First Watch — Restaurant in Houston

Great service today from Tatiana!! Also, the food here is also consistently great!

On the other hand, I've had issues with at this location with sorta lukewarm vibes, ignoring my table, or getting my order wrong (not every time, It's about 1 and every 3 times for a while there). It's gotten better though.

Why do I keep coming back? I guess that stuff doesn't bother me too much, the food is great and the general atmosphere usually has a high vibe too it if you know what I mean, and they always get my order right whenever I ask for it to be corrected.

Often the service is awesome, about 2/3 of the time perhaps. I usually come by myself and I think this has something to do with it, like a one-seater table isn't as valuable to the big C Corporation, if you know what I mean. As in, there's probably pressure coming down the pipeline, for profitability reasons, so it's probably not the server's or location management's faults as it were, but probably profit-seeking from above as is the case by the way, with whatever restaurant right? As in.. one that's not privately owned. And I'm not anti-profit by the way but I'm not going to go into that here. I think what I'm trying to communicate here is discernible.

Anyway, I just like to eat a nice long slow breakfast and tip well when I'm treated well and otherwise tip well enough anyway. And that's not a right. It's a privilege for which I have an extensive amount of gratitude.

But anyway, if you are going to come here, which overall I definitely recommend, in general you should expect this is a slow(er) service kind of place even when it's the high vibe server experience. I've learned to just come here when I'm looking to really just chill and be patient and it's a great spot for that.

Long and short of it is that I've been considering for a while to write a slightly downgraded review of this place due to the sometimes low vibes service or wrong orders, increasing prices or snide comments from management about how long I like to stay (but again, there's probably distorted pressure from corporate entities behind that so I don't take that personally in any way).

The honest reality for me is that this place is a little Sunday morning refuge for me, an overall good vibes sort of place to go pass some time and get a great breakfast 🍳🥓🙂🍴

So I would be downgrading to four or three stars, but specifically in honor of Tatiana's kindness, professionalism and excellent service I'm going to keep the five-star rating. Tatiana was authentic and genuine and high vibes. She took her time with my order and got every detail right. Even though she was handling a bunch of tables and we didn't really talk that long, it was like talking to an unrushed friend, and that's true mastery.

And yes, for the trolls out there, I myself have worked as a server, and I recognize that people are living their lives and they have ups and downs and stuff. So I'm taking that into account with this review and just saying that in general those other one out of three times just happened a little bit too frequently here at this location.

But anyway back to the service today, it's that intangible thing when you can tell when a person has an authentic spirit of joy and doing their work and is a skilful artist of quick impacting others with their joy, even in a short, non-rushed interaction. That's what I experienced today.

Note to First Watch upper management Tatiana has something to offer that will increase the value and Vibe of your firm. Should it be in alignment with her chosen goals, she would certainly be a powerful force in the C-suite as a leader and teacher of authentic and high-vibe...

Yesterday was our group’s first time here. For the most part, we enjoyed ourselves and Lily did an amazing job taking care of us. The only reason I’m not giving all 5 stars is that I was a bit boggled by management’s cost-efficiency and sustainability approach.

Specifically, when I asked the manager if they would consider switching to an “opt in” protocol for straws, they said they assume everyone wants a straw and, if not, they can just ask the server to pick them back up. Now, to be CLEAR, I didn’t ask for them to consider doing away with plastic straws altogether, only to consider not throwing down a handful of straws for each table and leaving it up to the customers to ask them to Control+Z the unsolicited action.

I mean, with so much work for staff to do, why do something unnecessarily? When probed, the manager said they give them out automatically for COVID reasons. According to the manager, the majority of the Houston population is afraid of drinking from a heat-sterilized glass or doesn’t believe this restaurant has proper restaurant hygiene protocols to actually heat-sterilize the glass 😳… Whether that’s true or not, if you assume everyone wants a straw as a way to reduce potential viral-spread, put them on every table, then put the unused ones back into service for the next table, that’s likely helping to spread any contaminants (COVID, human metapneumovirus, influenza, rhinovirus, etc.) unless you are sanitizing the packaging of every single unused straw before giving them to the next table - and remember, management believes folks don’t have faith in the restaurant’s cleaning protocols so what’s the use in them doing all that extra work? Why not just let those who want a single-use plastic straw to ask for one if they didn’t bring their own straw (even though supposedly they are so health conscious and likely afraid to eat at restaurants without one)? All of this is just wasteful both from a cost-efficiency and environmental perspective. That said, this was the first go and it’s not THE LAST STRAW for me (sorry I love puns). I hope to visit again with family and friends, but it would have been nice if the manager was open-minded to even considering small changes that wouldn’t cost anything - actually would cost less in time...

I don't know how to define this place yet. The first time we went there we were served by a waitress and while we were ordering for 2 adults and a child she left us a jar of coffee, there were many people so we understood that they had brought the child's plate and the others were late, the question was that she had forgotten to ask for them. We waited, taking advantage of the jar of coffee and we left happy that they charged us 1 jar of coffee. It didn't matter the delay or anything and as we liked that we came back. The second time, the same system, while they were taking our order, they left us a carafe of coffee. We ordered breakfast and when we went to pay they charged us a coffee per person (at the same cost they had charged us for the carafe the first time) in the middle they also forgot to bring a plate so we ate at the wrong time. We asked the waitress about the charge and she did not know how to answer us. It is not clear to us if the carafe is charged per unit or for coffees served from the carafe. It is also not clear to us if they accept more people than they can serve and the waiters are so busy (they run around in the kitchen) that they forget the plates. But well, we will keep those doubts because we will not return. A place that is not consistent with the charges and also cannot serve 3 or 4 breakfasts together means that something is wrong and there is no supervisor to detect or fix it. Maybe between pick up, delivery and public in the place they are not analyzing the situation well. The last time my son's fruit salad had fruit stalks and the plate was dirty. Noisy and poorly ventilated, you come out smelling like you have to...