World
Insider Q&A: CEO of fast-growing First Watch keeps the focus on breakfast
First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, is rising – and shining.
The Bradenton, Florida-based chain, known for its fresh, seasonal ingredients and made-to-order menu, is one of the fastest-growing in its category in dollar sales and unit growth, according to market research firm Technomic.
Two restaurant veterans who were tired of working late nights launched First Watch in 1983 in Pacific Grove, California.
“So many concepts are devised in a boardroom or something like that. This was the complete opposite,” CEO Chris Tomasso said. “This was a bunch of guys who really wanted to be home every afternoon so they could golf.”
The company now has more than 500 U.S. locations in 29 states. But because each eatery is designed to blend into its community instead of from a corporate model, the restaurants often feel more like neighborhood hangouts than part of a chain, Tomasso said.
Tomasso led marketing for Cracker Barrel and Hard Rock Cafe before joining First Watch in 2006. He talked to The Associated Press recently about building brands and why First Watch has no plans to expand beyond lunch. His comments have been edited for length and clarity.
Q. You say First Watch has retained its scrappy feel despite its growth. How do you accomplish that?
A. One thing I’ve been saying forever to our teams is, “If we can do it in one, we can do it in 100. If we can do it in 100, we can do it in 1,000.” And the reason that’s so important is because usually by the time concepts get to our size, they start to dumb down or do things differently, not realizing that the consumer will notice over time. You start outsourcing things. You say, “Well, it’s too much labor to make our pancake batter from scratch.” And we’ve stayed very true to that. I will tell you, there’s less expensive ways to do the things that we do, but we know what’s important to the consumer.
Q. What are some of the breakfast trends you’re seeing?
A. We started to see over the last five or six years this emergence of what we call “power breakfasts.” It’s so much easier for people to meet in the morning before they get to work and their day gets away from them. So that’s been a big shift for us. And what used to be a shoulder period between 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., with remote working and hybrid working and all those things, we’re starting to see all that fill up. And then, you know, the weekend brunch is just having its day, right? It’s been the only segment in the restaurant industry that has shown growth in the last five years.
Q. Some competitors have been trying to grow sales by expanding into dinner. Does First Watch plan to ever stay open past 2:30 p.m.?
A. We love our business model, and we love the employee proposition side of it too. It’s one shift a day. We do tremendous volumes in 7.5 hours. Our teams get to have a job in the hospitality industry that doesn’t have them work until all hours of the night. They make a great living. So I don’t see us expanding hours at all. Also, from a consumer standpoint, doing what we do establishes us as the authority in breakfast and brunch and lunch. We’re not trying to be all things to all people in any way, shape or form.
Q. You’re a marketer. How has the work you do changed over your career? Is it getting harder to reach customers with all the distractions they face?
A. The kind of marketer I consider myself to be is an inside-out brand builder versus an advertising focus. Which is great, because when I first joined, I didn’t have any money to do any advertising anyway. So it really was about evolving the concept and setting up the foundation for growth. We had three uniforms, four menus, all kinds of different things. There wasn’t a lot of consistency. And so in order for us to really grow, we had to unify the brand voice. There was a lot of work done around the menu, the music, every consumer touch point in the restaurant. Now, has marketing gotten harder or easier? I think it’s easier in that you can now reach a lot of people through social and digital without having to do TV and radio like you used to do. It’s also easier now to control the messaging. But I also think there’s challenges. If you make a misstep, it can be amplified a lot. So I think much more care and focus has to go into your messaging and your actions.
Lebanon, rocket attack on Unifil base of the Italian contingent: no injuries
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
As President Donald Trump continues to express anger at NATO European allies for their lack of help in the war with Iran, he’s making clear their behavior comes at a cost.
In the weeks during the war and since the ceasefire, the president has hit back not just with words but with definitive actions against several of those countries.
Germany
On Saturday, Trump said that he would withdraw more than the initial 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany as stated by the Pentagon, after Berlin’s leader denigrated the American effort to stop Iran’s regime from building a nuclear weapon.
