I used to be head over heels for First Watch. For more than 15 years, it was my brunch temple. Saturday mornings, weekday meetings, Sunday after-church hunger—didn’t matter. The answer was always First Watch. They had this way of making breakfast taste like it had been thought about, cared for, almost like it came out of your grandma’s kitchen if your grandma happened to have a flair for avocado toast before it was trendy. But walking into the Port St. Lucie First Watch location now, it feels less like the neighborhood breakfast spot I once loved and more like just another cog in the corporate food machine.
Let me paint the picture. I slide into a booth, scan the menu that looks almost identical to years past, and think: “Okay, maybe they haven’t changed as much as I’ve heard.” But then the food arrives. First clue? The potatoes. The old-school version came with onions that gave them that perfect little sweet-and-savory punch. They were never meant to be the star, but they held the plate together, the unsung hero next to the eggs. Now? Plain, flat, and boring. I guess onions cost too much, or maybe someone up at HQ decided onions were “too risky” for breakfast. Either way, they’re gone, and the plate feels naked without them.
And don’t get me started on the Million Dollar Bacon. This used to be the treat you bragged about. Thick-cut bacon, caramelized with a sticky-sweet syrup glaze that made you feel like you were eating dessert with your eggs. Now it’s coated in some gritty, dry rub that tastes like a cost-cutting experiment gone wrong. You chew through it, waiting for that familiar sweet crunch, and it just doesn’t come. I don’t know who decided to mess with perfection, but they owe bacon lovers everywhere an apology. I confirmed with my server, and they have indeed switched to a dry rub, rather than the previous in house made syrup mixture.
The heartbreak continues with the Lemon Ricotta Pancakes. These were once the kind of pancakes that made you feel like you stumbled into a boutique café in Italy. The lemon curd topping was tangy, creamy, and felt bright, like sunshine on a plate. The current version? They changed it. No longer the bright yellow it used to be, it’s now a dull, flat yellow color that hardly has lemon flavor. The difference is so obvious that halfway through my first bite, I just stared at it, wondering if the kitchen ran out of curd and grabbed whatever yellow substitute was lying around.
All of this adds up to one obvious reality: First Watch has gone corporate. Since going public, you can feel it in every bite. It’s not the old First Watch anymore—it’s the “safe” First Watch. The menu still sounds creative, but the flavor has been toned down, like someone put it through a committee before letting it out of the kitchen. That fresh, farmer’s-market vibe they used to nail has been replaced by a middle-of-the-road predictability.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad. If it’s 7 a.m. in Port St. Lucie and nothing else is open, I’ll still wander in. The service is usually solid, the coffee is fine, and the food fills you up. But I don’t crave it anymore. That’s the difference. Breakfast should feel like a little celebration, not just another box checked. These days, if Berry Fresh is anywhere nearby, that’s where I’m going. They still cook like they mean it, with flavor that makes you pause between bites and nod at the table like, “Yep, that’s the stuff.”
Walking out of First Watch now, I don’t feel that little buzz of happiness I used to. I feel… neutral. And that might be the saddest part of all. Restaurants don’t lose customers because they suddenly got terrible. They lose them because they got average. And average is exactly what First Watch has become.