Diane B.
Yelp
If we could give 0 stars, we would.
We visited The Cheesecake Factory on Christmas Eve in Arlington, VA. We are long-time customers and have been to this restaurant chain in different states and locations. Our kids enjoy a tradition of dining there on Christmas Eve as we've done this for over 20 years. Even though we could choose other places, they always want to keep this tradition.
Well, after this past visit, we'll be breaking tradition.
The restaurant wasn't crowded and it looked short staffed, but we tolerated waiting.
It started off well, but we were served our appetizer long before we got our drinks (that we'd ordered at the same time). No big deal.
Our entrees were a wait, but, we've all worked in the food industry, so we're pretty easy going about this kind of thing. After close to a half hour, the waitress came over and apologized that she forgot to put our ticket in. She said it would be expedited and out very soon.
Well, we waited.
And waited.
For about another 20 minutes.
And finally two other servers came over and practically threw the plates on the table then ran off. I'd ordered a steak, but wasn't given a steak knife. Worse yet, my vegetable wasn't anywhere in sight (it's usually under the steak).
We looked around for our waitress, but she was nowhere in sight. My husband saw a busperson and asked for a steak knife, which he just handed to him and ran off.
No one came by to see if we wanted anything or if everything was alright. It wasn't.
I still didn't have part of my dinner. Our waitress would buzz by our table, but she wouldn't come over. After telling two other servers that I hadn't gotten half my meal, our original server finally came over and was surprised that half my entree was still missing.
Of course, by now everything was getting cold and the members in our group were done eating. I was finally served luke warm asparagus long after I'd eaten the rest of my dinner. Plus, my steak jus was way too salty.
No one ever came by to apologize for how long we had to wait or for missing half of my entree. We didn't expect to get the meal comped, but we did expect to at least get a visit from the manager as a courtesy.
We were fortunate that we weren't in a hurry, because our reservation was for 6pm, but my meal wasn't completely served until almost 8 o'clock. The restaurant was't crowded for a holiday evening. We were at the same location last Christmas Eve and our waitperson was wonderful. Our food was good and we had a lovely time. This year was a complete disappointment.
I sent a survey response to the CF customer email and told them about the disappointing evening. I got a cheery email response back from the restaurant manager who basically said that they will do better and we should stop in and say hello to the manager when we come back.
A weird response for sure. We spent over $230 for our meal and we felt cheated. This chain has gone down in quality and, if this location is open next year, I'll be really surprised. This service was abysmal.
We'll be spending Christmas Eve dining somewhere else from now on.