Christina G.
Yelp
4.5 HOURS.
This is the amount of time I spent at Cheesecake Factory at my last visit, and the majority of this time was spent WAITING. It saddens me deeply to write this review because I typically LOVE Cheesecake Factory. I have visited multiple locations, so often, that I have tried nearly every one of their cheesecakes, but this was by far, the worst experience I have ever had.
Here's the breakdown:
For the first 2.5 hours, hubby and I waited to be seated. We were unable to make reservations because they only allow a limited number of reservations for parties under 6. We were given an estimate of 1.5-2 hours for the wait time, and while this was a long wait, we decided to stay. As it reached close to 2 hours, we asked for an update at the front desk, mostly to make sure that we were still on the list. We were told that we would be seated in the next 10 minutes. HALF AN HOUR later, we were seated. Also, as we were waiting to be escorted to our table, we overheard the front staff informing the next few parties that the wait time would be about 3 hours, which would have been well past their closing time, which was not pointed out to guests. I'm not sure why the front desk staff simply did not inform guests that they could no longer accommodate any more guests. Some people actually considered waiting!
Once we were seated, we waited another HALF HOUR before anyone acknowledged us at our table. Once our server finally came to our table, we placed our orders for everything (drinks, appetizers, entrees, desserts) to try to reduce further delays. He stated that he would bring us silverware. Our server also informed us that it would be about an hour for our cheesecakes to be ready and asked if we wanted to have them boxed to-go. We said that was fine, just to make things easier for the staff, but this seemed odd. They were not closing in an hour, we would likely still be dining in an hour, and yet it was as if we were already being rushed out despite only just being acknowledged after being ignored for half an hour!
Another HALF HOUR went by before we received our glasses of water. We still had no silverware, and so we asked for silverware when the waitress brought us water. She never brought us silverware. In fact, we ended up receiving and finishing our appetizer long before any silverware was ever brought to the table.
About an hour after we had placed our orders, the manager approached our table, not to apologize for the unnecessarily and ridiculously long wait times, but to tell us that we had to change one of our main dishes (Chicken Parmesan "Pizza Style") because he "couldn't get the crust right" and had no more ingredients to make a new batch. I'm not sure why it took so long for them to notify us, but alas, another delay and inconvenience.
Food-wise, my Bistro Shrimp Pasta (battered shrimp, mushrooms, tomato, and arugula with spaghetti and basil garlic lemon cream sauce, $20.95) did not look very appetizing but tasted okay. The Eggroll Sampler (avocado, Tex Mex, cheeseburger spring rolls, and chicken taquitos, $16.95) was tasty (but we had no napkins to wipe our hands). Hubby ended up switching to the Crusted Chicken Romano (breast of chicken coated with a romano parmesan cheese crust, served with pasta and tomato sauce, $21.50), which he enjoyed, but he was very disappointed that he couldn't try the pizza style dish. We ate our cheesecakes at home, which ended up being much preferred since we were tired of wasting so much time at the restaurant.
When our bill finally arrived (which took an extraordinarily long time to receive), we noticed that one of the entrees was not included, so we assumed that they were comping us for having to change our order through no fault of our own. However, after we presented our payment, the receipt that we received back suddenly increased by about $30!!! And of course, they took away the itemized receipt so we had no idea why we were suddenly being charged more. Talk about shady! When we asked for the itemized receipt, they gave us a receipt that totaled the new amount.
We weren't upset about the wait time to be seated because we were informed upfront of the wait time and voluntarily chose to wait. However, everything that occurred afterward was an absolute nightmare. And none of the staff ever seemed apologetic about it either.
