First Watch — Restaurant in Snellville

This was, without question, the worst customer service experience I’ve ever had. If I could give this location negative stars, I would.

I was in town with my mother and had been raving about First Watch, since I often visit when I travel. I had never been to this particular location, but I was excited to share it with her. I told her how good the food was, and when she saw the menu, she got even more excited. Sadly, what should have been a great experience turned into a humiliating and frustrating ordeal. I was denied service because I had my service animal with me—an action that is not only deeply unprofessional but also a violation of federal law.

After being seated and placing my order, I waited over an hour before eventually leaving—with no food, no service, and zero accountability. Early on, a manager approached me and said, “Pets aren’t allowed.” I calmly let him know that my dog is a service animal, protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). He looked at her, quietly sitting in my lap, and asked to see a vest identifying her as such. I informed him that a vest is not required under the law.

To be clear, the ADA explicitly states: "Covered entities may not require documentation, such as proof that the animal has been certified, trained, or licensed as a service animal.”

Rather than listening or verifying what I said, the manager walked away. A short while later, a man—who I later learned was the General Manager, Garris Lawrence—charged over to our table without introducing himself. He abruptly said, “Dogs aren’t allowed in here,” and walked off before I could even explain what had happened.

Later, I asked to speak with a manager, still under the impression that neither of the two people I’d spoken with could possibly be in leadership roles. The original gentleman returned, and this time, my mother showed him the ADA guidelines directly from her phone. He was more polite and said he would speak to the GM.

Garris stood in our eyeline but didn’t approach until we insisted again. When he finally did come over, I asked if the manager had shared what we showed him. Garris cut me off mid-sentence and said, “Ma’am, I ain’t about to argue with you. I said we not doing no dogs in these four walls.” He showed zero interest in understanding the law, resolving the issue, or treating a customer with even the bare minimum level of respect.

I understand that not every employee may be well-versed in ADA regulations—but once the law was calmly explained and shown to them, there were so many better ways they could have responded. They could have taken a moment to read the information, looked it up, or even simply chosen to engage respectfully. Instead, they chose hostility, ignorance, and outright refusal of service.

I’ve had wonderful experiences at First Watch locations across the country, which makes this situation even more disappointing. No one should ever have to defend their rights—or their dignity—just to...

I went with my bf today for my birthday and her retirement. We arrived at 10:00 and had to wait for a table for 20 minutes. We were seated and our waitress was Princess which was wonderful. We talked for about 15 minutes before we ordered our food because we had mimosas and coffee. Our food came and it was delicious. The waitress never came back to get our plates to give us more coffee. We were there for an hour and a half at the table. From the time we sat down to the time we were asked to leave. The manager came up to us and told us that we have to leave because the waitress wants to turn our table. I have never in my life been told that. I should’ve grab my tip off the table because I was so embarrassed. And my embarrassment turned into anger by the time I got home. Our bill was $58 plus a tip. I will never go back to first watch in my lifetime, and I will always tell the story. I’ve actually told the story on my way home to my sister and she had an incident at the exact location where her and her husband ate at panda express there was nowhere to sit so they went to the patio at first watch where no one was outside, sitting from the restaurant. The manager came out and told them to leave that it’s not for panda express customers it is for first watch only. Thanks, but no thanks what that manager did to me was left a terrible taste in my mouth when I walked out a first watch and I will never step foot in that place again. The celebration for me, and my friend was ruined.

It’s been 3 weeks since I posted the review about this paragraph. Since then I did receive a call from the home office and a call from the manager of the Snellville location. The manager said he would send me a gift card and he would mail it the next day. Three weeks later nothing for them. If they wanna blame it on the postal service I guess they can but I know better. My friend and I just retired from the P.O. Of 30 years. I’m pretty sure he didn’t send anything to my address. Just proves I will NEVER go to the Snellville location again. Management kicked us out for absolutely no reason and lied on...

It’s not exactly a high end brunch spot, but it’s always crazy insanely packed. I can only attribute its overpopularity to the fact that it’s in a quasi food desert where the only other thing available is really sad ethnic food or commercial strip mall fare. Anyway, the wait is always way too long even apparently at 11am on a Wednesday, they will mislead you about how long it’s really gonna take, and then you’ll sit at your table forever with the waiters studiously ignoring you as they breeze by, and then there’s ANOTHER long wait for the food to come. Atmosphere is nice but loud AF. You will spend 5x as long waiting around as you do eating.

Look, the food is alright enough, and probably the best brunch around, it’s like eating at a nice diner, but it’s not out of this world by any means.

On top of everything else, had a pretty negative experience today… ordered eggs florentine, which came with “avocado,” which in reality was the smallest and most pathetic slice of avocado I have ever seen on a sandwich. When I asked the waitress if this is all it came with, she asked if I wanted her to get more. She returned with a small tin of completely browned up inedible avo which looked like it had been scraped off a plate on its way to the garbage (not even kidding, it had some white residue on it that suspiciously looked like it had been previously sitting on feta cheese).

In my mind, she was trying to make up for the lack of avo on the sandwich by bringing me more; but when the bill came this girl had tried to charge extra for a “side of avocado.” Madness lol. Why not just tell people yall don’t have fresh avocado to go around instead of serving up a health code violation? Seriously.

Busy, understaffed, long, deceptive. Next time I’ll just take my chances with the strip mall...