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Cheesecake Factory

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Food is pretty good, but a little pricey. On the bright side, they seem to have a disproportionate amount of attractive young ladies working there (I have been to ones in a few different states).
 
if you don't order any alcoholic drinks, then 2 entrees plus an appertiser will come under 60.

and btw: I gave them 3 tries and was never impressed by the quality of the food. I am, however, impressed by the decor in all 3 I been to. (Pasadena, Irvine, and Saratoga). Price wise, i think it's okay. a small notch above california pizza kitchen.
I rather spend a bit more and eat in a steakhouse though. but that would depends on the occasion. For a date, Cheesecake Factory is a good choice.

Oh, onto the recommendation, people I know like the Jamalaya Shrimp and Shrimp Scampi, both I ordered and tried, but was just so-so to me.
 
Originally posted by: KeithTalent
Cheesecake Factory is a terrible waste of time and money IMO. Any restaurant that purposely makes people wait to give the illusion of popularity is one I can do without:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=22218&st=
Click to expand...


Your link doesn't support what you are saying.

The link basically says that the wait is long because the food is freshly prepared, which is inefficient for a big place like that.



"The food is extremely fresh and every single thing is made when you order it. Very little is pre-prepped. Nothing is frozen or microwaved. In fact, they will not even press down on a steak with weight like they do in any other chain restaurant to speed the cooking time, that is a fireable offense. So, if you order well, you are going to wait. They don't want the steak losing any of its juices -which happens when you weight down a steak. This is one of the reasons why your dining experience will be the longest in your life and you will sit an average of 2 hours or more at your table after waiting 1 to 2 to 3 hours. This also is what causes the 3 hour waits. When you order chicken madeira, for example, the chef reduces veal stock (the real thing, not instand bouillion or anything like that) and makes the madeira sauce ingredient by ingredient to order. When you order chicken fingers for your children thinking it will be fast, they do not flour them until they are ordered and your children will not eat for at least 15 minutes if not 20. If you order pizza, they roll out the dough then and there. It is the ONLY chain restaurant I have worked in where the cooks really cook and do not just mix together a bunchy of pre-prepped or frozen stuff. There are like 7 cooking stations, saute, broil, pizza, salad, fry, and I am sure something else I forget. Food will not go out unless the plate looks perfect to specification. Many times, they will make the cook remake something because something is not perfect. The cooks really cook everything just like a real restaurant."
 
Originally posted by: 91TTZ
Originally posted by: KeithTalent
Cheesecake Factory is a terrible waste of time and money IMO. Any restaurant that purposely makes people wait to give the illusion of popularity is one I can do without:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=22218&st=
Click to expand...


Your link doesn't support what you are saying.

The link basically says that the wait is long because the food is freshly prepared, which is inefficient for a big place like that.
Click to expand...

you actually read through the whole thing? 🙂

 
Cheesecake Factory is a dissappointment. The cheesecake is good, but everything else is mediocre. They don't have regular iced tea, just "passion" tea, that tastes bad. Their portions are ridiculously large; I usually end up throwing away half of it. Their menu is about 20 pages long, they don't specialize in anything. As a result, their food is mediocre.

I go there 3 or 4 times a month.
 
Originally posted by: Nebor
Cheesecake Factory is a dissappointment. The cheesecake is good, but everything else is mediocre. They don't have regular iced tea, just "passion" tea, that tastes bad. Their portions are ridiculously large; I usually end up throwing away half of it. Their menu is about 20 pages long, they don't specialize in anything. As a result, their food is mediocre.

I go there 3 or 4 times a month.
Click to expand...


LOL
 
Originally posted by: 91TTZ
Originally posted by: Nebor
Cheesecake Factory is a dissappointment. The cheesecake is good, but everything else is mediocre. They don't have regular iced tea, just "passion" tea, that tastes bad. Their portions are ridiculously large; I usually end up throwing away half of it. Their menu is about 20 pages long, they don't specialize in anything. As a result, their food is mediocre.

I go there 3 or 4 times a month.
Click to expand...


LOL
Click to expand...

It's not so bad that I can justify not going there when it's suggested. Though I never suggest it myself.
 
Originally posted by: Nebor
Cheesecake Factory is a dissappointment. The cheesecake is good, but everything else is mediocre. They don't have regular iced tea, just "passion" tea, that tastes bad. Their portions are ridiculously large; I usually end up throwing away half of it. Their menu is about 20 pages long, they don't specialize in anything. As a result, their food is mediocre.

I go there 3 or 4 times a month.
Click to expand...

LMAO. The one I went to had regular iced tea. 😛
 
Originally posted by: KeithTalent
Cheesecake Factory is a terrible waste of time and money IMO. Any restaurant that purposely makes people wait to give the illusion of popularity is one I can do without:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=22218&st=
Click to expand...


Some chains are just popular, outback for example is always packed, for the price both are good alternatives to slightly more run-of-the-mill chains.

That forum seems pretty good so far, thanks for the link.
 
