First Watch — Restaurant in Dr. Phillips

Yesterday morning I went to First Watch at Palm Parkway with a friend to get breakfast before work.

We arrived at the location and were sat within 2 minutes of being on the waiting list, which was good. After we sat at the table it took our server a long time (about 15 minutes) to come to the table and take our orders. We were waiting and being completely ignored until i made eye contact with him and he decided to come.

After ordering, we waited for about 35 minutes, and no sign of either the food, or our server. He never came back to check on us, or to give us an update on our order. At that point we were even feeling neglected, since we noticed he would rarely come near our table and when he did so, he would be looking the other way.

I was finally able to stop him and ask how much longer it was gonna be, because I needed to be at work soon, he said 5-7 minutes, so i ordered it to go, since I wasn’t going to have time to enjoy my meal a the restaurant anymore.

10 minutes later, i stopped another server, with the intent of cancelling my order, since I had to be at work in 15 minutes and was already probably late by that time, she was aware of the situation and assured me the food was ready and being put on a to-go container. We got the food, payed the bill and left.

We ordered a Traditional Breakfast (with scrambled eggs, turkey sausage, wheat toast and potatoes) and the Tri-fecta (with scrambled eggs, bacon and waffle), when I opened the bag, the toasts for the first one was missing, as well as the potatoes, and the second one was missing the bacon, another turkey sausage was sent instead.

It is clear to me that our orders were not complete and we were sent whatever options they had at that point, since we were getting ready to leave. We weren’t given an explanation for the wait, or even an apology for the wait. For them, it seemed like it was business as usual, and we were just another two customers to walk through their doors.

As a result of that disastrous morning, I was late for work and stayed hungry for another 3h, until my break time. My friend went back to the restaurant with our wrong order hoping to get either a fresh and correct meal, or some type of credit/refund, but instead they only offered him the 3 missing items and sent him on his way.

We felt very unappreciated and disrespected that day. It was frustrating, especially on a restaurant chain that big and with the good reputation First Watch has. They certainly lost two...

Short version: friendly people, amazing breakfast, perfect coffee...even drinking it black, and awesome juices!

Long version: We went on February 21st, 2023. When we first walked in, we observed a clean dining room, very bright, inviting, and rustic atmosphere, and a friendly, smiling face to show us to our table. The waitress was super friendly and helped us navigate the normal menu as well as the seasonal menu and offer great suggestions.

We ordered the lemon ricotta pancakes from the regular menu and the "hash" menu item from the seasonal menu for that time. In addition, we ordered coffee and we had juice drinks as well...the Morning Meditation and the new "Tangerine Dream."

The coffee was bold but not too bitter so it could easily be enjoyed black...no creams or sweeteners. However, there was half-and-half, vanilla, and hazelnut creamers on the table to punch up the coffee if you desired.

The lemon ricotta pancakes were fluffy with a sweet and zingy lemon curd on top with beautiful and vibrant strawberry slices on top!

The seasonal hash contained well grilled potato pieces, fresh tomatoes, goat cheese, perfectly grilled, juicy chicken slices, savory onions, and perfect over easy eggs. We loved the balance of savory potatoes, pungent goat cheese, and bright pops of cherry tomatoes.

Both juices were bright and refreshing and a great way to start the day!

Overall, this was the best breakfast experience we enjoyed during our entire vacation to the Orlando/shopping outlets/Disney area!!! If all the other First Watch locations in Florida are this tasty, friendly, and enjoyable as the O Town location, then w will purposefully be on the lookout for First Watch establishments everytime we travel...

I will rate this place 1out of 10 and only get the 1 because of the atmosphere. Let’s start when we arrived. Bald guy with glasses on his head looked at us with this weird attitude on his face as if he knew us. Never been to this restaurant and not even from this state, we are on vacation. So we preceded to the host station and name was asked never mentioned we need to check in when we get a text message. We sitting and seeing everyone name called so we assumed our name will be called when table is ready. We got a text and a few minutes went by let me also remind we sitting right in front of the hostess. We then get greeted by the bald guy with the glasses on his head, he then say you all need to check in because we drop guest if they don’t respond to the text. We replied to the hostess ask for our name and we see he calling everyone else name and we are sitting maybe 3 feet from the hostess table we assumed you all would call our name. He then said when we text that mean your table is ready. Needless to say we just sat down and waited on our waiter. She took our order and the we waited longer then I think we should have because it was a group of 6 that sat down after us was already eating their food. Needless to say again we get our food only to be very disappointed. I ordered shrimp and creamy cheese and grits, nothing was creamy about the girts. Hard grits look like it just been sitting in the pot. My daughter order biscuits and gravy with savory potatoes the potatoes was under cooked the biscuit was hard. My baby girls turkey sausage was very cold. I will never ever...