First Watch — Restaurant in Hickory

This morning my wife and I had our first experience here at First Watch and were very impressed!

Our server, Tobi, was very patient and kind with us as we made our selections as there were so many tasty sounding options on their menu. We enjoyed chatting with them towards the end of our meal and they were so sweet. The overall atmosphere was delightful and you could really feel how well the staff here work together and communicate.

For my selections this morning I went with the fall seasonal “Pumpkin Pancake Breakfast and got a side of the “Million Dollar Potatoes”. My only complaints here would be that the pumpkin and spice flavors in my pancake were more subtle than my personal preference but I did appreciate how you could taste the cornmeal and oats in their multigrain batter base without sacrificing that nice pillowy texture of the pancake. Accompaniment of real butter is always greatly appreciated. My eggs did unfortunately come out over-medium instead of over-easy as I ordered them but I will chock this up to how busy they were at the time. The chicken sausage was very interesting, I'm not usually big on sausage but it was very tender and well-seasoned. My side of potatoes were absolutely delightful and the portion to price ratio here was wonderful, easily an 8oz+ side.

My wife selected their “Sockeye Salmon Frittata” and got a “Honey Caramel Iced Coffee”. She was delighted by the amount of salmon in the dish, they absolutely do not skimp on portions here. While she wasn't the biggest fan of the side salad she was delighted with the slice of sourdough cibatta provided with the meal. Her coffee was fantastic, very well rounded flavor on the coffee and good blend of ingredients. Pleasing to both the lips and the eyes.

I also elected to get a caraffe of their decaf coffee while we dined in and was quite happy with it. Once again, very well-rounded and no hint of burnt coffee as most lower quality darker roasts may have. Rest assured the quality here is worth the $3.

Overall: Very enjoyable experience and the potatoes are a must-try! My best suggestion here though... aim for a less busy time haha. Your experience will be a memorable one no matter what but I think that attention to detail will be that much better when the kitchen staff have less on...

We went here to celebrate my coworker for her last day with us. I have a garlic/onion allergy. I tried to ask our waitress if they added garlic powder to the avocado toast. She cut me off while I was speaking and crouched down to yell in my face that “my food allergy was not her responsibility, it was my responsibility and that the restaurant would not take responsibility for my allergy.” She then angrily tapped a QR code on the menu and told me I needed to look at the allergy menu and decide what I could eat. We tried to tell her we had and that they didn’t identify garlic and onion as an allergen so it wasn’t readily indicated which is not helpful. We also tried to explain that even if the menu states chopped or grilled onion is in something it doesn’t tell me whether or not garlic or onion powder/salt is used. Also it’s really not an allergen menu it’s a nutritional information sheet that indicates certain things like whether or not something is gluten free or contains shellfish. She just kept barking in my face that she was not going into the kitchen to ask and that my allergy was my responsibility. I tried to end the conversation by saying “Thank you I have the information I need we don’t need to continue.” She didn’t back off, she kept berating me about how she wasn’t going to check anything and again how my allergy was my responsibility so I finally had to say “Ok I’m getting frustrated this conversation needs to end,” and she still did not stop.

If she had just said “we can’t guarantee it won’t contain garlic or onion powder” I would have just ordered the granola or oatmeal, but at this point she’s gone on so much about how both she and the restaurant don’t care about my food allergy so I didn’t feel safe eating there at all. Also, I sincerely was about to cry because she made an already stressful situation so much worse, and I did tell her “you’re being really insensitive; I could die.” We left without ordering and went to a local place that was so friendly and...

Sadly we listened to how our waitress was overtired, served million dollar bacon without plates to share (asked but got them when bacon got cold during wait), served coffee but waited very long for milk, my daughter recd her plate well before mine, both eggs undercooked. When asked about the wait we never got a reason, let’s say it took three times of her coming back and we even said we used to work at a First Watch - Very sad as we lost everything after the hurricane and to save to splurge for my bday to receive this? Never again!

7/3/25 UPDATE: We did receive an email fr First Watch Hickory Rep Paige Kuczma with an invitation to make it right on June 13: “ My name is Paige and I am one of the managers at First Watch Hickory. We as the management team were so sorry to hear about your unpleasant experience with us. That is never the impression we like to leave. We also understand that this was meant to be a special event for you and your family for a birthday after saving up from after the hurricane. We understand the hardships that have happened since the hurricane this past year and going out as a family should always be a pleasant experience.

We would like to offer a second chance to make this right and bring you and your family back for a meal on us. If you are interested in us making this happen, please send us an email back and let us know!”

We did follow-up as no new replies were received on July 2 with this response from First Watch: “ Thank you for the follow up. Your original response was forwarded to our home office. I assume based on your follow up that they did not reach out. I would assume that they closed this case. As always, we appreciate your feedback and have taken it into consideration as we have done meetings and training since your visit. ”

Funny this is derived from spelling out exactly what happened from their request of wanting to know exactly what happened.”

Guess their home office didn’t think we would follow...