I've only been there once and loved it. Went to the one in Bellevue Sqaure mall, ordered this $15 burger expecting to be something like Red Robins. When the waitress came with this FREAKIN huge burger that was atleast 6 inches tall I thought I was in burger heaven, tasted great too 🙂.
 
a marginal improvement over Applebees and TGI Fridays, and a marginal increase in price. pretty pointless to go to one if you have decent non-chain alternatives in the area
 
Good cheesecake, OK food- like most chain restaurant (applebee, Fridays). They give you a nice portion of food tho.

It's not that expensive. But if you don't eat cheesecake, why BOTHER?!!!!
 
Only thing I remember from the last time I went there was that when I was looking through the menu I felt like I was looking through ads.
 
Cheesecake Factory isn't too bad. Expect to pay about 8-20 for a dinner, depending on what you get. Portions are large, though. I think there's almost too much hype behind this place. It's like most other restaurants, just has a massive cheesecake menu. Shrug.
 
Originally posted by: Jinru
I've only been there once and loved it. Went to the one in Bellevue Sqaure mall, ordered this $15 burger expecting to be something like Red Robins. When the waitress came with this FREAKIN huge burger that was atleast 6 inches tall I thought I was in burger heaven, tasted great too 🙂.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the one in Bellevue is good. Everything I've had there was HUGE though, except when I got seared tuna. That was just the right size.
 
The one in Buckhead is always packed. I believe it's right next to ESPNZONE. The food's fairly decent. They're known for their large portions and selection.
 
i love cheesecake factory. usually my friends and i will just order one slice of cheesecake and split it among us.
 
Originally posted by: 91TTZ
Originally posted by: KeithTalent
Cheesecake Factory is a terrible waste of time and money IMO. Any restaurant that purposely makes people wait to give the illusion of popularity is one I can do without:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=22218&st=
Click to expand...


Your link doesn't support what you are saying.

The link basically says that the wait is long because the food is freshly prepared, which is inefficient for a big place like that.



"The food is extremely fresh and every single thing is made when you order it. Very little is pre-prepped. Nothing is frozen or microwaved. In fact, they will not even press down on a steak with weight like they do in any other chain restaurant to speed the cooking time, that is a fireable offense. So, if you order well, you are going to wait. They don't want the steak losing any of its juices -which happens when you weight down a steak. This is one of the reasons why your dining experience will be the longest in your life and you will sit an average of 2 hours or more at your table after waiting 1 to 2 to 3 hours. This also is what causes the 3 hour waits. When you order chicken madeira, for example, the chef reduces veal stock (the real thing, not instand bouillion or anything like that) and makes the madeira sauce ingredient by ingredient to order. When you order chicken fingers for your children thinking it will be fast, they do not flour them until they are ordered and your children will not eat for at least 15 minutes if not 20. If you order pizza, they roll out the dough then and there. It is the ONLY chain restaurant I have worked in where the cooks really cook and do not just mix together a bunchy of pre-prepped or frozen stuff. There are like 7 cooking stations, saute, broil, pizza, salad, fry, and I am sure something else I forget. Food will not go out unless the plate looks perfect to specification. Many times, they will make the cook remake something because something is not perfect. The cooks really cook everything just like a real restaurant."
Click to expand...


Give me a break, as if the Cheesecake Factory is all about quality ingredients and ensuring the steak does not lose any of its juices. I was referring to the 2nd part of the post which I have read elsewhere and am trying to find the link to.

The waits are almost deliberate. That is why no reservations, no call-ahead. And, if in every CF there are 2 to 3 hour waits virtually every night of the week, why don't they build the place bigger when they open a new one? Because they want you to wait 3 hours, it is part of the hype. Before we opened the restaurant, we had many meetings with silly music (they actually played the music that they call basketball players to the court with and said while all of the management and training staff ran down the aisle: Meet your new kitchen manager.. meet your new server manager. They had motivational speakers. It was dorky and I felt like I was in a freaky cult). Anyway, they shoved it in our heads many times that "people wait over 3 hours!!! to get into "our" restaurant. They want people to come in and think the place must be so fabulous if there is such a crowd waiting and dying to get in. Makes it almost exclusive-like, sort of. Why don't they try to figure out how to get food out faster and get people out faster? Because they don't want to! Too much actual cooking many, many different dishes for a restaurant that size takes a lot of time. Ticket times sometimes reach 45 minutes for appetizers. The most disorganized organization is what I called that place. They had exact procedures for everything, expeditors and at least 5 food runners per shift, managers walking around with head sets, yet food goes to the wrong table constantly, cooks make things wrong and somehow special orders (lite sauce, no mushrooms, etc) are not heard or not communicated, things aren't ready for the same table at the same time so they send out 2 entrees leaving 1 person without food for 15 minutes on a table.... All this adds up to longer times that people sit at tables and why it takes so long for you to get a table.
Click to expand...
 
Originally posted by: dman
Originally posted by: KeithTalent
Cheesecake Factory is a terrible waste of time and money IMO. Any restaurant that purposely makes people wait to give the illusion of popularity is one I can do without:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=22218&st=
Click to expand...


Some chains are just popular, outback for example is always packed, for the price both are good alternatives to slightly more run-of-the-mill chains.

That forum seems pretty good so far, thanks for the link.
Click to expand...

Yeah, for people who like food (like myself 😛) there is a lot of great stuff there.
 
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