The Cheesecake Factory

Reviews 3

A

A Anschuetz

Husband and I went here with a couple of friends last night. We were told a 2-2.5 hour wait (which we expected), but ended up getting seated in about an hour and forty-five minutes - good start! Once inside, they were temporarily out of the wheat bread they normally have, but were waiting for more. We eventually did get some and it was delicious. The menu is expansive, which is great for selection, but typically provides subpar food, since there is no focus. You can either focus on one type of cuisine and do it great, or offer many types of cuisine and just do it OK. This also rings true for the Cheesecake Factory. We ordered the calamari and the couple we came with ordered the buffalo chicken blasts for appetizers. Both were quite good, though I definitely enjoyed the calamari better. For the entree, I ordered the Steak Diane, specifically due to the mushroom red wine sauce, however the red wine sauce wasnt actually a sauce - it was extremely watery, looked and tasted rushed (like it hadnt been properly reduced) and lacked any flavor/seasoning. It was also very acidic, with no discernible fat content to balance it out. My steak was ordered rare, and it came out medium rare. Thats not a problem though, as the primary reason I order rare is so its still palatable if it comes out "overcooked" to medium rare. However, the flavor was severely lacking. I dont recall ever having such a bland, tasteless steak from any other restaurant. The mashed potatoes were fabulous, and they provide a large serving of them. The few leaves of spinach on the side was a bit scant, but nice and fresh. My husband ordered a chicken sandwich. He thought it was delicious and the chicken breast was huge. He couldnt finish it all and took almost half of it home! I ordered the key lime cheesecake and the hubby ordered the salted caramel. Mine was still partially frozen (even the bottom half of the whipped cream on top was frozen), but tasted good. I just had to take half of it home because it was too solid to eat. My husbands salted caramel cheesecake was delicious and the texture was beautifully light and creamy. Our waitress was attentive, but had a bit of an attitude a couple of times. Just an example, at the end of our meal, my husband asked for three regular slices of cheesecake to-go (to take home to our two children and the babysitter), and she acted like she had no idea what he was talking about. I wouldnt think its hard to assume "regular" meant plain ("original"), and perhaps just ask for clarification/confirmation. She just stood there looking at him like he was an idiot, then made an off-handed comment after I clarified. Our bill came out to be a bit less than I expected, however for the quality of food, Ill likely go elsewhere at that price point. We do plan to give it one more chance in a couple of months, when theyve had more time to really get into the swing of things. Hopefully the next dish I order will offer more flavor, otherwise well just stick to the cheesecake.

RE

Rebecca Seiber

First, I can NOT believe that Im giving a Cheesecake Factory a rating of ONE! I have been to so many from Jersey to Atlanta and this was the most awful experience from the customer service to the food! We got the "pleasure" of having Brittany S. as our server. We were sitting there for about 10 min before she showed up. We gave her our drink and appetizer order. 6 min later she shows up (didnt get mine right) and proceeds to ask us if we wanted an app. Really? That was ALMOST 10 min ago now. AND still no bread on table even. So she takes our order. And we sit and we wait for another 12 min BEFORE she asks us if we want bread! Well...HELLO.. we still dont have our app, so yeah that would be fabulous! She disappears, yet again, for an unreasonably amount of time, proceeds to walk out of the kitchen (nothing in hand mind you), we make eye contact, she stops midstep, rolls her eyes (like "oh yeah, they wanted bread"), then heads back. NOT to quickly grab some bread (cause we still dont have our app yet)... Nooooo, she talked with a guy coworker for around another 5 min. When she finally graced us with her presence and the bread, the appetizer shows up. She walks away, we have no small plates or silverware so I shout for her to return before she disappeared into that twilight zone of a kitchen. She says she will get us some, but does she? No.. She proceeds to ask the person who sets up the tables for guests why there was no tableware on the hightops. Hey waitress... Heres a tip... Instead of running your mouth to other coworkers, run your legs over and pick it up. Not hard to do. Nope, she never did that.. someone else came up to give us the appropriate items. So, the appetizer showed up, and can you guess what happened next? Our food came out immediately after the app was sat down. REALLY?! Brittany wanted to blame the kitchen (which some of that may be true) but I recall, she did NOT put our appetizer in till almost 10 min later than originally thought. So, good try. We sent the food back to be held under warmer.. Big mistake. My eggplant parmesan was no longer crispy, just a wet soggy mess. First bite I took, I bit down on something hard. Pulled it out...half of a toothpick! I was done and it didnt even come close to the great taste of the one I had in Knoxville. My sons Shrimp Poboy sandwich was terrible! SAND all throughout the shrimp. His fries were more like rubber toothpicks. My pasta noodles, way overcooked. Worst experience EVER at a Cheesecake Factory. Will not be back.

HO

Hollie Young

After waiting for over an hour and 15 minutes we finally get seated. The waiter comes up to introduce himself and instead of giving us recommendations for his favorite items on the menu you, he decided to tell us what to stay away from because "those particular items are the ones that always get sent back." That immediately gave us a negative vibe. Once we started to order, he started with me and I ordered the Chicken Finger Blast. His immediate reaction was, "youre going to order chicken fingers out of all the stuff we have on our menu?" My response was, well I realize we are at the cheese cake factory but this is what Im in the mood for. He moves on to everyone else and completest the orders. Our food takes about 20-25 minutes to come out. As the food was coming out, one friend order the fig flatbread and when it was delivered, the server said, "this is really small so we are making you another one but start eating on this now." Everyones meal came out except my two girlfriends that are sharing an appetizer. We wait to start eating for 15 minutes as its rude to eat when someones food isnt read yet. The server comes over and says the reason its taking so long on the appetizer is because they are waiting on the avocado cream sauce...he said it take a while to make. My girlfriends tell him they are so hungry that they can just do without the sauce. He said he was going to send a manager over for our wait. The manager comes over to hand the avocado cream sauce but never introduces herself or apologizes for our wait. The server comes back over and we asked if that was the manager and he said yes. We told him she didnt apologize or even introduce herself. The server then says, "man I swear I hate this place." He said he was going to the manager to come back over. She finally came and didnt introduce herself but wanted to know what was going on. My boyfriend explained to her that the appetizer took longer to come out than any entree, the flat bread was small and when they brought out the other flat bread it was the same size and the server laughed (oh and she ordered beets that came out when we were finished eating), and lastly, he ordered the macaroni burger medium and it came out overcooked and he only had a few bites. Might I add that all of our foods were cold because we wanted to be polite and not eat before our other guest. The manager said she would take care of it but only removed was the appetizer. No other discounts or adjustments were made.