First Watch — Restaurant in Rockville

Update: Recently returned to this First Watch. Happily, it seems that they've worked out their kinks and working more smoothly. Still a little slow on being attended after seating. And they still can't seem to work out how to timely seat people outside despite there being many open tables. But the host and the waiter where much more attentive and responsive. And I think they improved on their previously watered-downed coffee too! I'm happy to bring my rating up to 4 stars (from 2 stars). Will visit again on a weekend to see how they handle the larger crowds.

Original post: Not sure what’s going on with the Rockville First Watch. This has been one of our go-to restaurants for several years because of their great food and friendly, efficient service. These last few months have been a different story.

We noticed how the success of this First Watch had increased their patronage, but their ability to handle the load has deteriorated dramatically. Not sure if it’s due to an almost completely new wait staff, poor management, staff burnout, or rude post-pandemic crowds. The effect, however, is an unpleasant dining experience that has us looking for other restaurants as our new go-to place.

In specific, the new issues include longer times to wait after being seated to get a waiter’s attention (15-20 minutes), longer times to wait for food to arrive, constant small mistakes (missing cutlery, no water, incorrect/missing orders, etc.), less visibility of our waiter, and a generally less friendly attitude.

On top of that, we’ve experienced an increasing number of “incidents”. Last time we were there, an irate customer who, to be fair, had been waiting for over half-an-hour after being seated to get their order taken, finally lost it when the waiter screwed up his family’s order and tried to blame it on him. A foul mood descended on the entire restaurant as the customer and waiter argued in increasingly loud voices. This loud arguing then continued in the kitchen amongst the staff, which could be heard in the dining area, only prolonging the foul mood. All this while many of the other tables where also growing impatient due to a lack of service, missing items, etc.

Additionally, getting seated has taken a scary Lord-of-the-Flies turn. Though seating times have increased upwards to an hour on the weekends, there always seem to be 5-6 open tables. This greatly annoys people who have been waiting for a long time without being called. This has also led to people taking it upon themselves to find their own table, to which the wait-staff are either powerless or unwilling to fix, which in-turn turns formerly annoyed waiting customers into understandably irate customers.

Despite all that, the food is still great. Our hope is that the Rockville team finds their stride, plugs up their gaps, and returns this location into a pleasant dining experience once again. Until then, I’ll maintain my...

Parking & street location are odd.

Female host was friendly. Male server was and is miserable. No eye contact. No smile. No 'Hello' or 'How are you?' Mumbled something about coffee.

He brought breakfast without a smile or a word. Dropped the plate and left. He wasn't very busy either yet it took 15 minutes after bringing the breakfast for him to check on me.

I just want to leave. I'm so tired of bad restaurant service and lousy food in DC area. I should've known better - First Watch is a chain. Maybe other locations are very good? This one is not.

I regret that Alexandria's Del Ray Cafe doesn't have a restaurant in MD suburbs. Their breakfast menu is awesome and the staff are professional and friendly.

This lacklustre experience is really surprising for me because I always heard such nice things about this location's staff and their breakfast.

Food is ok. Again nothing like the rave reviews. Coffee is bland. Fake creamer in those environmentally UNfriendly plastic cups. Really pathetic. Eggs Benedict Florentine also bland - avocado not ripe - 2 thin slivers, 1 on each egg. What a joke!

The "seasoned" potatoes - bland - NOT seasoned even after I seasoned them myself with a lot of fresh pepper. Maybe it's an April Fool's prank on me. Cannot recommend this place at all.

The waiter knew he treated me terribly. When I went up front to the register to pay. After ignoring me for 45 minutes he followed me and pretended to be doing something at the register the entire time I paid. I guess a form of passive-aggression to ensure I tip him? I still tipped 15% which for me is bad. I normally leave a gratuity of 20-25%.

It's a chain. This company does not care or management would contact me and others who've received subpar food or bad service. Yet management will not make the effort. They know the people of Rockville are breakfast-starved. These folks will accept any dining establishment that offers breakfast. I won't.

Especially since it looks like they may have removed the photos of the server (Brian) who treated me badly and a photo of my check. Or maybe something weird is going on with Google Maps.

Either way, First Watch management does not have the professionalism to contact me about Brian's poor attitude and my overall bad breakfast experience.

I give 2 stars for the nice host, eggs were cooked to perfection, bread very good,...

I have been here twice now and had two VERY different experiences.

7/16/22 This was my first visit, me and my friend dined indoors and the service and food were great. Staff were friendly, my cup did have pink lipstick or something stained onto it so I had to ask for another one but that is nothing to really gripe over. Overall I would give my first visit a 5/5

Now on to the second visit… My second visit was 7/19/22 and I had placed a large carryout order after having dropped my car off at a repair shop and gotten my rental. In all my order was almost $80. When I got there they initially could not find my order despite my having arrived 10 minutes after my initial pickup time. Then they told me the system had not printed the order so they were making it. Then the manager came up to me and asked me if somebody else picked up my order, and as it turns out, they had actually given my nearly $80 order to someone else. They offered to remake it, I accepted, and I will admit it was surprisingly quick between when they told me they were remaking my order and when they handed it to me. The main complaint I have is the fact they are somehow so disorganized that they gave an $80 to someone that did not have my name (or maybe they did, but what are the chances). They didn’t offer me anything extra, a drink or an item off for the inconvenience although they did lose out on however much the difference was between my order and the person they gave my order to’s order. The soup I got looks half full (the container it is in is literally half full), but as usual all the food was very good. Hopefully they come up with a better system to distribute food to people. Overall the second experience was a 4/5 as they did get my food out in a timely manner, they were polite, they did apologize for the mix up and the food itself was good.

And to the person who took my food probably knowing very well the food was not theirs, I hope karma...