TRUMP WEIGHS PULLING US TROOPS FROM GERMANY AMID CLASH WITH CHANCELLOR OVER IRAN WAR
President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz meet in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 3, 2026, to discuss issues including recent U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
A day earlier he said about Germany that “We’re gonna cut way down. We’re cutting a lot further than 5,000.” The Trump administration previously announced a contraction of 5,000 troops in Germany after the country’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Iran’s regime “humiliated” Trump.
In an apparent state of panic, Merz walked back his attack on Trump and his Iran strategy on Sunday. The chancellor wrote on X: “The United States is and will remain Germany‘s most important partner in the North Atlantic Alliance. We share a common goal: Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons.”
Trump ratcheted up his troop reduction number against Germany amid his comments about downsizing U.S. boots on the ground in Spain and Italy because they failed to aid America in the war against Iran. The president’s anger at Western European countries has been simmering for weeks and could lead to profound changes in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
TRUMP CRITICIZES SPAIN AMID IRAN, NATO RIFT AS PM SANCHEZ FACES QUESTIONS OVER POLITICAL MOTIVES
Nile Gardiner, the director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital, “The lack of support for the United States has been nothing less than treacherous. I think the president has the right to be outraged by the lack of support from key European allies.”
An Iranian flag is planted in the rubble of a police station, damaged in airstrikes on March 3, 2026, in Tehran, Iran. (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
He said, “There is a very deep-seated cultural appeasement in Europe toward the Iranian regime that goes back many decades, and a flat-out refusal to accept the reality of the immense dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran. European leaders are sleepwalking toward destruction with this perilous path they have taken.
TRUMP IS RIGHT ABOUT NATO’S WEAKNESS — THE REAL QUESTION IS HOW DOES AMERICA FIX IT
“The lack of support for the United States is how far Europe has gone toward losing its moral compass. Iran is a genocidal regime that threatens to wipe Israel off the map.” He noted that the Islamic Republic has killed huge numbers of its population.
Gardiner, a former advisor to Lady Margaret Thatcher said, “If you listen to European leaders, it’s as if the U.S. is the villain here.”
Merz, speaking last week in Marsberg, criticized the U.S. approach to Iran, saying Washington was being “humiliated by the Iranian leadership” and expressing hope the conflict would end “as quickly as possible.”
Gardiner said of Merz’s remarks, “Comments like these actually help the propaganda of the Iranian dictatorship. It is astonishing that a German chancellor would make these kinds of remarks at a time of war… and the German chancellor is giving comfort to the Iranian regime. It is disgusting.”
Numerous Fox News Digital press queries sent to Merz’s spokesman Stefan Kornelius were not returned.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called the U.S. conflict with Iran “reckless” and “unjust.” (Yves Herman/Reuters)
Spain and Italy
Before his announcement on the troop withdrawal from Germany, and in response to a question about reducing U.S. troops in Spain and Italy, Trump responded, “I mean, they haven’t been exactly on board. Yeah, probably. Yeah, I probably will… Italy has not been of any help to us. And Spain has been horrible. Absolutely horrible.”
Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has taken a belligerent stand toward the U.S. and Israeli military campaign against the Iranian regime, forbidding the U.S. from using its military bases in Spain to refuel aircraft or prepare for military action. He has decried the campaign as illegal while staying quiet on the regime’s murder of thousands of protesters and its increased drive to produce ballistic missiles and acquire nuclear weapons-grade enriched uranium.
Gardiner said, “The Spanish have been the worst by a long way. At least the Germans and Italy have allowed the use of its own bases. The Spanish have refused to cooperate in any way with the war.”
Trump told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera last month about the country’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, “I’m shocked at her. I thought she had courage, but I was wrong.”
The Europe expert, Gardiner, sees a wide gulf between how mainly Western European countries and the United States view the preservation of Western civilization, freedom, democracy and liberty.
French President Emmanuel Macron listens to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni during a working session with world leaders at the G7 summit in Borgo Egnazia, Italy, on June 13, 2024. (Andrew Medichini/AP)
“Europe has lost both its ability and its will to fight. The United States is clearly willing to fight to defend Western civilization and the free world. Much of Europe has given up on this, especially Western Europe. It is an appeasement mindset cojoined with weakness and pacifism and also a growing acceptance by European leaders of mass migration and Islamification.”
