First Watch — Restaurant in Florida

We ate there (new location @ Bloomingdale and Bell Shoals) 01/10/20 around 9am and our food and service were good. An hour or so later my parents went to eat with a $100 gift card we gave them for Christmas. The employee who rang up the card when we bought it was new as is this location. Anyhow, they sold us a 100 dollar card with no money on it. When my parents tried to use it to pay for breakfast, the waitress didn’t want to hear that there must be a problem. My father asked if they have had this happen before (gift cards mistakenly sold without funds loaded on the cards). The girl admitted there have been some problems. My Dad then said it was a gift from his son, not some acquaintance so please check again and get a manager. No one would admit the error or offer any resolution other than having my parents pay up. It was insulting. I had to send my wife with the receipt to get it resolved the next day because thankfully she still had the receipt. First Watch comped us some extra to cover my parents Breakfast. I understand that training in the restaurant industry is nonexistent, but you know you have problems with these cards, why give a couple senior citizens trouble when they are already in an uncomfortable situation? Over your error! My folks will not go in a First Watch again ever. Even for free. I can’t believe First Watch customer service is lacking to this degree. What a shame, but really it is probably worth the drive to go to The Brunchery and get the service that goes with a "Mom and Pop" restaurant. I see management reaching out to speak with me on this review site. My real name is the name that I post under on Google, as I only submit actual reviews based on actual experiences (good and bad). This review is specific to the new location at Bloomingdale and Bell Shoals. I do not know the names of the manager or waitress on duty my p when my parents dined in. Manager Eric fixed the card on 01/11/20 when my wife returned and explained that someone failed to apply our money to the gift card we purchased. My entire gripe is based on the notion that you should give people the benefit of the doubt when your employees have been botching gift card sales during the holidays. There isn't a freebie or pseudo-heartfelt conversation that would change my mind in regards to your restaurant. The problem is yours (first watch management) to fix. I'm just posting this as fair warning to anyone considering giving gift cards from this place. I...

So I digress before I begin...my husband and I went to First Watch on East Bloomingdale Ave and Bell Shoals, a couple of weeks ago around 1:30, we sat at the bar and got breakfast, which took a LONG time to come out, I honestly think the girl forgot about us even though we were sitting at the bar right in front of her, other people that came in after us got served before us, needless to say the food was cold, we both had the traditional breakfast...SO, we thought we would give them another shot, today we went in at 2:00, they say they close at 2:30, they sat us at a table, there were 2 other tables with a few people, we waited a couple of minutes and nobody acknowledged us so we decided to sit at the bar again because there were 2 servers there, we got coffee right away and ordered a couple of minutes later, the girl was friendly, we ordered Eggs Benedict, we got our food around 2:30ish, again my food was STONE COLD, my husbands eggs were warm but everything else was cold including his potatoes. If a restaurant advertises that it closes at a certain time, they shouldn’t stop caring about its customers experience no matter what time they come in, they should have certain servers to keep serving and servers to start closing, they start closing around 1:30, I’m assuming that the kitchen does as well, and they forget about EVERYTHING else but closing. They need new management DESPERATELY and needless to say we won’t be back. My husband and I hardly ever write reviews, or a book for this matter, but I couldn’t help myself this time. I wish them luck.I wouldn’t have given them one star, but it wouldn’t let me...

I want to start off saying we've been dining with First Watch across multiple locations for years and never had a bad experience until now.

We checked in online prior to arrival and were sat shortly after 10:20 (three adults and toddler). Our waitress came by sometime around 10:30 and took our drink orders (two iced coffees and waters) and we put in for a kids pancake meal and Millionaire's bacon. At 11:00 we got the kid pancake, no Millionaire Bacon. At around 11:30 our waitress came by to drop off the check, thanked us for our visit. We never even got our food. When we told the waitress as muched she apologized and said she'd been sat with multiple tables and was under the impression we were fine. When we spoke to the manager (who was wearing cook attire and not a floor manager uniform) he threw his hands up at me and said, "I'm sorry but as you can see we're really busy." I told him busy is fine, but busy is no excuse for every table who was sat after us getting their food and us only getting a bill for food we never received. He said he'd comp our meal (which couldn't have been more than $15 for what we DID get) and didn't even so much as offer a gift card for our next visit (but did say he hoped we give them another shot and visit again).

I feel bad even writing this review but it was so bad and the situation could have been avoided had they not oversat an already understaffed breakfast shift. The manager's approach to handling it didn't really...