A former O'Charley's building on Concord Parkway North has a new tenant: First Watch, the daytime-only breakfast and brunch chain, opened its doors there Monday, bringing made-to-order eggs, pancakes and fresh-squeezed juice to a 6,300-square-foot space near Carolina Mall that seats more than 210 people.
The address, 1389 Concord Parkway North, is a familiar one for area diners — the building previously housed an O'Charley's restaurant, according to the Independent Tribune. Now it houses Concord's second First Watch location, joining an existing cafe on Christenbury Parkway near Concord Mills, as reported by the Charlotte Observer. The new cafe also includes an indoor bar serving alcoholic drinks, a detail the Observer notes alongside the restaurant's seating capacity.
The menu leans into First Watch's signature all-day breakfast format: lemon ricotta pancakes, farm-stand breakfast tacos, the Elevated Egg Sandwich, omelettes and what the chain calls million dollar bacon, per the Observer's report. For midday meals, the cafe also serves burgers, sandwiches and fresh salads, along with fresh-squeezed juices and Project Sunrise coffee, which is sourced from women coffee farmers in South America.
A Seasonal Menu and a Single-Shift Schedule
First Watch uses what the company calls a follow-the-sun approach to its menu, rotating offerings five times a year: the new north Concord location will launch its first seasonal menu this winter, the Observer's report states. The cafe hired approximately 30 employees and operates on a one-shift-a-day schedule, running daily from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
That daytime-only structure isn't unique to Concord. First Watch operates under a corporate No Night Shifts Ever policy nationwide, a single daytime schedule designed to keep labor overhead low and attract hospitality workers seeking predictable hours, according to Hoodline's earlier reporting. The model dates back to the brand's founding in 1983 in Pacific Grove, California, by Ken Pendery and John Sullivan, before the company relocated its headquarters to Bradenton, Florida, in 1986, per Wikipedia.
Charlotte-Area Footprint Keeps Growing
The Concord opening adds to a Charlotte-area presence that already includes restaurants in Steele Creek, SouthPark, Ballantyne, Matthews and northwest Charlotte, as well as locations in Providence Crossing, Huntersville, Gastonia and Fort Mill, South Carolina, the Observer reports. First Watch now operates nearly a dozen restaurants across the Charlotte region.
Nationally, the chain is moving fast. First Watch Restaurant Group reported $1.22 billion in total revenues for fiscal year 2025, a 20.3% year-over-year increase, while opening 64 new system-wide restaurants that year, according to a filing reported by Stock Titan. By August 2026, the company operated 665 system-wide locations across 33 states, made up of 586 company-owned restaurants and 79 franchise locations, per GlobeNewswire. Executive leadership has outlined a long-term target of scaling the brand to 2,200 domestic locations.
Why Concord Keeps Landing New Restaurants
The Concord Parkway corridor has become a magnet for national dining concepts in recent months. A Jaggers drive-thru is planned for a former Chick-fil-A parcel at 985 Concord Parkway South, and commercial filings near I-85 and Carolina Mall have kept arriving steadily.
Much of that momentum traces back to population growth. Cabarrus County's population reached an estimated 249,725 residents in 2025, up more than 10% from the 225,804 counted in the 2020 U.S. Census, with Concord serving as the county seat and the county's largest city, according to figures cited by USAFacts. Tourism adds another layer of demand: travel and tourism spending in Cabarrus County topped $679 million in 2024, directly supporting more than 5,000 local hospitality and food service jobs, per the Cabarrus County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
First Watch also points to a charitable giving program as part of its brand identity, donating a portion of sales from every kid's meal served across its restaurants to community causes, which has totaled approximately $2.3 million in donations to date, the company says. Whether that same community-giving model extends to the new north Concord cafe wasn't addressed in the opening announcement.
