2017_Annual Report_single page

Ken Pendery has always tied the growth of the
First Watch group to the ability of his people
to make its restaurants succeed, as opposed to
the more usual approach of growing as this or
that bit of real estate becomes available.
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“We build behind our people growth,” he says.
“The company grew as our people inside
became able. A manager would become an
area supervisor and so on. We were intent on
growing the business, no doubt about that. But
that wasn’t the prime motivator. It was much
more a case of trusting new restaurants to
people who had developed from the inside.”
That same people-centric thinking played
a major role in the kind of workplace First
Watch would be.
“For our employees, we wanted it to be tenhour
days and five days a week,” Ken says.
“There would be no bars, no late night hours.
Management wouldn’t have to work two shifts.
General Manager Jabbar Salaah & server Karleae at the downtown 7th Street First Watch
We’d been in the restaurant business before and knew the long hours
that could be involved -- we’d seen a lot of 18-hour days. So quality of
life was a big part of it.
“We’ve always been able to attract good employees. I think it helped
that we realized he or she might have a family or a soccer team to coach
or homework to do. It was important for our employees to be able to
live somewhat normal lives.”
From strictly a marketing perspective, the First Watch concept was
built on freshness.
“If you think about breakfast in the ‘80s, when we opened our first
restaurant, you had Perkin’s, Denny’s, Bob Evans, and any number of
mom-and-pop diner-type places. For us, the idea was to be different –
and by different, I don’t mean better. We didn’t have a snooty attitude.