First Watch — Restaurant in Dover

If you are looking for the closest you can come to a farm - to - table breakfast/lunch/brunch in the Dover, DE area, one that is delicious and innovative, I HIGHLY recommend the newly opened First Watch in Dover. I had the opportunity to attend their VIP pre-opening. My impressions: The atmosphere is open and welcoming, staff is very friendly and knowledgeable and the food is delicious with generous portions. Their Million Dollar Bacon is wonderfully decadent, making your pallet dance with the sweet/salty flavor mix. The pancakes are light and tasty with excellent flavor choices and syrup served WARM. The Fritatta Rustica is so flavorful, with a surprise of sun dried tomatoes and crimini mushrooms adding to the flavor layers. The Chickichanga is packed with fresh ingredients and covered with a creamy Vera Cruz sauce that hints at a bit of lemon. Great coffee, great assortment of teas and other hot and cold beverages. My favorite is the Purple Haze, which is a lavendar lemonade that is fresh, pretty and pleasantly different. Their house potatoes are diced potatoes fried with onions. Adding a Parmesan cream sauce, some million dollar bacon and herbs transforms the house potatoes into the Million Dollar Potatoes. Both were delicious. For those who want to know but won’t ask - bathrooms are clean and well appointed. This is definitely the restaurant to try, especially to treat yourself to a “step above” breakfast/lunch/brunch. Price, that included a hot drink (coffee and tea), a cold drink (one of their non-alcoholic creations), an entree and one side each, ran about $27 person. First Watch -...

So this was our first time there, and it was pretty good. Definitely a bit noisy, and a little bit of a wait for a table. But that was to be expected given that this is a new place and very popular at the moment.

Service was very friendly but at times they seemed a little bit overwhelmed. Apparently they were set up for failure as when I asked what sodas they had they mentioned Mr. Pibb which I ordered. Then a different person came out to tell me that they actually did not have Mr. Pibb. The original waitress came out and told me that there was a sign for it, but they actually didn't have it. Since this is a new place, I'm guessing that they're still ironing out the bugs.

They also are still learning their own menu. My wife ordered the home fries instead of salad but they missed that and brought out salad and no home fries. They did end up bringing out the home fries when we asked. Likewise with my drink, I ordered it without ice and had to have it brought back out without ice since it came out with ice. But again this is all very minor.

The food quality was excellent. My wife really enjoyed her eggs benedict and I found the sausage and gravy was very tasty. My eggs were good, the bacon was crispy, and the potatoes were decent but not at all exciting. The toast and jam were good. We also did wait quite a while for a to-go box to come. But again, they did appear to be busy.

If I come back and service is better I will definitely bump up the service score. I definitely feel this is worth checking out.

Pricing is on the high side but the...

We attended the soft opening and found everything to be absolutely delicious! We would definitely recommend giving it a try.

Food we had: kids French toast w/ fresh fruit and bacon lemon ricotta pancakes side of regular bacon Trifecta (2 scrambled eggs, chicken apple sausage patties, chocolate chip pancake) My daughter enjoyed my chocolate chip pancake more than her French toast, but loved the fresh fruit and bacon. We really liked her french toast!

Beverages we had: water hot chocolate Morning Meditation Purple Haze

The only reason for the 4 stars in service was because 1) they initially tried to sit 3 of us at a 2 person table and 2) we waited quite a long time before someone came once we were seated. Once we got our server, Jada, she was amazing - kind, friendly, and bubbly. I know they are just working out bugs before their opening, so the "issues" were not really a big deal. Overall, great place and we world recommend...