Flavor Trailblazer: Shane Schaibly

When a brand dominates the daytime dining landscape, the real challenge becomes maintaining its lead. For Shane Schaibly, SVP of culinary strategy at First Watch, that means playing offense—never defense—when it comes to innovation. Nearly 12 years into his role, Schaibly balances fast-moving flavor trends with the operational realities of 600-plus restaurants, keeping the brand both consistent and creatively relevant. In this conversation, he shares how First Watch stays ahead, what’s next on the menu and why hospitality—not discounts—remains the brand’s ultimate value proposition.

Katie Ayoub: How long have you been at First Watch, and what’s your role?
Shane Schaibly: I’ve been here since February 2014. Outside of my official title of SVP, culinary strategy, I am effectively a corporate executive chef—the person who makes food taste good.

KA: What’s your biggest challenge in innovation?
SS: Because we have such good tenure here—I’m at 12 years, our SVP of supply chain is at nine years, our CEO is at 18—we don’t struggle with direction. We all understand it and trust each other’s decision-making. The challenge in innovation for us is staying ahead, especially as the breakfast-and-brunch segment explodes. There’s more growth in daytime dining than in any other daypart, and a lot of new regional brands are entering franchising. We’re growing at about 10 percent every year: 58 new restaurants last year, 60 this year and 60 next year. There’s a lot going on. Staying at the front is always a challenge.

KA: How do you stay ahead of trends in such a fast-moving space?
SS: We try to stay on the left-hand side of the menu adoption cycle. But it’s not about jumping on everything; it’s about what fits First Watch. For example, Dubai chocolate is cool, but it doesn’t fit our brand. We look for things that have legs, a longer bell curve. Matcha’s a good example. We did matcha latte pancakes about seven years ago. They did okay, but we were probably a little early. Now we’re testing a new menu item for 2026, and that will probably do really well—it’s cool, it’s got eye appeal and it’s on trend.

We also look beyond single ingredients to styles of food that might stick around. Quesabirria is a perfect example. We did it for breakfast when that trend was just starting to bubble up. Now it’s everywhere, and it still has legs, and we’re testing a Quesabirria Hash in January. That’s the kind of thing we’re targeting: items that might spike and then settle in as categories.

KA: What’s the approach to value at First Watch today?
SS: As an organization, we’ve said we’re not going to discount or do loyalty programs. We believe our value comes through hospitality. The food’s great and fairly priced, but the real value is the guest experience—you can’t quantify that on a spreadsheet. We were just named the No. 1 Most Loved Workplace in America by the Best Practice Institute for the second year in a row. We were also voted 2025’s No. 1 Best Breakfast by Newsweek’s Readers’ Choice Awards. That’s huge. We focus on keeping our people happy so they can give guests the best experience possible. Our mission statement is two words: “You first.” We put our employees first so they can put our customers first.

KA: What makes your LTO program so successful—outside of the actual flavor builds?
SS: Our executive team is in the restaurants all the time. We personally launch every test LTO with restaurant leaders—cooking, tasting, talking about the “why” behind each dish. It’s not just creative handing off to ops and ops handing off to training. We’re one continuous team. Because of that, the operators love LTO season. They’re excited about new menu items and proud to execute them.

KA: Which items are untouchable on the First Watch menu?
SS: As much as we push the envelope, the Traditional—eggs, meat, potatoes, toast—and the Trifecta—pancake or waffle, meat, eggs—are always No. 1 and 2. They’re classics. Outside of those, Avocado Toast still ranks in the top five, and we’re super-proud of that. I think we were the first chain to put it on a menu back in 2015. We trusted our gut. We’d seen it coming out of Australia and in L.A. restaurants, and it fit First Watch perfectly. We already used avocado; we just needed a great bread. It took off right away.

KA: What are you testing or rolling out right now?
SS: Our fall LTOs—Honey Chipotle Chicken Hash, Maple Bacon Croissant Sandwich, and the Blazing Dragon beverage—are just wrapping up now. They all did really well. For the holidays, we’ve got Cheesecake Holey Donuts with Nutella, Double Bacon Parmesan Hash, Carne Asada Breakfast Tacos and the Tangerine Dream juice—turmeric and pineapple finished with cold foam for a creamsicle vibe.

KA: What global region is inspiring innovation right now?
SS: Mediterranean, especially Italian and Greek. Those flavors fit our daypart really well. Korean’s great, but for breakfast and brunch there’s only so far we can push it. We’ve done a Banh Mi Breakfast Bowl and a Kimchi Sunny Seoul Hash with pork, and we’re still looking at ideas like bulgogi hash and breakfast fried rice. But Mediterranean gives us more runway. Right now, we’re testing a Spicy Italian Sausage Breakfast Bowl—basically a polenta bowl with Italian sausage, lemon-dressed arugula and Calabrian chile oil. In January we’ll test a Bacon Burrata Avocado Toast, then a Focaccia Breakfast Sandwich in spring and a Santorini Sunrise Bowl with Greek flavors in summer.

QUICKFIRE

Source of inspiration:
Travel! Last year I went to Oaxaca, Mexico, and learned so much about local ingredients—mezcal, cacao, making chocolate from scratch with wild cinnamon, and using it as a base for moles. That trip was easily one of my top three culinary experiences. I also love Flavor & The Menu and seeing both independents and my friends’ brands featured. I get inspired by that.

Something in your fridge that would surprise people:
Ranch dressing, for sure. And a ridiculous cheese collection. I’ve got a lot of weird cheeses that have aged past their expiration date, but they’re still great. Whenever people come over, we do cheese boards and talk about them. My chefs and I even do cheese boards in the office on Fridays.

Go-to late night snack:
Pickles, cheese and meat. A little midnight charcuterie. There are these amazing kimchi pickles one of our suppliers turned us onto—they’re fantastic.