Ah. Can we have a cite for this? I was trying to tell my wife about it, but my Googling is failing me.
I am sorry. I read a interview with the CEO in a restaurant Trade magazine some time ago.
However, many people have confirmed that they are never immediately seated.
Here are some reviews:
This may work:
T*here’s something funny about The Cheesecake Factory.
It seems no matter what time you go and no matter which location you visit, there’s a wait to get in…There’s something funny about The Cheesecake Factory.
It seems no matter what time you go and no matter which location you visit, there’s a wait to get in.*
So, the wait is real, and is well known. The why is not.
Sowwy.:o Everyone here uses Tosa for Wauwatosa so much it’s almost official. Even newscasters use the term.
The where-abouts of the Cheesecake Factory I’ve had grub & barley pops at is in Wauwatosa, WI near the stop 'n go lights by the Mayfair Mall. For cripes sake, you can betcha I didn’t mean to get myself in a trick bag with a couple two-three of youse in the cheeseless 49 by using a local colloquialism.
Again, as in my previous post #15 which apparently is invisible, I have NEVER had to wait when tables were available, in the year and a half I’ve gone there (one of my friend groups meets there regularly). And in the 2 years my daughter was a waitress there, prior to my going there, she confirms there was no policy to make people wait. Likely the one you read about was short-staffed.
No, I read about the whole chain, it was the idea of the CEO. Mind you, maybe they dropped that policy, who knows? But the extreme waits there are well known and remarked upon in many forums.
We went to the one in Crocker Park for the first time a week ago. It was fairly busy but we were seated immediately. Very ornate inside with huge faux Egyptian columns and awesome colored/blown glass lights. Service was beyond reproach and our waiter was very helpful. There are like 15 pages in the menu. What we had was good and plentiful. The layered cheesecake with regular cake and two toppings was amazing.
Hah! thought I dropped a local name, huh? Well, here is Crocker Park:
While 12 Oaks is never a joy to navigate in and around, the cheesecake factory is at least accessible without having to go into the mall itself. Don’t know if that will change your mind much. It is always rather chaotic in there.
Haven’t been to a CF in a few years but I remember they always listed the calorie counts underneath each meal, and we made a game of who could order the most calories (it’s not difficult at all; almost any entree+appetizer combo will top 2,000 calories).
That said, I’ll admit for a restaurant with as extensive a “try to please everyone” menu as they do, the food is pretty decent.
FYI, and only sort of related, this is a New Yorker article by Atul Gawande (paywall warning) about what lessons the healthcare industry can learn from places like The Cheesecake Factory, where 80 million people a year are served food that is almost entirely made from scratch.
That’s the one. I avoid Novi completely unless I have to drive through it to get somewhere else. It’s my idea of hell.
Is that floor-plan a chain-wide thing? We’ve gone to one in Pittsburgh (a city in the south-western portion of Pennsylvania) and it was a huge, open floor plan.
My main complaint is the menu is just too large. I really do not want to invest that much time scanning that many entree offerings to figure out what I sounds good for dinner. I like a well designed menu with a good range of offerings but their menu is just too much.
As for quality, anytime I’ve eaten there the food has been good. They are an upgrade from the Applebee’s, Chilis, etc., chains. Service has been good. The wait times to be seated are another factor that results in my choosing a different option. I suspect that is mostly because the only one I have dined at is located in an incredibly popular retail shopping center and Cheesecake Factory draws large crowds. In the warmer months it is not unusual to see a large crowd standing outside the restaurant waiting to get in. The other restaurants available may have a wait list but it seems no where near the sheer volume of people waiting.
Shout-out to neighbor Locrian. Sherman Oaks Arclight is our local movie theater.
We haven’t been in the Cheesecake Factory there in years. Prefer Frida’s or P.F. Changs. The Cheesecake Factory portions are way too big for us, and we’re not into eating a 3,000 calorie slice of cheesecake.
Regarding the menus, I recall that they have advertisements in them. So, not only are they pages and pages (and pages and pages), but some number of pages are taken up with advertisements. Egads!
I’ve been there and enjoyed it, but I think just the one time. The nearest one to me is 90 miles away, in another state. I wish we had one here. There’s literally only one in my state, and it’s about 150 miles away.
My wife and I have been a handful of times. I will go for the Fire-Roasted Fresh Artichoke appetizer alone.
I ate dinner at a Cheesecake Factory maybe ten years ago, and I’m still digesting it.
As a rule of thumb, I steer clear of restaurants whose names include things like “factory,” “warehouse,” or “abattoir.”
Found this:
Also, “barrel”, “corral”, “outback” and days of the week.
If the menu has more than two pages, and “pasta alfredo” is one of the items on it, (especially if it’s making the laminated pages stick), no way in hell is that sauce not coming from a 5 gallon plastic bucket.
Perhaps, but at the Cheesecake Factory they are kind enough to warm it up before bringing the bucket to the table.