Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Tuscaloosa

Manager is a serious Karen. I used to work here, in this store, 16 years ago. The food that was presented to me, their daily special, broccoli cheddar chicken, was obviously put in a microwave with shredded salad cheese on top, dry, and nothing like what I went in to get. Server was a newbie, and nothing on him, he was wonderful. The Manager.. I could tell he was apprehensive to go speak to her.. and she came out with a full on bad attitude towards a customer. When questioned why she would allow this food out, she said I could have sent it back and got something else.. that IS NOT Cracker Barrel Standards. Period. When I asked for extra cheese sauce for it, in the beginning, it came out dry and nuked. The manager in question sent out "sauce from the Mac and cheese", which, ironically, was made from the same cheese sauce in the lazy way rather than doing the recipe correctly for Mac and cheese for cracker barrel. It's obvious if you know what you're looking at. Apparently, I was wasting her time.. since the grill cook was a server and not a grill cook. I've literally clocked in as everything but a manager and a cashier in that exact store. I unloaded trucks for both food and retail. I know exactly how cracker barrel works. This woman was mad that she got called out to speak to a customer from the start, tried to tell me that if I didn't like it, I could have sent it back.. or gotten something else. I came here for this specific thing. It was presented to me, as a customer, in a way that I, as a grill cook, manager.. whomever.. would and should be ashamed to let out of the kitchen.. but it was my fault for not sending it back. After I asked how she could serve that food and be proud to do so, without following the recipe, she then admitted that she didn't realize there wasn't enough cheese sauce thawed.. apparently didn't do anything about it, and tried to blame the customer for knowing the truth. She got real flustered when I pointed out the Mac and cheese was made the way it was, with that sauce.

Can't find workers I suppose.. maybe if management wasn't such backstabbing karens.. when I came up to the hostess at 7 pm, she was out there berating the hostess because they were on a wait. Telling the hostess to get them off of it, fix it.. thats her job, not the hostess. Poor girl was flustered and knew she couldn't say anything about it for fear of being written up and/or losing her job. This woman is a problem for yall.. you want to find and hire employees that want to work there, find management that doesn't act a clown not only to employees in front of customers, but to customers in front of other customers. Cause people saw what and how she acted. I only called her on protocol, as the corporate office would. She couldn't answer, stammered, got mad at me, and acted like I was hindering her. I thought customers were to he treated as guests.. she literally turned her back on me and walked off while I was still speaking. She didn't say it, nor apologize in any way, but tried to comp my meal. I made the server put it back in and paid for it, as I ate it, and im not looking for handouts, just responsibility acceptance, which is a thing she lacks poorly in. I wanted to tip my server.. he had nothing to do with it, and I had no cash, so I needed a bill to do so. He made a nice tip off of that. I also told him that this isn't the right way to do things the cracker barrel way, and encouraged him to engage with the DM when he comes in. I may even go in tomorrow and speak with the GM, let them know exactly what kind of people they have working there. I wasn't a manager for CB. But I have managed restaurants, many of them. No way in hell would I have spoken to a customer that way to begin with, especially when it's a clear restaurant mess up issue. The fact that she let it out of the kitchen, as she was the one who did it, is even worse. I kinda wish I'd had taken a picture.. just imagine the BCC GETTING PUT ON A PLATE, SPRINKLED WOTH SALAD SHREDDED CHEESE, AND THROWN IN A MICROWAVE. It was pathetic at best for...

Yeah.... so we were traveling home from vacation. Decided to stop in for a quick meal as this place was close to the interstate. Had a ten minute wait at 2:00 p.m. on a Sunday. Waitress Caren stopped by our table and took our order. Forty minutes later, there was no food on the table. Waitress Caren was nowhere to be found. None of the servers flagged that came to the table knew where Caren was. Waitress Ragen was courteous enough to check in on our table. Food was brought to table with missing sides. Not Regan's fault. Kitchen didn't put it on the plates. Two plates at the table had hashbrown casserole. One came with it and the other was told they were out. Ragen did eventually bring out some when a fresh batch was ready and did bring out another side. She also called the manager over to the table. Manager started off by saying that the ticket didn't match what time we said we arrived. The people who were behind us in line for a table had checked out and we saw them walking out to their car. Uhhh... manager lady, we are five hours away from home and using Google Maps to navigate, so big FYI that Google keeps a timeline on your arrival and departure at stops. After we received our food, we noticed that we had never been brought utensils. Ragen stepped up and took care of this. One person ordered broccoli. When the brocolli was picked up with a fork, the bottom of the stalk had black spots and was rotten. During the whole ordeal, the manager offered nothing....not a discount or dessert for the excessively long wait. To top it off, Caren made a reappearance to our table and asked for our pepper shaker and sugar caddy although we were still eating and using sweetener. She never returned them. At one hour and fifty minutes later, we got back on the road. If it wasn't for Regan, we would probably still be sitting there. So much for a quick lunch.

And to top it off, we all tipped Regan generously, but yet a member of our party saw Caren eyeballing the $10 tip and circling the table. So, we put it in Ragen's hand and left, knowing we would get home an hour late due to...

A great disappointment in many different ways. First of all today is my birthday, and I was greatly disappointed to find out that this is one of the few Cracker Barrel locations to not offer a complementary dessert on one's birthday. Secondly, my dinner was partially inedible. I got the New York strip steak and shrimp dinner with hasbrown casserole, turnip greens, a biscuit and a cornbread muffin. The shrimp were good, the turnip greens were passable but too salty, the hashbrown casserole was good and the two breads were also good, the steak was one of the greatest letdowns I've ever tasted.

Not only is there more seasoning than there is meat, but there was a long strip of gristle running from the top to the bottom. It was absolutely impossible to cut with the plastic knife, which I had to make a second trip to the restaurant to get as utensils were not included in my takeaway bag upon pickup (which makes no sense considering this is a restaurant within walking distance of 3 hotels). Because of this unwanted trip back to the restaurant, my food was cold by the time i got back to my hotel room. This could have been avoided by including utensils the first time, like every restaurant in the Western hemisphere. Though it didn't change much in regard to the steak as I had to eat it with my bare hands to rip a chunk of meat from the rest of the steak, even then I had to chew for a full minute before the gum-like toughness of the steak was cut into small enough pieces to swallow. I'm not even joking when I say that I could pin the steak to a wall, bite into it and then hang off of the ground using only my teeth. I could have made a better, more edible NY strip steak at home.

The staff were also generally cold and unhelpful.

Update: I have lowered my review from 2 stars to 1 star after another awful service experience, in which all of my food went cold after I was made to stand around and wait 15 minutes for a side of hashbrown casserole that was carelessly left out of my carryout order. The edges of the casserole were burned too, and there was no apology from any of the rude staff for the error...