First Watch — Restaurant in Lynchburg

I had really high expectations for this place and maybe that is part of the reason the letdown hurts so deeply... I have several issues with food quality, service timing, and coffee balance.

So food quality-

My husband ordered the trifecta with a Belgian Waffle, bacon, and over-easy eggs.

The waffle was nowhere near what you would expect of a breakfast restaurant in this price range. Honestly, he said he's been to Waffle houses and had better. The bacon was underdone and not crispy as stated on the menu. His eggs were not over-easy and were actually very close to being fried hard.

I ordered chocolate pancakes with honey caramel iced coffee to drink

The pancakes were average. Still did not meet my expectations of this style of restaurant.

The iced coffee which was one of the ones they were advertising for the summer was WAY TO SWEET! I couldn't even drink but 3 sips of it. It was quite disappointing because they didn't have the syrup ready for the drink till well into my meal arrived. Some balance for that drink would have really helped. I was picturing a similar drink to Starbucks Carmel drinks. I believe First Watch would benefit from adding some salt or something to cut the sweetness of that drink.

Overall, the waitress was nice but it took quite a while to get our food, and the food received wasn't that great.

I know that I can get a much better brunch at a local restaurant downtown that is constantly good and actually has fresh local food.

I will continue to support them and won't return back to this...

Absolutely terrible experience. My husband and I went here with high hopes. First, the service was absolutely awful. Our waitress took over 10 minutes to come to the table the first time. Then, took almost another 15 to bring us black coffee, but didn't bring any water. When she finally did bring us water, she took our order and disappeared for another 45 minutes. Another waiter brought our food after I got up and asked about it. My husband's waffle came out ice cold. The butter didn't even slightly melt. The waitress didn't bring any syrup either, and we actually had to go find another waitress to request it. My husband's "side of compote" was a half-full 2oz container of compote. Enough for 2-3 bites of the waffle. I ordered the breakfast burrito. It came out cold, was missing the Verde sauce, the potatoes were seasoned well, but under done, and the "side of fresh fruit" consisted of 2 small pieces of cantaloupe and a withered half of strawberry in a tiny 2 oz metal cup. My fruit also had a hair in it - which happens in kitchens, but after the long wait and sub par food, it was more than frustrating that not even the fruit was good. It was impossible to get our server to take care of anything, and when we complained, nothing was ever offered in return - no fresh food, no compensation, nothing. They weren't busy, so I'm not sure what the excuse is. Either way, food is sub par and way overpriced for...

This has been an interesting first experience that I felt compelled to do a review for the good, the bad, the ugly so to speak. The wait to be seated wasn’t too bad told 45 min and sat a lot sooner.

It took a long while to order drinks so we went ahead and ordered food at the same time. The Coke tasted watered down so maybe the syrup or Co2 needed to be changed over. The Holey Donuts and million dollar bacon was amazing for sure. We ordered 2 Hawaiian French toast, cheesy grits, and eggs. When it arrived it was just regular French toast. So they took One back to make Hawaiian real quick was stated. HERE is one of my BIGGEST issues. It definitely wasn’t made to spec per menu description alone. The pineapple tasted like lighter fluid smells. Like they tried to carnalize it w possibly a kitchen torch and turned it up so much to do it fast and the taste was horrible. No pre-busing happened and while being at a true 2 top there was not a lot of room. Everything just kept piling up. I was a serve and bartender for many years and pre-busing and taking better care of the tables is imperative. The entire experience once seated to leaving was about 2 hours.

Best advice plan to be there a long while some things are great, some are not, and I highly suggest NOT ordering the Hawaiian...