Michael S.
Yelp
Is it just me or have Cracker Barrel restaurants gone down in quality over the years? My wife and I, along with our kids and young grandkids stopped in here for a late lunch on Thursday. I was the first to sit at our large round table while everyone else went to clean up. A waitress came over and said she would be right back to take drink orders when there were more people at the table and left. There was no offer of water.
A few minutes later, with everyone at the table, a waiter came over and wanted to take our drink orders. I thought maybe the waitress was busy and he was her backup, so we gave our drink orders.
Then a minute later, the waitress returned to take our drink orders. We told her that the guy had already taken them and asked which of them would be working with us. She said that she would, and went to find the guy.
Then, a minute later, the waiter came back with our drinks. We told him that the lady had just been by and said she would be working with us. He said that he would be the one working with us, not her, and gave us our drinks. Odd.
Two of us had ordered a Blue Moon, which comes only in a can here. I requested some glasses, and we were brought small glasses that held about half of the beer instead of something actually for the beer, or at least big enough to pour the beer into. I asked if they had orange slices, but he said they did not. To his credit, he brought out some orange juice for us though. C'mon, Cracker Barrel. You don't serve Blue Moon without a glass and orange slice.
I asked for cornbread and biscuits before our meal, and those were brought out after a bit, but he didn't bring us plates for them. I asked for some mall plates, and the waiter returned with plastic bowls.
I picked up a piece of cornbread, and it was so hard I was banging it on the bowl. It was like a rock. I took a video because it was so unbelievable (be sure to check out the video here https://yelp.to/of6KBS4N0N ).
After a lot of activities that day, I was tired and hungry, so I just closed my eyes and did a big inhale and exhale. So much for cornbread before my meal. Boy I sure do miss my granddad and his cooking right about now.
Our meals come out, and they are exactly what we ordered, so that was nice. The temperature was good, too. However...
One of my side dishes was grits. They were watery like soup. Impossible to eat with a fork, and we had no spoons.
Green beans were my other side. But they were only green bean remnants. Like someone used a chainsaw on the beans and this was the greenbean dust and bits that came flying off the saw.
We went ahead and ate our meals and did not see our waiter again. Right about as we finished eating, the manager came by and asked us how everything was. I politely told her "Well, since you asked..." and gave her a quick rundown. She apologized and offered us free desserts. That was nice of her to do, and we accepted that offer. I guess she spoke to the waiter because shortly after she left, he came by with a spoon so I could eat the grit soup.
I really wanted to like it, but all those small things add up.