'watch' task very slow to complete on server reload about grunt-express-server HOT 1 CLOSED

I just encountered this problem -- the watch task takes so long because you are watching a ton of files. Loads quickly the first time because the watch task doesn't need to check each file that is being watched on initial load.
You currently have:
watch: { express: { files: [ '**/*.js', '**/*.hbs' ], // ... } }

This means you're watching every single JS file in your directory, including any 3rd party libraries that themselves may be really large. I cut down my watch task from ~30s down to ~2s by only watching my own code:
watch: { express: { files: ['source/js/**/*.js' // ... } }

Not an optimal solution, but I found this got my load time down.

from grunt-express-server.