Cheesecake Factory- a few facts

[jvalentino]

I've been to CF off and on over the past several years. The menu is the same.  When people talk about it being long, they are talking about the sheer number of items on  the menu.  It goes on and on and on.. There IS a lot to choose from. Too much, some would say.

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I suppose the fact that they can pull that size of a menu off on a semi consistent basis says something about their systems ( I had a Kobe burgr there about a year ago that was just bad though).

I tend to think the best places to eat do a few things and do them really well, so I would say the menu at CF is too big.

Jeff

[emilyr]

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I've been to CF off and on over the past several years. The menu is the same.  When people talk about it being long, they are talking about the sheer number of items on  the menu.  It goes on and on and on.. There IS a lot to choose from. Too much, some would say.

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I think a few people were talking about the dish descriptions being really long. "Chicken smothered with X, topped with Y, doused with Z...." etc. None of the dishes on this menu seem overly complicated or to have too many ingredients, which is something I really hate at chain restaurants. Like, if you throw more on it, people won't notice that our cooks can't really cook.

[chefjgates]

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I think a few people were talking about the dish descriptions being really long. "Chicken smothered with X, topped with Y, doused with Z...." etc. None of the dishes on this menu seem overly complicated or to have too many ingredients, which is something I really hate at chain restaurants. Like, if you throw more on it, people won't notice that our cooks can't really cook.

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That my friend is my point exactly. you cant cover up poor skills with many toppings, yet the dullets that eat there seem to think so

Chef

[gingerbeer]

This was a really interesting post, thank you!

I've been to CF 3 or 4 times. The first few times were in a mall in Chicago (I think Old Orchard?), and I had the same thing every time - a huge chicken sandwich with fries which was pretty delicious, in that way that it was completely unsophisticated and tasty and I was afraid of how much fat I was consuming. I think it's that type of reliably good-average food - you know you can order the same thing every time and it will taste more or less the same but you also knew that you could not eat there every day without feeling bad about yourself.

The last time I went was at the Short Hills mall in NJ, and was 6 years after the initial CF visits and quite recently. My experience and exposure to food had dramatically changed in that time and I felt reluctant even upon viewing the menu - I didn't find anything that sounded exciting and it all sounded incredibly unhealthy (and sometimes, things can be fatty or sugary, but the quality and experience of tasting them outweighs that concern, whereas with CF the food is, as I said, on the good side of mediocre). I remember looking at the 'light options' part of the huge, rambling menu and being shocked by how unhealthy it was. In the end the food I had was really unsatisfying, and really overpriced.

I think you have to go to CF knowing what you are getting - food that is better than average (but firmly within the range of average - by average I'm considering stuff like Olive Garden, where I went once with 3 family members and we all ordered different things and it all tasted like cardboard soaked either in insipid tomato or some awful bechemel-like sauce), which you are going to pay a lot for. If I went again I'd order something insanely unhealthy because the real joy you're going to get from the food is indulging in its more unhealthy elements, the same way as eating a big fat cheeseburger of average origins is sometimes exactly what you want.

[tonyrocks922]

I've eaten at the CF twice, and twice at Grand Lux Cafe, which is supposed to be a "Fancier" version they have. The food was decent, but I couldn't believe the shitty service and portion size at these places (though GLC has more reasonable sizes). I am 300 lbs, love to eat, and couldn't finish one of their salads. The wait staff and podium staff were just awful, it took forever to be acknowledged at the podium, drinks took forever to get refilled, and the waitress disappeared for a half hour when we asked for a check.