First Watch — Restaurant in Apopka

Servers: I frequent this location often and I had some great experiences. I would like to highlight some great servers. Jordan he was our server and he has a vibrant personality, he moves fast lol and he's very attentive. I have also had Temesha as my server before and she was absolutely wonderful. She greeted us with a smile and interacted with my baby who loved her. My order was a little complicated but she handled it well and everything comes out perfectly! If you go to this location and have anyone of them as a server, you will not be disappointed.

Food: The food tastes great :) I've never had to send anything back Presentation always neat and clean . Nice size portions There have been times where my starter come out after my main but otherwise all good :)

Room for improvement:

We recently had to wait over 45 mins to receive 1 out of 3 orders and 2 of the orders were the exact same food items - not sure why the wait was so long.. I don't remember this particular server but I believe her hair was blue /purple. She was pleasant but did not come back to check in on us periodically at least to apologize for the delay. The Manager came to our table to ask for us to repeat the order my mom made (who hadn't received her food as of yet . Which made me think that her order was never placed or wasn't placed correctly to begin with. We gave him the order, he was very apologetic but hadn't explained the reason for the delay. I understand you probably do want to throw your staff under the bus but an explanation of ANY sort would have been nice.. AFTER our orders finally came out the server returned and apologized for the inconvenience. The manager said he will remove the appetizer off the bill (because it came out after we were almost done with the main) and also provided us with a gift card - I guess as a service recovery attempt. When the bill came, we were still charged for the soup which I had to find him and show him. It was then removed. I forgot to mention, the restaurant at the time of seating wasn't crowded...

In closing I like the place but wanted to express where improvements can be made.. a little transparency and communication goes a long way :)

Updated response to Manager- 2/16 Jennifer im not sure why hearing about my not so good experience makes you "glad"...

Updated response to Hannah 2/18 Thank you Hannah! I appreciate...

Let me begin by acknowledging the positivity and kindness of the staff at First Watch of Apopka. Their friendliness is heartening and deserves credit. However, that only serves to highlight the stark contrast of the managerial conduct we experienced, which was far from acceptable in a customer service industry.

The issues began during an unfortunate encounter with a manager, whose demeanor was not only unprofessional but threatening towards a customer - an act that defies the most basic principles of customer service. They went as far as to reference derogatory comments made by other employees about a customer. This blatant disregard for customer confidentiality and the absence of any notion of respect was a shocking revelation about the culture fostered by the management at this location.

Despite this negative experience, we decided to give the establishment another chance, hoping that the previous incident was an isolated case. Unfortunately, our return visit only served to amplify our disappointment. This time, my wife and I were completely overlooked. It was as if we were invisible. Despite our presence, no one took our order or attended to us, ultimately forcing us to leave after a fruitless hour-long wait.

If I could pass on a message to the district management, it would be this: your frontline staff are your greatest assets, and their efforts to maintain a welcoming environment are commendable. But their efforts are in vain if not supported by a professional and respectful management team. Unfavorable behavior and negligent management practices do not only harm your reputation but also undermine the hard work of your employees.

Overall, our experiences at First Watch of Apopka were overshadowed by poor management. It's disheartening to see a place with such potential being hampered by these issues. I hope they rectify these problems and put as much effort into their management as their staff put into serving...

I’ve been wanting to try First Watch for quite some time and I do have to say I was very disappointed in the service we received today. The host was the only nice person there and helped as much as he could. Once we sat down. We saw people the waitresses on the floor go to every table besides ours. We waited about 10 min for someone to even ask us what we wanted to drink. I would understand if it was busy but at the time we got there, there was not many people. The host noticed from across the room that no one had come to us and got a waitress to help. Meanwhile we could see two waitresses chit-chatting on the side not doing much . One which was our waitress. She came. We gave her the drink order and food order together. Once we got our food we ate and then proceeded to wait again with no one attending us. She didn’t even come to check on us once to ask if our food was fine or is we needed anything else. It was so bad she didn’t even bring us a check after we finished eating. She helped the white couples next to us and others near us with no issues, but not us for some reason. I couldn’t help but feel like they didn’t want to help us bc we are an interracial couple. My hubby is white and I’m Hispanic- you never know these days but why did everyone else get helped besides us?Maybe she didn’t mean it that way but that’s how we felt. I may try another first watch at some point but will never visit this one in...