The Cheesecake Factory, where it only looks like marble

As discussed earlier today, the NY Times ran a critique of chain restaurants yesterday. I differed from Ezra Klein in that I thought the criticism was generally fair, although they definitely went into the experience with preconceived judgments. The heat was aimed at the cultural aspect of these restaurants and one chain in particular deserves such attention.

The Times review for the Cheesecake Factory was balanced. They said the food is good and the service efficient. Both conclusions are alright to make, but the food shouldn’t be overstated.

The review got warm in the right place though. “In contrast with plain-Jane franchise restaurants, the Cheesecake Factory, associated with upscale malls nationwide, wears a prom dress and lots of lip gloss.” Very sage, New York Times.

The Cheesecake Factory’s rampant success is a sad indicator for American culture: that so many can be so enamored with something so obviously contrived to symbolize luxury and status. It bills itself as accessible luxury, mostly on the part of its locations in a mall near you. But, there are rather flagrant observations that dispel the association of Cheesecake Factory and luxury. One only needs to take note of the facades (and no, that’s not a marble pillar), the ads in the menu, or — and this is my favorite — the daily charade its hostesses run.

It must be company policy to make everyone wait to be seated regardless of necessity. The idea being that it creates the image that it’s a popular place to be. The only fallacy in that logic would be if I were to be told that there’s a 40 minute wait and open tables are aplenty. Keep in mind they don’t take reservations, so the tables aren’t being held. Also, people are seated on either side of open tables, meaning they had enough servers. If something like that were to happen to me, I would have to think that the Cheesecake Factory was trying to mess with my head.

But image is the ethos of the Cheesecake Factory. Green Eggs blog opines on this matter:

It’s a busy Friday or Saturday night and the “idea” of Cheesecake Factory sounds…luxurious. They want to announce to all of their friends “I’m going to Cheesecake Factory (I must be fabulous)” they say in return, “Oh you’re going to Cheesecake Factory, you are so spectacular”.

The Cheesecake Factory has done an astonishing job of selling people on its social status under the guise of ‘the amazing food.’ It’s OK, but not hours waiting good. Confession: my animus in this respect probably stems from one travesty of a cheese steak in return for 1.5 hours of waiting and a price tag that took into account the fact that it was the Cheesecake Factory that provided me with this ‘experience.’

Anyways, the decency of the food doesn’t warrant the wait. Thus I’m left to conclude that there are other factors involved in why people choose to wait 2 hours some nights for a table, chiefly to be seen.

To be fair, PF Chang’s is running a remarkably similar business model — right down to almost needing night vision goggles to see it’s so dark. Nevertheless, I don’t mind because the hype doesn’t seem to elicit the same rapture-like response from its customers. The mood is much more mellow and less socially intense.

There are also many other classy Cheesecake Factory competitors nationally that don’t peddle faux-luxury. For example, Stanfords has comparable food and service to the Cheesecake Factory and a much less pretentious atmosphere. So go there instead.