was found that the computer switched tables for the servers and our waitress did not know we belonged to them.

The waitress approached us and instead of greeting us or just issue a small apology for the wait, she was already defensive and informed us that it was not her fault for the delay and that the computer system was the issue. We told her at that point to not worry and we were ready to order.

We gave her our drink orders and she gave them to us. It unfortunately took another 15 mins for her to take our order after she got our drinks.

We both ordered our meals and we waited…waited …waited and waited. The time at the restaurant was now 1 hour and 20 mins. During this time, we saw other tables that were sat after us get their drinks and food immediately.

Our waitress never came back to our table to check in with us. We were forced to go talk to the hostess booth and tell them about the situation. The hostess flagged down a Manager and the Manager informed us that we were still 3rd in line for food. This was after waiting for over an hour with no information or check in. We explained our treatment and we were told we could leave.

We decided to do just that. We confirmed we didn’t owe anything for our drinks and we left. But before leaving we grabbed corporate’s number and we intend on calling because this has been the worst customer service interaction and experience I have ever had at this establishment. I will be letting everyone know so that they can avoid dining here and wasting their time. It’s obvious they don’t care for their customers.

If management see’s this post, feel free to reach out so we can discuss...

My family and I had the worst experience we've had in a restaurant in a very long time at this location. For starters, we're a party of 5. After we ordered, it was over 30 minutes before our food came out. Folks at the table across from us ordered later than we did, but got their food much sooner. The food quality was horrible, which is not something I say often, but it can't be said strongly enough in this case. The "country fried steak" my wife and I got was just a compressed meat patty, something akin to what you'd get in a cheap TV dinner (with a TV dinner possibly being an improvement). The NY strip steak my daughter ordered looked good, but it had no flavor, and I didn't blame her for refusing to eat it after I tasted it. It's Cracker Barrel, so I wasn't expecting gourmet quality or anything, but I was hoping for better with a $20 average charge per person.

On a positive note, the fried catfish my son got was good, as were all of our sides (fries, baked potatoes, broccoli, salads).

Our server was the worst I've encountered in a very long time. He was friendly, but we had to constantly ask him for every little thing we needed. He seemed more attentive to his other tables. Our daughter's drink sat empty for 10 minutes before we finally hollered at him to get her a refill. We had 3 side orders of fries, but had to flag him down to get some ketchup. I ordered a pink lemonade, but I really didn't like it, so I got his attention and asked for an unsweet tea instead. He brought the tea, but I was charged for both drinks. Not a major issue, but it was just icing on the cake for an already bad experience. The guy never once checked on us except for when he was taking our order or bringing it to us.

I read the most recent Google reviews on this location before we went here, so I was definitely expecting better. I'm more forgiving if either the food OR the service is bad, but when both are disappointing, there's not much good I can say. I hope everyone else has a better time here, but we definitely won't be...