Jenny S.
Yelp
I made a reservation for 5:30 PM at The Cheesecake Factory for five people to celebrate my daughter's birthday. We arrived and waited for the text that our table was ready, and were seated in a booth, even though there were clearly plenty of tables available. The place is huge and ornate and really pretty to look at, but the music was so loud it was hard to have a conversation.
It took a little while for our server to make it to our table, so we ordered drinks, mostly waters, sodas, and teas at $4.95 each. My dad went for the Ultimate Margarita at $14.95. The famous bread arrived warm and delightful, so that was a good start.
For appetizers, we got fried mac and cheese, spinach and cheese dip, and the egg roll sampler. The egg rolls were my favorite, with lots of dipping sauces, and all of them were pretty tasty. The fried mac and cheese was just fried lumps of mac and cheese and tasted like frozen off-brand mac and cheese. The spinach and cheese dip had almost no flavor, and we ended up borrowing dippers from the egg roll plate to give it some life.
For mains, we ordered Jamaican chicken and shrimp, Shepherd's Pie, Chicken Parmesan Pizza Style, Louisiana Cajun Chicken Pasta, and the Filet Mignon. Two people added Little Caesar salads. The food was mostly underwhelming. My Cajun pasta was fine, but the sauce was watery and not very spicy. The chicken was fried crisp, which I liked. The Jamaican chicken and shrimp were okay, but nothing exciting. The chicken parm was edible, but didn't get high praise. Dad tried his shepherd's pie and stopped after one bite because the gravy was basically meat grease, though he did enjoy the mashed potatoes. My daughter liked her mash, and her steak was cooked okay, but a little dry.
Service was slow on drinks and clearing plates, so our booth stayed cluttered most of the night. We finished with four slices of cheesecake to go, and after the tip, the bill was around $350. I did not feel like the service, paired with the quantity and quality of the food, matched the price. Next time I will probably spend my money elsewhere where mediocre food costs a lot less.