My husband, our friend and I stopped here for lunch on our way up to the U.P. on Friday, Sept 14th. We were quoted a 15 minute wait by the host. Odd as it was apparent there were several open tables in each of the sections but OK, we will look around the store. We were seated in 15 minutes in the back section of the restaurant. After waiting several minutes to be acknowledged by anyone I started looking around and a server Fran came to our table. She asked if we had been greeted and we told her no. She said our server was stuck at the window, but she would take our drink orders and get them to our server. We gave her our drink, food orders. Now, another 10 or so minutes pass and we still do not have our drinks or have had our server come by the table. I look around and see the seating host and tell her that we are still waiting for our drinks and our server has not stopped by ( except Fran). Fran at just about that moment comes out with our drinks and we ask if she is going to be our server and she said no that Ciera would be with us.
Shortly thereafter Ciera stops on her way to another table and says in a flustered way that she would be with us shortly and at least our orders were in. Really? No apology or explanation, She knew we were not pleased with that and did not see her again until the food arrived. It was a horrible start to our visit and had it not been for Fran greeting our table we probably would have walked out. The place was a mess. Lots of open tables but several not bussed for the entire time of our visit. We are restaurant managers and 'get" that sometimes there are staffing issues etc but it was apparent there were major issues that day. Ciera had a 9 top, 6 top and several other smaller tables and it was clearly beyond her ability to handle the volume. We did not tip our server but gave a tip to Fran who deserves some kind of acknowledgement for recognizing a problem and addressing it with us. When we left the two sections of the dining areas were about 1/2 seated, yet we heard the host quoting a 20 minute wait, which again leads us to believe their were major issues with either the service or kitchen. Our food was correct and was good but the service was horrible. We will not return to this Cracker Barrel again on our monthly trips.