Cracker Barrel Old Country Store — Restaurant in Winter Garden

Update: January 9, 2024 Cracker Barrel H.R. was in touch with me 3 days after I posted my review. They asked me to email them about my experience. Almost 10 days later and I was never contacted again. Unprofessional and why waste my time. This is one reviewer that will never go back to this franchise or will I ever recommend them to anyone. I will copy and paste their email soon. Cracker Barrel Guest Services - Support Ticket Confirmation January 4, 2024 Hello Mr. C, Thank you for contacting Cracker Barrel Guest Services. We appreciate you taking the time to share your question or suggestion. We will review your feedback and respond within 5 business days.

We have created a Ticket for you to track the progress of your inquiry. Ticket Number: 00810219

Please do not reply to this email for updates. This will increase your response.

Our server was unattentive and unwelcoming. First impressions, she never welcomed us. She then took our order, and when she came back, her comment was that, by mistake the kitchen had included chicken dumplings and she decided to bring it to me and it was my decision if I wanted or not. Now keep in mind she had attitude. 20 minutes later, there are no refills or coming back to our table to check on us (by the way, my silver ware was dirty, and I needed a straw and ketchup) 35 minutes later I wanted the check. Our waitress was next to us at a table talking to a young woman with her guardian. She stood there talking to this other young lady for 15 minutes and never bothered with us. I finally had to call her attention and asked her for a take out box. That took her another 10 minutes. She was horrible. Never said anything to us but was happy to rush to get us the check, and then she went back to that table to continue her conversation. When we were at the register, my significant other responded to the manager, Carol, that our experience was horrible due to everything I had written above. Carol wanted to give us a free meal, but we never take anything for free. The food was good and we made that very clear. I ate part of my meal with a spoon due to the fork being really dirty. I could not eat the chicken or meatloaf with that huge spoon. I was able to eat a part of the friend chicken with the knife and spoon. Carol was understanding and said she would retrain and talk to the waitress. I also purchased a solid cologne there, and they gave me the tester. Carol, the manager, did not care enough to notice this. I went to the Clermont Cracker barrel, and the older lady with glasses behind the register was so rude to me. I had the cologne in my hand and asked her what the procedure was to just do an exchange for a cologne that the other store had given to me as the tester by mistake. She proceeded to give me a lecture to just go and see if there was another one! I told her I just wanted to inform her because I was unaware of what the process was, and she said, "Thank you for letting me know and now move along and come back with the item and she handed me back the original receipt and the item. I found it and went to the manager and told her what the initial older lady had told me and this manager just said to me, where did you purchase this item? I told her in winter garden, and she took the Tester and tossed it, behind her in the counter, and did not give me a new receipt and had a huge attitude. Never am I going back to this franchise! Two different stores, disgusting customer service from 3 people that represent this restaurant. Shame on me if I go back a third time. This is a good example of why franchises close down. People like myself who review for a living and try to give restaurants a benefit of going back twice to see why maybe the first time was excellent or really bad. I just will not give the winter garden and Clermont any more business going forward. There are too many new places to eat for me to be treated like this and to be embarrassed both times by Cracker Barrel. Cannot recommend this franchise due to their horrible customer service by 3 different employees and 2...

Sadly I have to add to my review and I sincerely hope someone reads it and listens. Hey guys at Cracker Barrel, no one wants you to change your decor, that's half the reason people go there. The reason you are losing money and customers is because your food has gone so far downhill it isn't even funny! Seriously guys, your food is awful now and it's twice as expensive to boot. People enjoy the atmosphere of cracker barrel it is truly an experience to eat and shop there but honestly no one is going to pay that much money for food that is truly not good anymore. Instead of spending a billion dollars redoing your restaurants to be a boring lifeless regular old restaurant with terrible food, why don't you just leave the decor that everyone loves alone and work on your cooking skills. Maybe also have some reasonable prices to go along with much better food and trust me people will come back!!!! Okay my rant is over, everything below this point was the review I had already left. Hey Cracker Barrel executives maybe take a look at the review below to see why business isn't looking great these days....

So normally Cracker Barrel is known for their down home cooking that's supposed to be fabulous and a lot of times it is, today was not one of those times. First of all I don't know what they have done to their carrots but they used to be amazing! Today they tasted like mushy bitter nasty carrots with absolutely no flavor. I definitely would not order those again and that's a shame because they have always been my favorite veggie at Cracker barrel. Second everything came out cold, now it was not the waitress's fault she was a doll and she was very apologetic and got things fixed for us but things should not have been served that way. Next, I paid extra to have cheese grits instead of regular grits. What I got was not really cheese grits, it was just grits with a couple of random pieces of cheddar cheese on top it wasn't even melted. They literally just graded some cheddar cheese over a bowl of grits and since they were cold they didn't melt the cheese. My mom's meatloaf and mashed potatoes were Stone Cold as well. As I said the waitress did take care of that without a problem and Mom said the second plate was very good. Still, It's definitely going to be a while before we go back to...

The server was pretty good at the beginning she was not sure what the special was but once she remembered she knew everything about it someone else brought our food to the table then brought all the extra condiments we brought because she did not even come back to the table to see if we got everything we needed then we had to ask another server for more coffee because she still hadn't come back to the table she finally came back to the table when we were almost done eating and asked us if everything was okay but then it was too late to say anything and then we asked for a box to take leftovers home with us and it took forever to get in fact she came out of the kitchen with someone else's food and she had a follower who did not have a tray full of food who could have had that to go box on it but did not so she served that table it's food went back into the kitchen and was gone for quite some time and then came back and forgot the box and had to go back in and get it then my husband on the way out asked for lid for his Styrofoam cup of ice water he had the waitress said Yes she'll be right back with one she was gone for quite some time she came out of the kitchen finally licking her fingers and did not have the lid she saw me and said oh that's right I'm sorry turned around and within a few seconds was right back out with the lid so I do not understand why this did not happen the first time it is obvious that she was back there eating something because she was licking her fingers and she did not wash them before she touched the lid but we were in such a hurry to get out of there I didn't say anything I went into my car and got a Sandy wipe out and just wiped it that way I had medicine I had to take I eat at cracker barrel when traveling only but I travel at least once or twice a month and this was the worst time I've ever experienced but that's to be expected once in a blue moon I guess she probably was having an off day I was quite impressed first off but it just went downhill from there enjoy your holidays sorry for...