First Watch — Restaurant in Mesa

I'm writing a new review because my original from when this location first opened is now out of date. Unfortunately, things have gone downhill in most of the ways that matter.

My wife and I have been going to this First Watch location about once every week or two since it first opened. My wife does like the coffee. Most of that time, I've thought their food has been "fine", if a little overpriced and trendy (think: a lot of "mixed greens" to fill out otherwise empty plates, for breakfast). I finally discovered that I could just ask for an extra sausage link on their Tri-Fecta plate to make for a total of two a little while ago, though it cost about an extra three bucks.

I'm ok with "fine" food if my wife likes it, even if it is a little overpriced. The problems started a couple of months ago when I first got a raw waffle (that got sent back, with the server very apologetic about it because it was so obvious). Then, on three of my last four or so visits, my eggs have been raw as well. I normally order them "over medium", not even "over easy" as I usually do elsewhere, because I know this location undercooks food. But the last two times I've ordered eggs this way here, they've come with the whites runny. I like a runny yolk as much as the next guy, but runny whites just means the egg is raw. You may as well just crack an egg open directly onto the plate.

On my last visit, I ordered the eggs benedict, and the eggs came so underdone that I could not even pick them up or move them around. They just fell apart, including the whites, and ran all over the plate. I immediately sent the whole plate back. The second plate I got had one egg that was overcooked (completely hard) and another that was the same as the original plate. Clearly, whoever is making eggs here just does not know how to cook eggs. At a breakfast restaurant.

I know eggs in the United States are reasonably safe, but somebody at some time is going to get sick from this. They are just undercooked eggs, even when ordered in such a way that they should be "medium".

The kitchen staff needs to be retrained. I've never had eggs like this anywhere else. Buy a timer or something; they call them "egg timers" for a reason. I can make eggs consistently at home; I don't need to pay a restaurant to make them worse than I can. This is a breakfast restaurant, as a reminder.

To touch on other aspects of the experience... the service has improved since day one but I feel like there is still something wrong with the system they have. The servers themselves are nice and attentive once they know you're there. We still have to wait sometimes 10 minutes or more for one to initially show up and offer us coffee or juice (at that point we're long ready to just order everything). And often there is nobody at the door to seat us either, so we just stand there wondering if we should leave and go somewhere else (probably yes, right now).

It's all academic because of the raw eggs, though. We won't be back again until that issue is fixed. It's beyond being a one-off or a cook's bad day at this point. It's a...

Good food once it finally arrives. It seems like they don’t quite have the system down at this location yet. My wife and I arrived at 9:45 and were told it would be a 15 minute wait even though the restaurant was half empty. We assumed it was due to COVID or something, but we realized later once the place filled up that that was not the case.

We were seated at 10:02 (they text you when the table is ready, so I know the exact time) and ordered about 5 minutes later. Nothing crazy or off menu, just some French toast, pancakes and an omelet. It took 40 minutes for our order to arrive. During that time I saw lots of standing around and waiting in the kitchen by the waitstaff, and the restaurant did finally fill up. I believe the delay in seating was just to give the kitchen more time to make food. So you’re really looking at about an hour wait to actually eat here, even when it’s not particularly busy (ie. the restaurant isn’t full and there’s a waitlist).

Once the food did arrive, it was good. Maybe a little trendy for my tastes - I just like a good diner style brunch, and this is more of an “elevated” food thing where they’re trying to mix up and modernize things, like giving you a kale salad with your spicy chorizo omelet. Just give me a Denver omelet with some toast and I’ll be happy. There are two “traditional” selections on the menu but they’re both very basic meat and eggs type things. Something a little in between that and modern trendy would be nice. I ended up with a chorizo and chili omelet, which was very good but just probably not what I was really looking for.

I did think their pancakes were some of the best I’ve had in a restaurant - any restaurant. And I was a little worried ordering “multigrain” pancakes. I needn’t have been - I couldn’t even tell that part, but what I did taste and feel was a fluffy and somewhat crispy pancake, which is how I make them myself but restaurants rarely do. I like that little bit of crunch on the outside - like it was made in a cast iron pan.

We might try again sometime once the kinks are worked out at this location. But honestly, there are breakfast places around here with menus more to my liking anyway. It’s probably worth going back sometime for the...

(Read the full review) First I want to say that we have tried this specific location twice and both times as expected the wait time was 30+min. Now this review is based on our second experience as our first could have been similar. When adding our name to the list we requested outside seating which was estimated to be about a 30-45min wait, as we walked back outside to kill some time we noticed not a single person was sitting on the outside patio. (We later learned due to the abundance of whining customers that did not want to sit outside, but also did not want to see people seated before them the waiting list is structured to support that) Once we were seated it took every bit of 15 mins before an experienced server by the name of Tiffany to see us through the window and that we were siting with out drinks/food (We were the only people seated outside). She took the time to step away from her assigned section and walked out and asked if we have been helped and of course this was the moment we decided it was time to explain our experience as problems especially in the reasurant industry don't get fixed if they are not known. We explained to her this was our second visit and our first experience was identical. (we typically give reasurants two chances before deciding if it's worth our time/money) Tiffany not only understood that the service of a restaurant can make or break an experience no matter how good the food is, she also took over and became our waitress. The remainder of our experiences were the way it should have been from the beginning. We want to thank Tiffany once again as due to her professionalism and hospitality we will be back. We also wanted to give a shout out to Jake as he took the time to speak with us and reassured us he appreciated our feed back and would make sure he would make a few changes to make the experience better for...