First Watch — Restaurant in Virginia

A really disappointing experience today unfortunately. First Watch is my daughter and I's favorite brunch spot. Today really let us down.

The 20 minute wait to be seated was to be expected on a Sunday, however, waiting exactly 30 minutes just to get our drink orders in, was confusing as we watched tables that sat after us get their drinks and food. We did go nudge the host that we hadn't been helped, and still it took a while to get service. We ordered food at the same time as our drinks, and then waited again for over 30 minutes for our food. We should've left, but my daughter was hungry and really wanted her pancake from here. When our food did finally come, there was more confusion, as we just waited all that time, for our food to not even be hot. The scrambled eggs with the trifecta were rubbery, unseasoned, and looked like had just been scrapped off the bottom of the pan, the waffle wasn't warm enough to melt the butter, and my side potatoes were forgotten. We ate our food (aside from the inedible eggs) and asked for the check and the forgotten potatoes to go. A check was handed over, but it was not ours (glad I wasn't so over it that I just paid and got out of there) and then my potatoes were brought not in a to go box. I will say thanks for comping the potatoes after all the hassle and time, but this service really was enough to not want to come back to this location or ever feel comfortable recommending it to others.

Organization seems very all over the place, I noticed 4 different servers plus the manager taking care of the 5 tables on the patio, and maybe that's where the confusion for staff comes in?? Not sure, but not really an excuse especially after we had to go back to the host to see if someone could help us, and continued to struggle with service.

At least my potatoes were hot and...

So my daughter and I came here for a father/daughter date on 2/10/24. I hadn't been to a First Watch in over ten years, but I remember that the service was exceptional when I was there before (in Jacksonville FL). We were sat and taken care of in the normal fashion, ordered our food, drinks, etc. with crayons and drawing activities galore. Before the drinks came out we had to visit the restroom, as expected with children, and came back to the table to ready drinks, and service ready. We put our order in, played a few games, got our food, and ate a bit of our meal, when we needed to visit the restroom once more (again, as expected). Upon returning to the table after only a few minutes away (I should note that this was after 2:00pm, and closing time is at 2:30) we were surprised that our table had been cleared! Oh no! I alerted the nearby bus attendant that a mistake had been made but of course they couldn't bring our plates back. The wait staff was very apologetic, more than I could expect, and gave us a complete duplicate of our meal free of charge. Our server Jess (I hope that's spelled correctly!) was so very accommodating, even offering that we stay as long as we like, after service hours. It's been 25 years since I was in the food service industry myself, but I still know how it feels when mistakes are made and I can't fault them for assuming we had left considering it was so close to the end of day. The attendants were, every one of them, perfectly professional and sincerely apologetic. My daughter left claiming that she couldn't wait to tell her brothers how much fun she had. I really appreciate the service here, y'all are the best. (Thanks...

Final edit: Our subsequent trip to use the gift cards was much better. The hostess was very sweet and our server Riley was terrific. Being an Eggs Benedict fan, I decided to try the classic but I prefer not to eat pork and did not want salmon so I requested turkey sausage instead. The hollandaise was tasty. One of the eggs was perfectly cooked and the other was overdone so not runny; the ciabatta was dry but not very toasty and had no flavor, and the dish was chilled by the tomatoes. I’d recommend going with the greens instead of the potatoes because they were incredibly salty and had a kind of bitter flavor that’s difficult to accurately describe. The unsweetened black tea was fine as was my husband’s meal of a waffle and eggs. Well I really appreciate the effort to let us try another time, I don’t see coming back again when there are so many great local restaurants in Richmond do a great breakfast or brunch.

Edit: I emailed the person who commented a couple of weeks ago, did get a reply and the gift card, will try again

We’ve had a couple of yummy breakfasts here with great service early in the morning, but we came at 9 AM and weren’t given an option to sit outside until we asked for it; she said something I couldn’t hear so I asked and she said that she didn’t know who would be able to serve us but hurriedly seated us outside anyway with several other tables of diners. We waited for some time with menus stained and smeared with food (the online menu as much better anyway). Someone came to seat another family and then chatted with one of the tables about her hair while we got up and left. Come early is the...