The Cheesecake Factory's Best Selling Dish Isn't Cheesecake - It's Not Even In The Top 3

The Cheesecake Factory's famously gargantuan menu is more than 20 pages long. Still, after browsing this novella, most foodies are landing on one common dish. The chain's most popularly ordered item isn't a Glamburger or anything Skinnylicious. It isn't even the titular cheesecake. According to an in-depth Vox write-up with information from an inside sales source, the most popular dish on the Cheesecake Factory's sprawling menu is fettuccine Alfredo. The dish gets ordered more than 200,000 times every single month.

Chicken fettuccine Alfredo ranked highly in our roundup of the absolute best dishes to order at Olive Garden as well. It's a fan favorite dish for a reason: it's accessible, hearty, and picky-eater-friendly yet inherently elevated. At the Cheesecake Factory, maybe fettuccine Alfredo simply offers a safe, familiar option for folks who might be overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of menu options.

"Sometimes people go after creativity and sometimes people just want something delicious that is not as intimidating," chef Brandon Cook, executive chef of culinary research and development at the Cheesecake Factory, told Vox. "And when you've got a great fettuccine Alfredo — and our guests tell us that they love our version — we love it." The only descriptor for the dish on the official Cheesecake Factory website is fettuccine pasta in "a rich parmesan cream sauce," a minimal yet winning formula. The entree costs $24.50 at a restaurant location in New York.

Trailing the pasta dish in popularity are the avocado egg rolls (140,000 orders per month) and the fried mac and cheese (126,000), reports Vox. Notably, the avocado egg rolls take a whopping four hours to make. All 250 items on the Cheesecake Factory's menu (except for the cheesecake) are made from scratch, with daily prep beginning at 6:00 a.m. According to one Reddit thread from an apparent employee of eight years, it's "an incredibly impressive operation with over 50 daily staff members making all the food ... but the Cheesecakes that it's so famous for are flown in frozen and pre-pulled the day before." Pre-made or not, the stripped-down classic cheesecake (which only includes five ingredients) is the top-selling cheesecake variety for the chain. 

It's worth mentioning that the fettuccine Alfredo literally comes with a warning label for its sodium content on the Cheesecake Factory website: "the sodium intake of this item is higher than the daily recommended limit (2,300 mg)" (yikes). The dish packs 2,570 mg of sodium; add chicken, and the total comes to 2,960 mg. Still, as foodies in another Reddit thread observe, the Cheesecake Factory's large portion sizes facilitate leftovers. Plus, as one commenter aptly puts it, "Also remember: it's DELICIOUS. Anyone who goes to a restaurant to watch calories is ... well, on a mission of folly." Dig into a pleasurable meal out and enjoy. Or, we've got a killer chicken fettuccine Alfredo recipe if you'd rather stay home.