He added, “Europe has fundamentally changed over the last 20 years beyond recognition, and yet Europe’s ruling elites accept it seemingly as a fact, with some notable exceptions.”
France and the U.K.
Trump took the United Kingdom and France in March to task for their postion on the war against Iran.
“The Country of France wouldn’t let planes headed to Israel, loaded up with military supplies, fly over French territory,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“France has been VERY UNHELPFUL with respect to the ‘Butcher of Iran,’ who has been successfully eliminated! The U.S.A. will REMEMBER!!!,” he wrote.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron welcomes Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris on Feb. 17, 2025, before an informal summit of European leaders to discuss the situation in Ukraine and European security. (Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images)
Trump also wrote, “All of those countries that can’t get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you.”
“Number 1, buy from the U.S., we have plenty, and Number 2, build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT.”
“You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Gardiner said the crisis over the Iran war shows that Europe has surrendered. The big Western Europeans have embraced “defeatism,” and “they do not care. It is as simple as that. And future generations will have to pay the price for the course Europe is taking now,” he said.
Fox News’ Brittany Miller and Solly Boussidan contributed to this report.
Published on
Ukraine’s top negotiator Rustem Umerov will hold talks with US officials in Florida on Thursday on how to end the full-scale Russian invasion, Kyiv said on Thursday, amid stalled negotiations during the Iran war.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
“The Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine will hold a series of meetings today with envoys of the President of the United States,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote in a post on X.
Zelenskyy said Kyiv had “defined the key tasks,” which includes discussing a potential prisoner exchange with Russia and security guarantees for a post-war Ukraine.
“Rustem and I discussed work with our European partners on Drone Deals. We are preparing the agreements reached at the highest level, as well as new steps in joint technological work,” Zelenskyy wrote.
US-mediated talks on ending Europe’s worst conflict since World War II have shown little progress since February, when Washington shifted focus to its war with Iran.
Umerov last met with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in Florida between 21-22 March.
Since returning to office, Trump has pushed Moscow and Kyiv to negotiate but months of talks have failed to bring the warring parties closer to an agreement to stop the fighting, triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion four years ago.
The already stalled talks were put on the back burner from late February, when the US-Israeli air campaign against Iran began.
Even before the Middle East war, Russia and Ukraine remained at odds over the key issue of territory.
Ukraine has proposed freezing the conflict along the current front lines.
But Russia has rejected this, saying it wants the whole of the Donetsk region despite it being partly controlled by Ukraine, a demand Kyiv says is unacceptable.
Kremlin ceasefire
Meanwhile, the Kremlin said on Thursday that it would begin a two-day ceasefire with Ukraine starting at midnight that is meant to cover its patriotic 9 May parade, after ignoring a Ukrainian ceasefire earlier this week.
Moscow warned foreign diplomats in Kyiv that it will strike the Ukrainian capital if Ukraine targets its World War II victory parade.
“Yes, we are talking about the 8th and 9th of May,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, when asked if the ceasefire would come into effect from midnight.
Asked about the Ukrainian ceasefire on 6 May, a counter-offer by Kyiv which dismissed Moscow’s demand to stop fighting as “utter cynicism,” Peskov said, “There was no Russian reaction to this.”
The Kremlin ordered a scaled-back version this year, with no military hardware to be on display, over the fear it could be targeted by Ukraine.
Additional sources • AFP
-
Delaware2 minutes ago3rd victim dies following quadruple shooting in Wilmington, Delaware
-
Florida7 minutes agoFlorida man arrested for tossing away newborn kittens accused of threatening family member: ‘Dead man walking’
-
Georgia14 minutes agoInjured US military veterans find relief and awe swimming with a whale shark at Georgia Aquarium – The Boston Globe
-
Hawaii19 minutes agoLife and legacy of Colleen Hanabusa honored at Hawaii State Capitol
-
Idaho26 minutes agoPublic Health Alert and Food Recall Issued For Pizza and Pork Rinds Sold in Idaho
-
Illinois32 minutes agoFamily, friends, supporters honor fallen Illinois police officers
-
Indiana38 minutes agoIndiana Silver Alert issued for missing 16-year-old boy possibly in Indianapolis
-
Iowa44 minutes agoFormer eastern Iowa city clerk pleads guilty after state audit finds $66K in theft