The menu at Cheesecake Factory is the stuff of legends. At 250+ dishes, there isn’t a single restaurant across the American landscape that even comes close to the amount of variety that can be had at there. It’s the only restaurant that attempts to cater to everyone and for the most part, jokes aside, it does a damn good job at fulfilling that mission. A couple of years back we ranked the 25 best dishes and still only managed to scratch the surface of what’s available (we’ve also ranked all 35 cheesecakes).
The biggest surprise about the Cheesecake Factory menu — considering the scope and scale involved — is that all of the dishes are scratch-made on location. All except for one. The cheesecakes themselves.
Yes, ironically given its name, the Cheesecake Factory’s namesake desserts are actually made in two bakery production facilities (one in Calabasas California, the other in Rocky Mount, North Carolina) and then shipped to a Cheesecake Factory restaurant frozen. Those are the real factories. The restaurant at your local mall could more accurately be called “Cheesecake Outlet.”
According to Cheesecake Factory, making the desserts off-site enables the brand to have full “control over the creativity and quality” of its 70 total varieties of cheesecakes and other baked desserts. It’s why the desserts are so consistent at every location you visit. So no, that slice of cheesecake isn’t exactly “fresh made” but at least Cheesecake Factory bakes its desserts itself, rather than bringing them in from a third party.