Ok. Listen, to be fair.. I’ve never eaten at the factory of Cheesecakes. I had a beer there once when my family and I were suppose to dine in it’s grandiose, cathedralesque, mall annex one evening but alas, the wait for an 8 top was 3 hours which seemed par for the course that it would allocate enough time for patrons to read their Ezra book of menus. It’s like the creators of Cheesecake Factory traveled to the Taj Majal and thought to themselves “this is the vibe we would like to mimic but instead of a grand tomb let it be filled with pot stickers and cheesecakes.”

A menu that was more girth and vocabulary than Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged with delicacies that have been dragged through the decades of trendy relevance. Whether you have the hankering for the ever popular mozzarella sticks or the undying, culinary masterpiece spinach and artichoke dip that has been the star of the appetizer section since Burt Reynolds was smuggling Coors across the Mississippi.

Their menu has a small bites section AND an appetizer section. Small bites are the amuse- bouche of restaurant menus. Amuse- bouche being the French name for mouth amuser or simply an appetizer before your appetizer. It’s like creating a small dessert to eat before your regular dessert and calling it sweet petites. The small bites and snacks on the cheesecake menu however are just more app options. The authors of the CF menu, realizing the release of 30 appetizers seemed a little too daunting for one chapter, decided to break it up into two sections for the consumer to peruse. Egg rolls? We’ll spring ‘em. Mushrooms? We’ll stuff ‘em. We will fry your favorite fucking vegetable! Zucchini? Yep! Potatoes? Duh! Cauliflower? Fuck yeah but we don’t do that buffalo cauliflower like the amateurs do we toss that shit in Korean BBQ! That’s right! Bolt the goddamn doors shut to keep ‘em out because CF got the mother fucking Korean bites! It’s like they took Applebees, Bennigans, Chilis, Outback and O’ Charley’s and combined them to create the Voltron of trendy restaurant concepts.

Let’s not forget they have rotating bags of soup du jour brought in from their cheesecake commissary that I envision something out of a bad Willy Wonka remake with water falls of instant powdered bechamel, fountains of buffalo sauce and pastures of risotto. In their kitchens I can picture this magnificent 60ft long, True assembly top cooler with the storage capacity of 560 6th pans filled with factory necessities for scampiing, truffling, Parmesaning, tacoing, cashewing, marsaling you fucking name it, it’s on the menu.

The real heroes are the FOH staff that have to memorize this entire menu. It would be less daunting to memorize the entire Gone With the Wind screenplay in three different languages under the illumination of a 11 watt bulb.

I started to count the menu items and stopped. Once I got up to “skinnylicious” category I was overcome with daily prep lists and truck ordering nightmares. Their order guide has to be wheeled around in a wheel barrow. I’m almost certain they use the Dewey decimal system for their recipe card filing. “Oh you’re looking the cranberry, tarrogon herb butter for the poached halibut burrito? It’s filed under 1022.2 for churned cream creations.” I shouldn’t jump the gun on my assumptions on their massive inventory. They’ve managed to repurpose a single chicken breast into 149 of their menu choices.

Their bar menu filled with cocktails, mocktails. pale ales, skinny drinks, fat shakes, lemonades, housemade Gatorade (ok I made that up) has you covered for every trendy cocktail concoction ever released. I have no doubt they have more Long Island Tea recipes than Snapple has flavors. Their cocktail garnishes range from trolical parasols, olives stuffed with molded cheeses, foot long skewers of citrus orbs and enough straws to coke up all of Club 54 on a Saturday night.

Now throw in all the cheesecakes. They have more cheesecake options than a Baskin- Robbins has ice cream. With tempting flavors such as tiramisu, pumpkin spice, snickers to morning glory hole, surprise cream dreamsicle they have all you need to hit that max caloric intake. It must take a walk-in freezer the size of Madison Square Garden to regulate and contain all of the sub zero goodness

Now for the sake of transparency I will admit that my dislike for the Factory is purely based on being a jilted hater. As previously stated I’ve never eaten in one and if invited to a function located inside of one I would probably (kicking and screaming) go. Factory opened up in 2016 although all of the local papers had been announcing it’s arrival since 2015. This was the same year we had birthed Dive n Boar, a hip little farm to table bbq joint with craft cocktails. It was such a fun concept but except for a group of cult followers it never did well. Now I will give the Greenville press credit for our little write up when we announced our concept. It was about as much as I could ask for as a small local restaurant group in the making. Every week I’d see the Cheesecake Factory opening soon countdown in the local news medias and all the excitement from the Greenville “foodie” scene while DnB was struggling to keep the lights on. 2016 was a tough year for several reasons and experiencing what would be my first personal closure of a business I helped create was a hard blow to swallow. Another lesson I learned was never open up a concept that would directly compete with another you own. Our egos thought we could make it work and we were wrong. Southern’s business overall dropped about 15% and never recouped. The harsh side of opening up a kickass bar environment right next to another one is people will choose sides. No one wins.

Open up social media and I see people lined up out the door at Cheesecake Factory. 4 hour wait times, people making balloon animals while you wait in line, log jam traffic around the mall perimeter. It was like Jesus came to town to recreate his Last Supper in their private banquet room. Greenville was just getting it’s wings in the whole foodie town chatterings and this was their chance to really spread it’s plume and in my eyes they fell flat on a cherry cheesecake. My posts were filled with skinny margarita boomerang toasts and buffalo cauliflower exclamations. Greenville had mounted a taste bud assault on Cheesecake Factory and goddamn, jump back and kiss myself hallelujah the townfolk were excited. Broadway in a microwave had come to town and Cheese was cashing in the upstate’s 401ks. I remember trying to envision the other foodie cities like Chicago, Austin and Charleston cutting tape with the mayor on grand openings of their Cheesecake Factory’s . What an experience that must’ve been. Meanwhile we decided to close both restaurants for lunch due to lack of business or as we stated via press “focus more on dinner sales”. Don’t get me wrong or miss interpret my attitude, I don’t blame the mighty CF for our demise in anyway. I have the capitalistic clarity that some businesses can and will defeat and crush others it’s the American way. A little ass hurt goes along way with me. Timing is everything in this business. It definitely made me resentful towards the local press’ coverage on something as “unlocal” as a big box restaurant while the only time I’d see them mention a restaurant more than once was to announce a closure. It also gave me a long lasting impression of what makes up a sizable nihilistic approach to the Greenville foodie scene. No matter what you try to create artistically and unique to reward someone’s palate, you will ultimately lose to a plate of pre-battered chicken tenders and Lamb-Weston frozen fries. Yes I know this is a broad swath of unfairness and judgement from me and it was earned the worst way. I enjoy expressing myself with sarcasm and hyperbole so yes, my dislike for the CF is a little over the top. Yes, I created it in my own mind. Yes, I know not all of Greenville flushed their taste buds down the toilet but boy howdy a lot of you did..

I’m sure CF has some good intentions behind their 4882 cheesecake flavors and 4lb menu that has more scripture than Stephen King novel. I’m sure some exceptional meals and service have been brandished in some of the upstate’s social media and yay for them and those.. I get asked a lot about my trolling and when I tell everyone it’s a long story that has nothing to do with my experience eating in a Cheesecake Factory I get some weird stares. Also stop sending me Cheesecake Factory gift cards as jokes. I have enough coasters as it is.