First Watch — Restaurant in Hendersonville

Food is good but had the worst/ most strange experience here today. My husband and I came here for a nice breakfast. I ordered 1 pancake. 1 pancake that's it. My husband's food which was way more complex came out first and I had to wait on my 1 pancake to come out. They finally brought my food but it was a waffle. No big deal I should have just ate it but I told them I ordered a pancake. Took another 5-10 min to get what I ordered to begin with. By this time my husband was done eating which is fine he shouldn't have to wait and I told him to not wait for me. My pancake finally came. It was good I'm not going to lie but not worth the hastle. As I am eating i see a man who works there taking a photo of me or a photo that happens to have me in it!!!! Pointing his phone directly towards me and almost trying to be sneaky about it. I told my husband and as my husband looks at him he puts his phone down. My husband asked our waitress about it and she told said man who may be the manager or owner? He tried to explain how he didn't but still..... people dont want phones pointed towards them while they eat or without their permission to take a photo. He said I wasn't in it but we both watched the camera pointing directly towards me. Im not sure how I wouldn't be in it. He offered to show us but at that point we just wanted to leave. How weird. And then when I go to check out they tried to charge me for the waffle I didn't order which was more expensive. Overall I felt like I was being pranked with how bad the experience was. I originally put 1 star but felt that may be unfair due to the fact the food was good and our...

There was a CLUMP of HAIR in my food! I didn't think to take a picture, but I should have.

This is a hard review to write because I have loved getting breakfast at this First Watch since it opened several years ago. It was truly one of my favorite spots in Hendersonville.

That said, this past weekend I was over half way through my meal (a power wrap with no cheese) and there was a huge CLUMP OF HAIR in my food. Not strand, but clump. It looked like the hair that sometimes gets stuck to a hair band when you pull it out too quickly. I also realized after the fact that my wrap was missing the turkey.

I got the waitress's attention and she was as horrified as I was. I really looked at it to make sure it wasn't a piece of mushroom or something, but it wasn't. I even said this to the waitress and she agreed that it was very clearly a clump of hair. She was very sweet and apologetic and did what she could. She offered me more food, but I had lost my appetite at that point. She comped my meal and gave us 20% off of the rest of our bill (an appetizer, two coffees, a small juice and one more meal). I was honestly surprised that the whole thing wasn't comped, but I also understand that she was limited on what she could do.

To be clear, the 3 stars are not for our specific waitress because she really did what she could, and she was very sweet and attentive during the whole visit. The 3 stars are a collective of all of the experiences I have had here. Sometimes service is fantastic, and other times the wait staff is snotty and dismissive, as...

First Watch, there is so much that I witnessed during my hour of waiting that you can improve on. To start, it’s very apparent that you cannot handle the volume of customers you receive. Between walk-ins and online/delivery orders, staffing should be prioritized, especially on your heavy days, to accommodate the demand. Secondly, the logistics of the store’s layout seems to be inefficient. Immediately upon walking in you are brushing shoulders with patrons because you’ve chosen to put your checkout station within three feet of the entrance. Why not move the credenza that you have in the left corner as you’re walking in, to the back, and place the checkout station there. Next you can move your online/doordash/Ubereats station to your side door and have that entrance sectioned off specifically for those pickups. This will free the entire front lobby and allow more square footage for those waiting to be served. I felt so badly seeing the elderly waiting outside in sub 30 temperatures due to the estimated 1.5hr wait times. Lastly, consider investing in the pay-at-the-table technology. The quicker you can get folks in and out, the better. I watched hundreds of dollars, if not thousands, enter the restaurant and immediately exit after experiencing the several issues I’ve listed above. In my opinion, you clearly offer a really good product, folks love your food! Let’s just try focusing on becoming more efficient and tighten up the operations to enhance the customer’s overall...