The Cheesecake Factory

Went here tonight with my boyfriend. He ordered the Pit Beef Sandwich and I got the Vietnamese Spring Rolls. Sadly he’s throwing up now… he said it tasted «funny» but didn’t want to complain. I REALLY wished he would’ve said something to me because I would’ve told them myself! I’m VERY disappointed in Cheesecake factory!

I first tried Cheesecake Factory in MD on a date with a guy I met when I was in town for a convention in the late 90s. The love affair has continued for 15+ years… (With Cheesecake Factory, not the guy.)
I am not a huge fan of chain restaurants in general, but of the chains, Cheesecake is my favorite. Huge portions, consistent quality, open relatively late, quite an array of choices that don’t suck, modern, lush décor reminiscent of themed luxury hotels in Vegas (it’s no wonder that this chain was chosen for the Grand Lux Cafes in the Venetian and the Palazzo), and good if not incredible service.
The fresh and hot bread they give for free is as good as or even better than bread I have paid extra for at high-​end restaurants.
Not everything I have had here is good, hence the 4 stars instead of 5, but the things I like are pretty consistent. We always share the chicken marsala with mushrooms and bowtie pasta, plus something else new, usually chicken something. The bowtie pasta (angel hair or spaghetti is another story) is almost never overcooked (hard to find in Italian restaurants especially out here). It’s always enough for at least 2 or 3 meals.
Unfortunately for a place with cheesecake in their name, they don’t have any cheesecakes, or any desserts really, that I don’t find way too sweet to bother ordering. I can’t stomach more than a bite or two. We’ve given up on desserts here.
Service can suffer a bit when they’re busy, but I find that having an understanding attitude about their being swamped always gets me better service. The worst service I ever had here was a girl who was just phoning it in, she wasn’t even rude or anything.
Bathrooms are usually clean and there isn’t usually a wait except during high traffic times. I try to avoid this place on Friday and Saturday evenings.
I like the «eye of Sauron» lamps at all the booths.
Some dishes we consistently enjoy:
* Ahi tuna tartare — the sauce this comes with is delectable, and I like the deep-​fried wonton chips, though I usually don’t at other places (too greasy)
* Ahi tuna carpacchio — this comes with a different sauce which is equally delectable
* Chicken marsala — TBH even though this is my favorite dish, it borders on sweet, just below the level beyond which I would find it inedible
Some dishes we tried once and liked:
* Portobello, avocado & zucchini sticks (I prefer the portobello ones; the zucchini sticks are too soggy and the avocado is too ripe and mushy)
* Chicken Madeira
* Pasta da Vinci — basically the same as the Chicken Madeira but with penne instead of mashed potatoes
* Chicken with Lemon Couscous — delicious, but was Israeli couscous, not regular couscous, which was not what we expected based on it being called just «couscous»
* Crusted Chicken Romano
* Chicken Piccata — angel hair pasta was overcooked
As I mentioned, the chicken dishes we’ve tried so far have mostly been wins. I am not a fan of white meat, finding it too dry and stringy, but here the chicken breast is almost always tender and moist. The worst chicken dishes we had here (Chicken Bellagio and Chicken di Pana) were still okay, just not as good as the others, and not good enough to have again.
Some dishes we tried once and disliked:
* Fried mac and cheese balls (the Mac Daddy cheese balls at Fred 62 are much, much better)
* Burger — don’t remember which burger exactly, but it was underwhelming for a restaurant burger; cooked to death (well past well done) even though we asked for it to be as rare as possible, but I understand that cooking ground meat to less than medium is scary for many restaurants (although if they are an A, I don’t understand not being able to go to medium rare or medium).
I want to try some of the other dishes, like the steak, but the chicken is so good I don’t know when we’ll get around to them.

What a busy place… I have to give this place a hats off for the great service they did provide regardless of how really busy they were. The staff is great and the food was great!!! This is a great place for dinner!!! great for desert too… Way to go Cheesecake Factory!!! AAA+++ You are the best!!! Great Service and great food! What else is better than that?

This is my 2^nd home lol. Great service, food, ambience. Great menu with Alot of choices with great prices. I cant say enough good things about this place. Just be prepared to wait awhile to be seated, they stay busy and deservedly so.

Needed reservations and understand they don’t make reservations so I asked them what is the best way to make sure we could be seated by 7 with a party of 22 how early do we need to get there. I was told 6 and that it shouldn’t be a problem. I told them are you sure because I need to be seated at 7 or a little after woulda been fine. Well I had someone there before 6 and was told we wouldn’t be seated till 11. Thanks for ruining the birthday dinner surprise for my wife and 21 of her friends. Manager did nothing to help when I made him aware of the incident! Your loss

Great lunch with my mom today… Waited five min for patio seating on a gorgeous California day. Waiter was super cute!!! But he was also attentive and polite. Food was delicious today. My cocktail though, wasn’t what I expected. But, I’m not one to return a drink. Oh! And the Salted Caramel Cheesecake was amazing!!!

