The restaurant that has launched a thousand date nights, empty wallets, and Drake lyrics—The Cheesecake Factory. Whether you’re just stopping in for a drink, a full meal, or a trip to the dessert case, there’s no denying this restaurant’s popularity.
The Cheesecake Factory’s best known item is, undoubtedly, its namesake: the cheesecake. Calories be damned, people love this dessert. The restaurant offers over 50 different varieties of cheesecake, and many have taken it upon themselves to rank each and every delicious flavor.
But, there is one glaring question when considering the Cheesecake Factory: do they make their legendary dessert themselves? So, because I care, I have taken it upon myself to find out the truth. Die hard CF fans, you can finally find the answers you’ve been seeking.
The First Slice of the Story
Regardless of how the cheesecakes are made now, there is no denying that originally all cheesecakes for the Cheesecake Factory were made in house. According to the Cheesecake Factory website, a Detroit woman named Evelyn Overton opened her own cheesecake shop after friends and family fell in love with her desserts—what would later be known as CF’s “Original” cheesecake.
In the 1970s, Overton and her husband moved to Los Angeles and opened the first Cheesecake Factory restaurant, which served “more than 20 varieties of cheesecakes and other desserts.” The success was immediate, and American diners certainly know the rest of the story from here.
So What About Now?
In the 1970s, the cheesecakes were made on site, but what about now? Cheesecake Factory fans, you might want to sit down. After some snooping, I found my way to The Cheesecake Factory Bakery website. The blurb on the “About Us” page reads as follows:
“The Cheesecake Factory Bakery® offers The Dream Factory®, a brand dedicated to creating premium, indulgent cheesecakes, layer cakes and specialty items for leading edge restaurant operators. . .Every dessert creation in The Dream Factory® line is made by the same creative talent involved in the incomparably successful desserts that are sold in The Cheesecake Factory® restaurants nationwide.”
Say it ain’t so! The Cheesecake Factory does not make its cheesecakes in each specific restaurant, but rather has them shipped to each store. There’s even a page on the site dedicated to how exactly each slice should be plated.
How to Handle the Heartbreak
This news is definitely tough to handle for fans of the restaurant chain. So, where do you go from here? There’s no reason to despair because if your local Cheesecake Factory restaurant can get a cheesecake shipped to them, you certainly can as well.
Retailer Harry and David offers shipping straight from the official Cheesecake Factory website. The site offers over 20 different cheesecakes from the restaurant available for shipping across the country. And, the site offers two-day shipping for when your sweet tooth needs fixing fast. It’s basically the Amazon Prime of desserts.
So, while bad news is always hard to handle at first, fans of The Cheesecake Factory can take comfort in the fact that their favorite desserts are still available to them at all. There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel…even if the restaurant itself is pretty dark.