- February 14, 2025
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First Watch is now in 30 states, after opening its first location in Massachusetts this week. The new restaurant in Hanover, Massachusetts, also marked the company’s launch in New England.
East Manatee County-based First Watch now has more than 570 locations nationwide serving breakfast, brunch and lunch.
“Our restaurants work everywhere,” First Watch CEO Chris Tomasso says, speaking at the mid-January ICR Conference in Orlando, which covers consumer trends. “We don’t have any two First Watches that look alike. We have common elements that our customers recognize when they walk in.” All have an “urban farm feel” accented by metals and woods.
“We’re excited about our future growth,” says Tomasso, who stated the company has a long-term plan to reach 2,200 restaurants. Even in central Florida, where there are 25 First Watch locations, he says, “We don’t have any market that’s fully built out yet.”
The plan is to grow 10% every year, according to CFO Mel Hope.
“We’re a very data-driven company,” Hope says, also speaking at the ICR Conference. “We develop the kind of information that helps us select sites and move efficiently toward getting them open at the right time.”
In the fourth quarter, 25 new restaurants opened, including 23 owned by the company and two franchise-owned restaurants, according to a preliminary fourth-quarter operational metrics report.
In 2024 overall, First Watch reports it opened 50 new restaurants systemwide, including 43 company-owned and seven franchise-owned establishments, while two businesses closed.
“Overall, we were pleased with how the quarter ended up,” Tomasso says at the ICR Conference. He notes the company heard from customers that they loved First Watch and wanted the experience to go faster, so the business improved ticket times, made changes to its wait-list procedures and enabled people to pay at their tables to expedite service. The improvements came in 2024, at a time when the company saw business softening as customers pulled back going out for breakfast.
While the company figured out how to “serve more demand” last year, the focus in 2025 is on “create more demand,” Tomasso says.
“First Watch has relatively low brand awareness despite having 575 restaurants,” Tomasso says, adding the company aims to increase recognition and be ready as customers once again opt to dine out for breakfast.
“We’re looking forward to a change in consumer sentiment that we’ve already started to see carrying through the year,” Tomasso says, “and that [breakfast] occasion coming back.”