First Watch — Restaurant in Tucker

I am writing this fresh from my recent visit from today during the 11AM-2PM service. Listen, I had a 15-minute drive home to think about how I was going to frame this review because my family and I frequent First Watch in multiple locations in the Atlanta area and this was by far the worst experience.

Upon arrival and waiting to be greeted, my party of 2 stood by someone who was waiting for the food. This should've been my sign that service wasn't going to exceed expectations once the manager walked over to another patron and started his sentence with, "Do you want me to be transparent with you, or give you the corporate response in situations like these?" I was shock to hear that come out of a manager's mouth. Needless to say, we sat down immediately as that interaction was happening and so it begins.

Once we seat, our waitress tells us to bear with her--no problem because as someone who eats out regularly, I am understanding of inconsistent service. However, as she brings over the hot pot of coffee, syrups(which was broken and we had to ask a different waitress to grab us another due to our waitress' lack of attention) and water, she decides to take a seat beside me and tells me "this is her first seat of the day." I simply brushed it off bc it was beyond unprofessional but I get it. My issue is that she didn't even ask, or say excuse me and was WAY too comfortable to sit beside a customer without regard for personal space.

We place our order, and mine returned incorrect. I ate it because I don't have dietary restrictions and I was beyond hungry to eat during my WFH lunch break. I ordered a Trifecta with a Floridian French Toast with scrambled eggs and turkey sausage. I received 2 sunny-side up eggs and a chicken patty instead. I had finished my meal when she returned to our table and goes, "SO, what's up with them eggs?" I literally stare back and say, "what do you mean?" She repeated herself with the same questions, not even mentioning the incorrect order on the meat as well, and it hits me-- I let her know that "I ate it anyway because I was too hungry to care." She then tells me that "they caught that late," and a new order was coming up. I told her it wasn't necessary but thank you anyway. More than 5 minutes later, my scrambled eggs NEVER arrived. We noticed that during that time, she was walking around, bussing tables, attending other customers for something that should've taken 2-3 minutes, or an immediate fix/repair.

At that point, my party and I were beyond finished with our food and my partner told her to cancel the eggs and to just remove them from our order. What should've been an easy, redeemable opportunity for the poor service was instead met with a contentious rebuttal that "the meal comes like that, but I'll make sure it's comp'd." Again, shock to get a response like this, I immediately remind her that I never ate the eggs I ordered and that we were ready for our check. She apologies, but passively calling my partner, "buddy" as if we are known friends, not addressing us with mutual respect.

Just when we thought it couldn't get worse, she comes over with the check but NEVER hands it to my partner. Instead, she ways it above us and tells us that she is "handing it over to the manager to take care of it." This is an issue because if we NEVER got to see the check for ourselves or see the total prior to whatever discount or removal was implied, so how do we know ANYTHING happened? As my partner is paying he hears the manager asks her what happened and her response was to brush it off with a stank face and not take accountability for her poor service. It was just disheartening.

But it makes sense. The service at this location has declined due to their management style when it isn't during peak hours (weekends, brunch hours, early in the morning). It starts at the top.

I went to a location that was further from my house because the one closer to us does not provide great service either. Now I am strongly considering making First Watch a breakfast option for my...

My husband and I loved going to this location in Tucker which is why it’s really disheartening to have to post this review. My husband and I and our 15 month old daughter had brunch here yesterday. The food is great as always so no problems or complaints there. Our servers were very nice so we don’t have any complaints about the servers. Here was the problem, The restaurant closes at 2:30pm on Sundays. We put our names down at 1:45pm and were told that the wait was going to be 15 to 20 minutes. We didn’t get seated to 2:15 and that was totally fine. But around 3pm an employee yells out to the TOP of their lungs that the store was closing, and that the employees needed to finish closing out their tables. There were still customers in the restaurant and we all talked amongst ourselves that the message was rude, unprofessional, and did not make us feel good as paying customers. So we complained to the manager. The manager was very apologetic and I personally appreciated that. She mentioned that the message was only for the employees and not for the customers, but there is NO WAY that screaming to the top of your lungs that the restaurant was closing wasn’t also intended for the customers in the restaurant . As a paying customer and also a fellow business owner, I want to offer a few suggestions that would’ve made that experience better. #1 Rather than having that employee scream to the top of their lungs that the restaurant was closing, one suggestion is to have the servers come to each table of customers and politely say “we hope you enjoyed our service today, we do want you to know that the restaurant is closing so if you could quickly complete your dining experience so that we can properly clean up and close out our tables we would really appreciate it.” #2 . It appears they stop the background music after a certain time. So another suggestion is to pick a certain song to play that’s a “Closing Song” that all the employees know is the song to close out their tables and the indicator for the servers to personally let each customer know the restaurant is closing. #3 another suggestion is to ask the employees for their ideas on how to communicate that they need to close out their tables without causing the remaining customers who are still in the restaurant to have a negative dining experience. Hopefully these suggestions are taken into consideration but as of now, my family will not be back to this location. The crazy thing is, as all of us were walking out to the parking lot, someone drove up and asked us if the restaurant was good… we were honest with them about...

First up at First Watch is a wait! Often 20+ minutes. Today our wait was 30 minutes and they were quoting wait times of 45 minutes by time we were seated. But the wait is worth it for the delicious, unique dishes.

Today we tried the Cinnamon Churros. My brunch partner loved them with the chocolate sauce, while I preferred the caramel sauce.

We ordered special coffees.. The Mint Mocha and Honey Caramel Crunch.. SOOO GOOD.. Goes down waaay too fast and deliciously!!

My brunch companion had the Million Dollar Harvest Hash. They really liked it, but said the Mike's Hot Honey heat didn't come through as heat at all. So, if you're looking for a bit of spicy in your breakfast hash, you might prefer other options.

I went for the Pick 2 option because I couldn't decide and wanted to try a couple of items. So I got the Sweet Honey Pecan salad.. It was superb and I will order it in the future as my whole meal! The mixture of chopped bacon and pecans cooked together with Honey added to the Honey Dijon dressing for the salad made this a to-die-for dish!!

For the other half, I got the Monterey Club.. It was awesome, but did (in my opinion) require a bit of additional moisture. I chose a little extra Honey Dijon dressing to drizzle inside. That made it perfect!

The biggest downside of the First Watch experience is the difficulties of dealing with their own success! Because the restaurant is packed and people are standing around waiting, it makes it really difficult to get checked in and to pay and get checked out. There's chaos at the front door where you both check in and out.

Plus, the staff is all extremely busy, so service does suffer just a bit. They have a great culture of positive service though, so the waitstaff is really cheerful and helpful even though you see them running like crazy!

If First Watch ever gets their check-in and check-out flow separated and flowing smoothly, in spite of the crowds, it'll make this restaurant a solid 5-star in my review book!

There's a lot of awesome going on here, so if you're willing to wait and can work your way to the register to get checked in, you should have a...