The server forgot to put in our order and tried to use the “kitchen is backed up” excuse. That was a lie because two other tables sat down after we ordered and finished eating before we even got our food.The server also had no regard for my dietary restrictions and put an English muffin on the same plate and touching my gluten-free toast.We asked for the manager. The server never told the manager what happened because I could see the manager from my table. The two of them never talked.The manager had zero regard for the horrible service, barely apologetic and only took off $8 our tab.Needless to say I will take my business elsewhere.
We haven't been to this place in few years. First time good. We got take out french toast, lemon ricotta pancakes and carrot pancakes. French toast dry, lemon pancakes burned and dry. Carrot cakes only ones edible. At $10 per entree, not worth it. Very disappointing.
Had my first experience at this particular first watch 2 weekends ago. I've really only been to the location in Virginia, so it was nice to see there is a first watch in my new city. The wait time was pretty long. Even thirty minutes longer then the expected wait time after signing up on the wait list for a party of 6. Our waitress was pretty good. I love the food at first watch but from previous experience I'm not a fan of their eggs but decided to try again since it was a different location, so I ordered an omelet this time. It was actual pretty darn tasty. They have the best potatoes and that granola crunch pancake is like nothing else in the world. My only issue and still to this day (even at a different location) is they bring food out separately. You don't get everything together. For example, most received our potatoes first. Then a few received our meals. One of the girls who got her potatoes first received her actual plate about 12 minutes later. I mean I like to eat my food together. My pancake came a little after my other food as well. I just wish everything came at the same time. The timing is always all wrong. But other then that fresh hot great tasting food.
Was seated at 12:58pm and the waitress took our drink order. Once we received our drinks she went missing for 20 minutes…the way First Watch is set up you can see everyone in the kitchen. She comes to the table and thanks us for our patience…not letting us know why we had to wait(keep that in mind folks). At 1:45p we were still waiting for our food. The waitress was standing in the kitchen and still no acknowledgement on the wait. She comes to the table with plates letting us know they are short staffed. But….it wasn’t our food!!!! She walked way with the food and nothing! No apologies, let me see what happened!!! She took the order how do you not remember what we ordered!….Beware
Not sure where to start on this one, mixed reviews ! My husband and I went in for a quick breakfast before a long day of apartment hunting, little did we know we would be there for 1 hour and 15 minutes. We were seated right away and server came over for drink order shortly after. She served my husband cold “hot” coffee from the pot, in a mug with sticky stuff on it, I got the purple haze juice, that was actually pretty good. We ordered food roughly around 9:55am. We received our entrees at 10:42am. Then the bacon came a few minutes after. We got shrimp and grits and the banana oatmeal pancakes, along with the seasonal bacon to share. The shrimp and grits were awesome ! The pancakes were just fine. The bacon had great flavor but was a little undercooked and soft, not at all crunchy. The server came by our table minimal times, to take our drink order, drop the drinks and get food order, not again until our bacon was delivered, and then when we were already done with our food waiting for the bill.I completely understand the ongoing issue of being short staffed, I have first hand experience over the last couple of years. However, 47 minute ticket times is a bit excessive, along with a server who wasn’t attentive or explaining what was going on.
Well… I’m just gonna say my expectations were somewhat low and First Watch still fell flat.The good: service was friendly. We didn’t sit inside but the vibe, although loud inside acoustically, was nice. Some of the food items like the potatoes were excellent and tasty. I enjoyed my fresh squeezed orange juice. And the best part was that they opened their closed outside section for us so we could bring our dog outside to eat with us. After the breakfast sandwich we ordered didn’t come with bacon as advertised our server gave us a plate of bacon.The bad: no one at the front to greet us, rather someone at the cash register with her back faced to us and we had to wait a few minutes to be greeted. We were told after ordering that the kitchen was backed up 30 minutes. I do appreciate our server telling us this but ideally we would be told up front before we even sit down. Our table was dirty and sticky so we had to ask for them to clean it. The food came out 40 minutes later and you could tell most of it was frozen beforehand like the biscuits. Eggs were over-cooked. The breakfast sandwich was advertised with over-easy eggs and bacon and did not come with either; the eggs were hard-boiled and the bacon missing. Pancakes we ordered did not come with syrup. After waiting several minutes for our server to bring us some she did not (she later told us they would give us some syrup to go and they would not charge us for it - we hoped they wouldn’t charge us and didn’t understand that, but it came in a nice glass bottle which made more sense for that comment).The verdict: First Watch, at least at this location, has a lot of potential but a lot of areas to improve. I am puzzled why it would take 40 minutes to wait on breakfast food for any reason. I’m no restaurant manager but there has to be some sort of inefficiency somewhere. Either they are short staffed, not capping the amount of people they serve with wait times, or something else that could be tweaked to fix the issue. A glaring disconnect to me is expectation management. If you sit me down now, I expect to place an order and eat within the next 15-20 minutes or so. Tell us up front how long the wait will be, not after we have jumped several hoops. Tell us you won’t charge us for to go syrup that comes in a premium bottle instead of making us think you won’t charge us for a a plastic cup of syrup. If waiting is a chronic issue (which it appears to be from other reviews), it needs to be addressed and in the meantime over-communicated from the jump. Also, if you’re going to make us wait 40 minutes for food, at least take care to make the biscuits from scratch, soft instead of hard scramble the eggs, etc. Take care in the little things. It’s clear some of their food items are really good, but this isn’t consistent across the board. Proactively clean the tables and think ahead; take pride in what people expect as standard service. I’m disappointed that I couldn’t try at least a few bites of the pancakes fresh and at the restaurant all because we waited a long time for syrup that never arrived; that’s a bad look! I’d love to see this place improve and hopefully my comments can be taken to heart as helpful feedback and a sign that I care about First Watch’s success.
Let me say that the food was very good. The wait staff showed excellent customer service. As with many restaurants, there is long wait times and longer for the food to come out. All in all, I would recommend and I would come back. Hopefully, as with everything COVID has disrupted life. I encourage customers to be patient and show kindness to the people who work in the service industry.
I’ve been to first watch on a few occasions over the years. To be honest I always found it kind of bland. My experience at this particular location was very different. My server, James, obviously cared a great deal about his service. The food was great. This location genuinely does stand above the others I have been to. Whoever is owning or managing this location deserves props.
If I had to sum up my breakfast experience in one word... outstanding! The wait to get seated was about 40 minutes, which was due to short staffing, which every establishment is facing these days. It was worth the wait. I ordered the Italian omelet, it was the most flavorful omelet I've ever eaten. The multigrain toast and accompanying preserves were the icing on the cake. Our waiter was friendly and attentive. This place is 5 stars plus!
The food is good, unfortunately the service is awful. Just waited well over an hour for our food with very little interaction with our server. Not the first time this has happened. Will continue to eat FW, but not at this location.