First Watch — Restaurant in Creve Coeur

So, we went for a brunch today 4/07 and the experience was horrible. For starters I will say and want to make perfectly clear, that our server (whos name is "roach" on the reciept) was great. She was the best part of our entire experience.

So, we went online to check in on the virtual wait list. It said it was approximately a 1½ hr wait. We headed up around 1:15 let them know we were there. The gentleman at the host desk was friendly and said we were next and would be seated shortly. So we waited there within earshot with everyone. Some woman (who we will hear more from later) came up and seated 3 other couples. We thought maybe they were online check-ins as well so maybe they were ahead of us. The same guy who we had originally spoke to came up and called a 4th couple. So we walked up and asked what happened. He looked and said "you still haven't been seated? That he rremembered us and wasn't sure why our name was no longer on the wait list at all." He apologized and immediately sat us.

So we are now seated and ordering. We selected our dishes, she got the shrimp and grits with a side of toast bread. I got the pick 2 ½ ham and cheese sandwich with a ½ salad. We also got an order of doughnut holes to share.

Food comes out in a respectable time brought out by a different server. We both start eating, as she takes a bite into her toast she gags noticing a patch of mold on the bread. I ask our server if I can see a manager just to tell them to get rid of the bread. So the GM (same lady who had passed up our name on the waitlist) comes and asks what the problem is. I explain and show her the mold. She said she would take care of it.

note: Our table is closest to the kitchen exit so I can see straight in. I see the GM go in, grab a cambro, pop off the lid, and look in at the sliced bread. She shakes it around, reached in, grabbed a few pieces of bread and throws them away, and out of the same cambro grabs another piece and throws it in the toaster. Seeing this, I immediately tell my feiancee not to eat whatever she brings out.

So this GM brings out a "fresh" toasted piece of bread and sets it on the table . My feiancee looks down and there is mold on this piece too. So I call our server back over and tell her to take it away and we don't want any more.

It'd be different if I didn't just watch her cherry pick through a container to throw some away and pick a "suitable" piece. So GM comes back and says that she'd talk to the distributor. Lady, I've owned 2 restaurants and was the executive chef over them both. Distributors don't send moldy bread. Anyway, she said she'd take the shrimp and grits off the tab. Great, fine. But after you personally brought us spoiled food for the second time, you should have taken responsibility and done something more.

At this point my, my feiancee has lost her appetite and my blood is boiling so we just decide to leave. As we walk up to the counter to pay the cashier asked how our meal was, we told her bad. We explained what happened and she insisted on talking to mngmt. We told her not to bother, we just spoke to her. She said there's someone else to talk to. Well... you guessed it. Here she comes.

So she walked up and said "she said you watched me grab bread from the container, it was a different one, i told you I threw it away. I already took off your shrimp and grits, so I'll give you another $5 off." I told her, i watched her grab a piece out of the same cambro that she'd just thrown bad pieces away out of. She was stuck on the fact of thinking i was saying it was the same container as the origional piece. I dont care where it came from. If you saw one bad piece in that cambro, the whole container is trash. It is all cross contaminated.

So, she's standing there arguing with me infront of a whole line of customers about serving spoiled food. I litterally watched you. It's not about the money off. I honestly just want whoever is above this GM to know what kind of food quality and management they have. We are searching for a new brunch spot, sans...

Ordered smoked salmon eggs benedict and kale tonic. If you order their smoothie, make sure you ask for NO ICE. There were gigantic ice cubes in my glass. I couldn't taste any veggie/freshness after my first sip... when ice cube started melting all I could taste was like artificially flavored fruit juice that gets seriously watered down. I don't understand it, there is already water added blending the smoothie, why would I need HUGE ice cubes to water it down even more?! Then for the eggs benedict, I have to say, the WORST I've ever had in my whole life, even worse than the one I made at home for the very first time. The two eggs were poorly poached, literally hard boiled, no mention "runny" or even "soft" yolk. Hollandaise sauce was poorly made too. Can't taste any sourness at all (if you don't have fresh squeezed lemon juice, please use vinegar!) Smoked salmon is the worst, basically some aged soggy pickled salmon slices (and it says "wild caught" on the menu). Can't taste the woody smoked flavor at all. The frozen smoked salmon you buy from IKEA would even taste better than this. No English muffin at the bottom, not even an appropriate alternative. It was a slice of hard toast that they literally gave you a steak serving knife to cut it with. Greens on side is awful too. Some not-fresh-at-all spinach leaves dressed with pure white vinegar (here is the sourness I was looking for in the sauce!) This is a very poor pairing that made the main dish even less tasteful. And this dish is labeled $12.99. I get how they want brand them as "healthy" eating, but "healthy" dose not equal to "no flavor" no mention their lack of freshness! You could make dish healthy and delicious, that's what customers are paying for. Maybe they have some good items on the menu and I just happened to order the one that they are not good at making it. But to my point, this dish is very unprofessionally cooked and should never be presented to the customer. I can't believe how it got passed from the chef's hands to my table. Bad food quality. Over priced menu. Very disappointing experience...

First Watch aka Home of the Raw Potato!

After being a regular customer for years I don't think I'll ever eat at any of their locations again. When it first came out, no one compared to their food in my opinion. Food was always great and came out fast. But now the food is mediocre, over priced but still comes out fast as ever. And I think it's because their priority is to get you out and get the next table in as fast as possible. Profit is the priority, not good food and service anymore. Which is very unfortunate. Everyone I know gave up on this place a year or two ago, and it was me that was always beg them to come with me. Until my last 4-5 visits with 3 different locations, and it's always the same. We know refer to this place as the home of the Raw Potato. You can only get them burnt, or raw. I've been on the busiest days so many times, and 10 mins after I order here comes my food (which is usually a great thing) but the million dollar bacon I got was just well done bacon with syrup on it (upcharged for no reason), and the potatoes were so hard on the inside. I have told them multiple times I don't mind waiting longer to have my food cooked how it should be. But they don't care they wanna get you out and get the next table sat. So you can poorly cooked food because of it. It's way too expensive for all that! And I've never, never seen a manager walking around or had a manger ask us how our food is? You can tell the cashier when you leave about how bad your food is, and they'll "say sorry to hear that, that'll be $54.86" lol. This place went down hill fast. Plenty of other options out there if ya don't wanna make breakfast at home. But this place needs to quit ripping people off and hiding from being help accountable for it. Look how pale the potatoes are in my picture, they weren't even cooked hardly. Over $50 for two people and all I enjoyed was my waffle soda and the eggs kind of. Never got to speak...