Cheesecake Factory Owns You

We had to wait 10 minutes. What is it about Cheesecake that even if there is a 10 minute wait it looks like it's packed? The hostesses in their high hostess tower with 14 computer screens control people's destiny and look down on you and try to get you to leave through angry eye contact.


We got seated in a nice booth and were greeted by an outstanding server. She brought us our drinks and left us alone to read the Cheesecake Factory menu book. Have you seen this thing? It's about 40 pages long, has all fine print text and awkward ads that get in the way of reading every description of their 1,598 menu items. They should change their name to Food Factory instead of Cheesecake Factory since they have every food on earth.


It took us awhile to decide what to eat. I wanted something I couldn't get anywhere else. The answer was Buffalo Blasts...chicken breast, cheese and spicy buffalo sauce all stuffed in a spicy wrapper and fried until crisp. Heaven....


This is like a boneless buffalo wing stuffed in a mini tortilla then deep fried. Quite possibly the most amazing thing I have ever tasted. I have never seen anything like this before. It is a genius invention!


Another reason that Cheesecake is genius is because you have to get dessert. You have no option. Would you dare visit a Cheesecake Factory and then not get cheesecake and risk being verbally and emotionally abused by the servers? I don't think so. You are sold that you're getting dessert before you even walk in the door. Cheesecake Factory owns every person that walks in for two reasons:


1. They can make you wait as long as they want.


2. You're getting dessert (no question).


The best part about lunch though after the deep fried goodness and the cheesecake was that we had a very nice booth location near the hostess tower and we could watch the 456 people all crammed inside eying our booth begging us to get up so they could sit down. It amazes me that at 1pm on a Saturday afternoon they were on at least an hour wait. Since so many people were waiting I decided to get drinks to go. This was just my attempt at trying to get back at Cheesecake Factory for making me wait for 10 minutes and then demanding I order dessert against my will.


Dan Holm writes the popular restaurant blog Green Eggs and Classy Eater - a revolutionary website with all kinds of restaurant deals and discounts.


Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @danholm

People go to Cheesecake Factory to wait.

It's a busy Friday or Saturday night and the idea of Cheesecake Factory sounds, well, luxurious. The people want to announce to all of their friends "I'm going to Cheesecake Factory (I must be fabulous)." The friends respond: "O,h you're going to Cheesecake Factory. You are so spectacular".

Cheesecake has done an unbelievable job at convincing people that their restaurant is something special and then taking it a step further to make them wait 2.6 hours in order to get in. It's amazing. How do they do it? Why are people waiting?

I'm not convinced; the last time I was there was about 2 years ago. Luckily for us, we have had a gift card since December and it was in desperate need of usage. I was determined not to wait a single minute so after careful research and thought I concluded that Saturday at 11:45am is the ideal time to avoid a wait.

I was wrong.

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