We came here for a birthday celebration it was a Saturday night and very crowded but we got in early enough around 4:45. The food is good I had the pasta with shrimp but most good restaurants remove the annoying shell that you dont expect, how hard is it to remove chefs? Then because we had a large party of 8 and a birthday they came out with a birthday sunday in a shot glass, hahahaha really? With a dinner ticket over $ 200 you think they could at least spring for a scoop of ice cream, I mean really? Dennys gives you a bigger birthday sundae than that. So for Cheescake factory beeing so cheap and for leaving the skin on the shrimp they get a whopping 2 stars.

Carpaccio amazing! Cheese balls great but it’s a lot for two, stay to the small plates for appetizers if you want to get an entrée. They do have blue cheese stuffed olives which is definitely a plus! Overall great location and service was exceptional, even when busy bartender Heather was friendly, professional, and fast to anticipate our needs! We will definitely be back to see her

Celebrated my best friends birthday here last night. The wait was an hour, which is to be expected on a Saturday night at Victoria Gardens.
The service was outstanding! We both really liked him and wish I had gotten his name to mention here.
As for the food:
They give you bread while waiting for your dinner which was yummy.
We shared the artichoke dip and it was SO delicious but they really skimped on the tortilla chips.
I had the Kobe burger (heavenly, really everyone should try it) and the baked potato soup (amazing beyond words.) My friend really enjoyed her chicken fettuccine although I feel it was overpriced ($ 21) but it was a large portion!
We told our server it was her birthday and that we didn’t want singers or attention, just a candle and a birthday message written on the plate.
Note to everyone: Birthday cheesecake ain’t free here!
Only negative comment I have is the price of the alcohol. They don’t have the price of the drinks on the menu for good reason! We each had two rounds of lemon drop martinis and ended up paying over $ 50 on drinks alone. This was completely fine with me given the special occasion but I wouldn’t come here and get a drink on a regular night. Great food and service though. Would definitely come back again!

Choose cheesecake factory for sunday brunch with my wife and daughter today. Quickly seated on the patio. which was great on this great California day .that’s where things changed .
We place our order and waited about 20 minutes until our order started coming out. 1^st my daughters pancake combo, then maybe 10 minutes later my monte’ cristo sandwich. Now 20 mins .25 mins and my wifes order still not served .the waitress not coming around, whats up ?
Now a manger approaches the table. stating «you order a green chilaquiles «we’re sorrybut it was served to a different table, we are currently making you a new order .now another 15 ‘s mins pass and we’re told the order was made incorrectly but the new will be out soon .
So much for having breakfast as a family. After eatting off my daughter’s plate, my wifes order was placed which we took to go… the food that was served was good «but the guest relations and service where off the scale .dont know what was happening in the kitchen .but, it through off our start to the morning.

This location is always super busy but it’s always more than fully staffed. The staff is very efficient and courteous too.
The beer selection is okay.
The food on the Skinnylicious menu is surprisingly flavorful considering it’s low cal.
Try the steak medallions.

I ordered a fillet mignon well done, what do I get a bloody one, rare, unbelievable. So I send it back, 10 – 15 min later the waitress finally stops by the table, and what does say: «the cook is actually cooking that for you», well let’s hope so, ip to that point I didn’t actually think he was photoshopping it to make it look done :)
2 stars for an otherwise good place, a little too noisy for a quiet dinner but the deserts pick up the slack :)

This was my second visit and it was great yet again. I loved the food and the staff was amazing and very attentive. Anthony was our server and was great! Thank you CCF for a great visit!

Still love their place. One of faves is the chicken Marsala. Waiting time to be seated can take long at times so arrive anticipating to wait a while unless you go really early or really late. The waiter looked tired and didn’t want to make second trip for our order of fries when There were two that had been ordered a side for order and he said it was actually a double order put together I said no it’s not its one order and my daughter had a separate order which came separately. he knew I noticed he was lying to me about that in order to avoid his second trip to the kitchen but he quickly corrected it by grabbing us our order of fries and bringing them out.
I know it’s hard to sometimes keep a smile but when a customer walks in they are paying for expensive meals so the appropriate thing to do is to be more courteous and smile more be appreciative that we are there as customers and paying a pretty penny for our dinners. We go there because it’s dining and entertainment. people already have tough days and go there to enjoy a nice dinner and relax with family or what not. Make their visit a pleasant one. At least for the hour they are there then you can vent your frustrations once the visit is over.
I would’ve left a higher tip had he simply smiled and made us feel more welcomed instead of looking forced. Customer service matters a lot when you arrive at a restaurant you really like and tell a lot of people about. Especially now with social media.
I’d like to mention that the environment is still nice and located at VGs which is always good because you can walk around after or before a meal if the weather is pleasant that day/​night. What can I say it’s still one of my favorite restaurants and would’ve given it a 5 had the customer service Been better and the hostess not forgotten about seating us a lot later than what we were suppose to wait. 10 mins turned into 30 and it was 1030pm And forgotten.

