First Watch — Restaurant in Short Pump

First Watch was always an enjoyable experience as it had friendly staff and service, a lively atmosphere, and delicious breakfast/lunch items; however, with my recent visit, I had a very poor time and left feeling dissatisfied. When entering, the front staff was very kind and was fast to show us to our table. My partner and I, after some time, figured out what we wanted and waited for our waiter to come by. About 10 minutes, our waiter comes by with a coffee pot (that we did not ask for) and said they'll be back. My partner and I aren't particularly coffee drinkers, but when another 10 or so minutes passes by of waiting, we just went ahead and drank some without knowing or being told that it will be billed; however, I do understand that I have to take some blame as everything isn't free and have been here before (and I don't particularly mind spending a few more dollars for a good experience). The waiter then comes by to take the order of the table next to us who came after we did. They then leave and doesn't come back to get us for another ~5 minutes, but when he did, he was quite lovely. When given my food, the chickichanga, most of it was already cold, which was very upsetting (as well as my partner's Veggie Burger to be very underwhelming). At some point, I really wanted some water (as I'm not much of a coffee person), but I couldn't get my waiter's attention for a long time, and when I asked for it, they took a ridiculously long time to bring it out. What's even more disappointing is that when looking at the kitchen, most of their time was spent on chatting with their other staffs. Then I was given the check with the (unasked) billed coffee which was a cherry on top (but again, I do understand that I am also to blame - I also noticed the lack of water cups that was given out but more coffee pots being instantly sat on people's tables as well, so it just seems to me that they just wanted a lot of people to put more money in the tab (and this has never happen to me before)) with the poor service. In some degree, I understand that mistakes can happen, and time will not always be available, especially when it comes to busy hours (however, barely half-way through my meal, half of the building was empty) comes with needing to restock items (such as dishes) or needing a bit of time to relax from the rush. However, just comparing the other visits to this one, I was very disappointed and hopes that my next visits won't be as poor...

UPDATED REVIEW (Aug 16, 2023) - Went back to the Short Pump location to give it another try. On the way there, approx 5 min out, I put my name down. Once my boyfriend and I got there and checked in. It was a little busy and I could tell the staff was stressed out so we sat and waited about 10 minutes for a table but saw many tables available. Still it’s okay, I get it they’re busy. Once we got sat in the middle of the restaurant with tables with food surrounding us, we figured that service would not be an issue. Unfortunately, we were wrong. We sat there for 10 minutes with waitresses/waiters walking around us while other tables got sat a greeted. Another table got sat diagonal from us and had their table wiped by the waitress and immediately served. So we got up and left again. I came back to update my review and saw the owner had responded and left her email, so I wrote one. Once I sent it I got an email back saying my message was blocked. Who knows what happened since I left the review a year ago and prompted her response a year ago too. It felt like we were sitting in no-man’s-land, like our table wasn’t assigned to anyone’s section. Definitely won’t be coming back to this location but maybe a different location. I think that management is pretty unorganised.

OLD REVIEW: Usually generally like this place. Recently the service has plummeted at Short Pump and Regency locations. I understand the busy Sunday mornings but I think there could’ve been a bit more organisation. My boyfriend and I sat for nearly 20 minutes outside as tables all around us were served with many different waitresses and waiters. We felt a little bit ignored and decided to leave. Though it was busy and I don’t entirely blame the busy staff. I think the waitress/waiter in our section could’ve been alerted of each new tables arrival from the hostess. Mistakes happen but I was rather...

Worked at this location for all of 3 weeks. When hired I was excited as the management team seemed very friendly. I was fooled!! After being “trained” for 6 days(basically doing my trainers job for free) and being placed on the floor, I shortly realized the algorithm of the place. They only sat black people in one area of the restaurant and of course only with black servers. Which I found weird bc Jeremy explained to me how we “sat ourselves” Not to mention there was always only 1 black server scheduled per shift. Very rarely was it 2. There was about 5/6 of us total. I also noticed how they would skip seat. People would be waiting for 20-30 minutes at a time, but if they were black.. they were being sat with a black server. It doesn’t matter who came in first. I’ve worked in the hospitality industry for well over 7 years, it’s not hard to pick up on shady business or someone trying to get over, and it was ALOT of that. I felt as if I was hired to pick up the slack of what others on the staffing team did not want to do. It was such a passive aggressive environment, 0/10 experience. On top of that, when time for me to get paid.. they didn’t have my pay card in place.. it was with my off-duty manager.. 3 days after I had been “paid” so I had to wait. I quit by sending a message to my manager about how I felt in regards to the work environment, I heard...