First Watch — Restaurant in Harrisonburg

I cannot express how frustrating and disappointing my experience was at First Watch due to their absolutely useless “allergen menu.” Let me be clear: this is not an actual allergen-friendly menu, nor is it in any way helpful for someone who has food allergies or intolerances. It’s a list. A static, unhelpful list that does absolutely nothing to help diners navigate their options safely.

On the back of their menu, there’s a QR code that supposedly provides allergen information. What it actually does is take you to a webpage that simply shows which menu items contain which allergens. No interactivity. No guidance on how to modify a dish to make it safe. No customization options. Just a glorified spreadsheet of disappointment.

In the restaurant, their in-house “allergen menu” is no better—it’s just a paper version of the same ridiculous list. No suggestions, no modifications, nothing labeled as gluten-free except for two breakfast bowls. Two. That’s it. And if you have celiac disease like I do, good luck figuring out what can actually be made safe for you without having to interrogate the staff and hope they can give you an accurate answer.

What makes this infuriating is that before First Watch opened in my city, I had looked at their online menu, and they had tons of items listed as gluten-free. My husband and stepdaughter went opening weekend, and he came home raving about how many gluten-free options they had, so we were beyond excited to finally go together.

It took two weeks of trying just to get a table because of the overwhelming hype. We finally got seated after an hour-long wait the second weekend, only for me to discover that deciphering their allergen information requires the skills of a brain surgeon. I shouldn’t have to reverse-engineer a menu just to figure out what’s safe to eat.

First Watch could learn a lot from Red Robin, a chain that actually cares about its allergen-sensitive customers. Red Robin’s allergen menu is interactive, allowing you to remove allergens and see what modifications can be made in real time. They make it easy. First Watch makes it impossible.

For a place that prides itself on being “community-focused,” they certainly don’t care about the allergen-sensitive members of their community. Do better, First Watch. This is...

I wanted to share a frustrating experience I had today after picking up an online order from the Harrisonburg location for an important client dinner at 5 PM.

I placed the order at 10:15 AM with a 2:00 PM pickup time. The food was ready within 10 minutes of my arrival, and I appreciated the quick service. However, when I got home and began organizing the meal, I realized my client’s Cobb salad included bleu cheese crumbles, despite my order note specifically requesting they be left off.

Understanding that mistakes happen, I tried to call the Harrisonburg location multiple times to request a quick replacement. Unfortunately, the phone system continuously returned a fast busy signal. The recorded message directed me to press 0 to reach a team member, but that also led to a dead end.

After several attempts, I contacted the Charlottesville First Watch, where the manager informed me that I was not the first person to report this issue..apparently, they’ve fielded around ten calls this month about the Harrisonburg location’s phone not working. She kindly helped escalate the issue to corporate on my behalf.

While I understand the bleu cheese error was a simple oversight, the inability to reach the store to correct it was incredibly inconvenient. I ended up spending my entire lunch break trying to reach someone and ultimately had to purchase a new salad elsewhere to fulfill my client’s request.

I’m hopeful this message helps bring attention to the phone issue so that future customers don’t run into the same challenge. Thank you for taking the time to...

Hate to leave a bad review because the food was on point but this has to be addressed, today I went to eat here and aside for a long wait because of how busy they were, which they can’t control, everything was good until the end. DO NOT PAY BY SCANNING THE QR Code that’s on the receipt. Apparently it doesn’t work on their side but still takes your money, and they do not tell you this beforehand. So you end up having to pay twice, and hopefully your money is refunded in 3-5 business days or else you’ll have to come back in for a cash refund so hopefully you live in the area (which I don’t). This is just extremely irresponsible on their behalf, say you come in there with a large party and pay $500 through the QR code and have to pay another $500.. you’re down 1k until further notice. How I see it, I was able to show proof of a receipt that I paid, there’s no reason I should have been the one that took a loss, temporary or not due an error on their behalf. At that point they should have went ahead and taken care of the bill. Willing to change my review in the future but that was...