NOTE: If you ever order for take out, make sure you check your food. They make your orders and leave it out sitting till you come. They don’t have a hot oven to keep their food warm (for to go orders). To avoid getting sick make sure your food is at least 135 °F (if hot).
I ordered salmon and one of the employees wanted me to pay for it (it was cold)! I had to express my concern to a manager.
Disappointed, you would think a corporate restaurant would know better. They should know that sending food out of their restaurant not at 135 °F has the potential risk for food borne illness.

Had some outstanding service from Susan H, who I know was really busy, but was still able to serve our table in a timely fashion. Very much appreciated! The accidentally messed up our order, but gave us complimentary salads for the wait and made sure our order was rushed and still cooked to perfection. We come here often, and we will continue to come, thanks to Susan and the staff who know how to run a restaurant to a T!
Thanks again Susan for your service tonight on my birthday, it was very pleasant!

You can never go wrong at the CCF. We shared pot stickers they were perfect. The sauce is amazing!
I had the orange chicken, always the best white meat chicken!!! Staff was nice. Victoria Gardens will be my new go to spot since I’m moving to the IE. I love CCF some people say it’s over rated but I’ve been eating at CCF for almost 20 years, I think I’ve had a less than savory experience once. I think that’s pretty awesome. Ask your server what they like. The menu is really big. Share meals, experiment. It’s easy to fall in love with this place. Also the Happy Hour is how you can get a lot of good stuff on the cheap!

Just your typical cheese cake factory here, big, busy and noisy. Over all the service was good the food was good and the wait was not too bad when we went. I would definitely come here again.

Been going here since it first opened and not so much lately. The service here is a hit or miss depending on the waiter or waitress we get, but I’ve had a ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ experience of great or horrible. I have a lot of family that visit from Australia/​New Zealand and the highlight of their trip is the Cheesecake Factory. They go back home telling everyone about this great restaurant and when the next family member (s) come to visit they all want to try the famed Cheesecake Factory. We’ve had rude waitresses that give us attitude after we point out an error with our order to those that go above and beyond to deal with my picky dad. It’s a long wait and I can’t tell you if it’s worth it or not, but if you love the food and don’t want to wait I’d suggest calling in and ordering your food to go. At least this way you won’t have a bad experience.
To address the food, everything is good especially the chicken dishes (Louisiana chicken pasta and chicken madera are my faves). I’d recommend trying their strawberry shortcake as well as all of their cheesecakes!

I typically enjoy dining at Cheesecake Factory, but this location is not one of my favorites. I’ve dined at this location now twice, once for lunch and once for dinner.
When I came for lunch my party of four was seated pretty quickly. Our waitress was very nice and friendly, BUT oh my god … A lady in my party pointed out how DIRTY her shirt was! The waitresses and waiters all wear white blouses and white pants, but her armpits were STAINED YELLOW. We had to see this and then EAT?! It was really disgusting and made us all lose our appetite. The lady who pointed it out to me wanted to tell the manager how gross it was, but didn’t want to embarrass the girl. Wow I really don’t get why they don’t have everyone just wear BLACK. Now that my eyes have been opened to this I always look for it. Ugh.
Lunch: I ordered the Renee special turkey sandwich that came with salad and cream of mushroom soup. The bread of the sandwich was incredibly hard and dry, as was the turkey. The salad had a vinaigrette that I did not like and the cream of mushroom soup was borderline disgusting. It tasted like Marsala sauce. It was weird. Good thing I had brown bread to eat.
Dinner: bang bang chicken and shrimp. This was my second time ordering this and I didn’t like it as much as when I had it at a different location. The sauce was a little too mushy and had too many raisins.
Also, when my coworker and I came for dinner we requested a table outside since it was so cold and dark inside. We were told 15 minutes and given a buzzer. 15 or so minutes later I heard the hostess calling my name… And my buzzer wasn’t even buzzing. So that was pointless. When we got to the patio there were 11 empty tables! Uhh exactly what were we waiting 15 minutes for?! Our waitress was friendly enough, but that was annoying.
With all the other options nearby, this restaurant would not be my first choice.