What Cheesecake Factory Does With Its Leftover Food At The End Of The Day

When perusing The Cheesecake Factory's famously huge menu and serving sizes, it's easy to wonder what happens to the potentially massive amounts of food going unsold by closing time. It's a legitimate concern. I remember working for a California restaurant chain in my early 20s when entire house-baked pies and loaves of bread were ditched at closing time, being deemed no longer "fresh" after a single day. Fortunately, norms have progressed considerably since then, including social structures and commitments to reducing food waste — including at Cheesecake Factory. 

During a Tasting Table deep-dive into what what happens to leftovers at 10 chain restaurants, we discovered from Alethea Rowe, Senior Director of Public Relations and Global Branding, that Cheesecake Factory puts substantial effort into ensuring its restaurants don't contribute to the billions of pounds of food discarded every year. It instead funnels surplus food through a program called Nourish, which is designed to move unused food from restaurants to local nonprofit partners instead of letting it go to waste.

"Since 2007, we have donated more than 9.7 million pounds of food to local nonprofits," says Rowe, "helping to not only alleviate hunger, but also combat greenhouse gas emissions, reduce water consumption, and send less material to landfill."

There's an intricate web involved in making all this happen, including a partnership with technology company Copia and its "zero food waste" tech platform that connects excess food with specific local nonprofits that can actually receive and distribute the food quickly and safely. Through Copia's mobile app, the restaurants and nonprofits get matched in real time as food becomes available. Then, delivery company Door Dash enters the picture, seamlessly picking up and delivering the food directly to those who need it. 

If you're imagining pre-cooked items from the Cheesecake Factory menu, like double-smashed cheeseburgers, Cajun jambalaya, shephard's pie, or any number of unsold cheesecake slices, it's a bit more nuanced than that. With an astounding 250 items made from scratch, not counting the cheesecake varieties, a lot of fresh ingredients potentially enter the picture, as well as things like sauces, pantry and baking items, condiments, and lots more. So, it's not just about unsold prepared menu items from a given day. 

The company also sponsors The Cheesecake Factory slice campaign every year, during which sales of a dedicated cheesecake generate a 25-cents per slice donation to Feeding America, the countrywide organization targeting hunger relief in America. During the 2026 campaign, the star cheesecake is Peach Perfect with Raspberry Drizzle. With 217 locations, and plans for at least 20 more in 2026, there's a whole lot of food donating and waste prevention happening in The Cheesecake Factory universe.