This Chain's Massive Menu Offers Over 250 Items Made From Scratch, Not Including Its Namesake Dish

In the mood for some light reading? Swing by the Cheesecake Factory — where the menu features more than 250 items, all made from scratch. Before they can even place an order, guests have to flip through page after page of menu offerings. But interestingly enough, those from-scratch restaurant dishes don't actually include the cheesecakes for which the chain gets its name.

There's a reason why the Cheesecake Factory's cheesecake tastes the same everywhere: All of them are baked at two dedicated factories and shipped to restaurants. The lush cheesecake displays for all 215 locations across 41 U.S. states are supplied by just two facilities. There, the cheesecakes are prepared, frozen, sliced, shipped out, and only thawed the day before they hit the display case — ensuring product consistency from one chain location to the next.

Still, from the wide-ranging bowl meals to the best-selling chicken fettuccine Alfredo, the Cheesecake Factory's kitchen team begins its work at dawn every day in order to build every other plate on its expansive menu from scratch. The high-volume restaurant chain has its from-scratch system down to a honed science, centered around skilled plating and the close monitoring of ingredient freshness.

In a Reddit thread, a Cheesecake Factory employee wrote, "They have an incredibly impressive operation with over 50 daily staff members making all the food... from scratch in the back every few days. But the Cheesecakes that it's so famous for are flown in frozen and pre pulled the day before." Another employee chimed in to agree, "I work at the CCF and I can confidently say that they do make everything from scratch lol. It's mind blowing to say the least!" Notably, most of the other commenters expressed feeling impressed by the number of from-scratch items more than they care about the thawed-cheesecake factor. 

As one fan put it, "I actually AM shocked. Not about the cheesecakes. They are too consistent and plentiful to be made on site for a chain of that size. I am really surprised that they aren't using sauce blends and such from a commissary." Indeed, the chain's individually hand-wrapped and fried egg rolls aren't just stuffed with a house-made veggie mixture, but they're served alongside an 18-ingredient tamarind-cashew sauce – also made entirely from scratch. But, ultimately, the restaurant's literal name is "The Cheesecake Factory" — a title that explicitly tells guests where every flavor of its  cheesecakes came from.