First Watch — Restaurant in Asheville

I arrived at this place really excited about the reviews. I should have paid more attention to the red flags. I arrived to a line of pissy costumers complaining to each other their table was taking forever. Brushed it off because I am used to waiting for tables and was not in a hurry at all. Walked in to put my name in and approach a lady standing behind a stand to the left hand. She did not acknowledge my greeting or looked at me until I leaned slightly closer and greeted her again. She then told me, again without even a hello, that the host was at the stand on the right hand (which was empty). Kinda abrasive lady, but whatever. I waited there a couple minutes then the host came, greeted me and I put my name and phone number there, polite young guy, told me a table for 2 would take 20 minutes. I waited outside for 15 minutes for my friend who arrived at 11, and we were seated at 11:19. It’s all ok, we are here for brunch. The waitress was very nice. We ordered right away 2 iced coffees and food. We received the iced coffees soon after but after a lot of talking and catching up I started to wonder where my food was and realized it was 12:40. Went to the restroom and when I got back our waitress came to apologize. We finally got our food. My eggs Benedict were overcooked so they were more like hard boiled. That really ruined it for me but I was starving at that point. It would have been pretty good if the eggs were made properly. I am not a big eater but after that and the iced coffee I did not feel full at all (I swapped the salad for fries), but again we were there for a long time. I paid a total of $25.95 for the iced coffee and eggs Benedict ($5 of that was tip). I don’t know if they were having a specially hectic day today, it’s my first time here, but as a local I know I am probably not going to give them another try. Also the abrasive lady who first talked to me was the one to check me out and did not look like she wanted us to come back either, not even “thank you,...

The whole thing was fine. Not great, not bad, just fine. I was there on June 17 for breakfast with a group of 7. I had one of their Eggs Benedict and it was fine, although the eggs were over cooked. I did enjoy the cheese grits I had on the side. Most others in the group had the traditional breakfast. I heard that the potatoes were hard and the scrambled egg portions were tiny, as well as poorly cooked. Just hard and flat. My sister went several days later (I had not mentioned my visit to her) and she specifically texted me to tell me the scrambled eggs look like someone started a fried egg and then halfway through decided it should be scrambled. If you have a breakfast place, your eggs HAVE to be on point. Especially for the price. For three people, with coffee and breakfast—no specialty drinks or alcohol—the bill was just over $50. The service was fine, although we got the impression our server wanted to turn the table. It was busy and maybe we overstayed. Inside the building, the ambient volume is loud which is problematic for the oldsters in my fam, but they do have lots of outside seating that would be quieter. My family does a monthly Saturday breakfast and First Watch is centrally located for most of us, but it’s unlikely to...

We have eaten many times at two other First Watch, and we have never been disappointed. This was our first visit to the new Asheville location, and our first time leaving disappointed. I do not know if it was because it is fairly new and they are working out the kinks, or if it just bad. The restaurant itself was beautiful and spacious, our waitress was great, and the overall atmosphere was very pleasant. The food, however, is what was horrible. I mean just plain bad! The breakfast sandwich (which I always get at the other locations) tasted weird…maybe bad arugula, I don’t know…just bad. The lemon ricotta pancakes were just not good either (again we have ordered them a lot without incident). The breakfast potatoes, although they tasted normal, were not cooked enough. They should be soft in the inside, not crunchy.The temperature of the food was fine, the appearance was normal, but the taste was just nasty. I’m afraid I will not visit this restaurant again, and it will be a long time before I even visit another First Watch. Just the thought now, of that weird, nasty, off-putting taste, makes my...