The Cheesecake Factory — Restaurant in Beavercreek

We arrived at 7:05pm on Saturday evening, and we were told there was a 30 minute wait. Makes sense, it's Saturday evening. We were seated around 7:30, so everything is off to a good start, the hostess was nice and pleasant, as was the person who sat us, nice chit chat conversation while being taken to our seat. We were at our seats for a few minutes when our waitress introduced herself and took our drink orders. She brought us water five minutes later, stating she would bring the drinks once they were made at the bar. Those drinks arrived about five minutes later, and we placed our order. My wife is gluten free and ordered some gluten free pasta, this was around 7:45 or so.

At 7:52 I looked at my watch, knowing we needed to leave in about an hour to get home by 9:00 to relieve the sitter. I said to my wife, time is good, we have a full hour. By 8:15 we were wondering where our food was, it had been 30 minutes and nothing from our waitress. 8:25 and we flag her down finally, stating we wanted to order cheesecake to go and that we needed to leave by 8:50 or so to get home. She came back stating she was "going to crack some skulls in the kitchen" for not having our meal ready yet. She came back a few minutes later and asked for a reminder of what we ordered, even though she had written it down, which is generally code for "I forgot to put your order in" . A few minutes later she returned, stating she was just informed the sauce could not be made gluten free, and that the kitchen failed to tell her that 15 minutes earlier (which would still have been 30 plus minutes after we ordered). We stated we now needed our meal to go, as we did not have time to eat it before we had to leave.

The table next to us was in a similar spot, as they had arrived a few minutes after us and had not received their appetizer yet. She came back and stated our meals were put on priority to get them out before any other meal that had not been plated yet. She asked if we wanted any soup while we waited, to which we replied no thank you. Shortly thereafter the food arrived at the next table, not the appetizers, but the main course, I guess they didn't get their calamari. I told my wife I was going to pull up the truck while she waited for the food. We had the receipt by this time, $96.xx for two main dishes, two slices of cheesecake, a beer, and a mojito. While I was getting the truck, my wife went to the front and asked to speak to a manager. When asked what was wrong, she told them we had been there since 7 and still didn't have food, and it was 8:55 by now. The ladies were visibly shocked and called a manager.

The manager said he would comp the meals and took my wife's card to run the adjusted bill of around $45. My wife asked for her card back twice, and stated we had to leave, as we were now paying our respite provider overtime for being late. The waitress was upset at our situation and offered cash to cover our sitters costs. My wife thanked her, but stated that wasn't necessary, just that we needed to leave asap. Finally she received her card back and we left at 9:05. We arrived home around 15 minutes late, finally, with meals and cheesecake in hand. It literally took 90 minutes from being seated to getting our "expedited" meals.

I appreciate the managers willingness to comp the meals, but still, come on. The fact that it took that long to get food, and that no one thought it was a good idea to tell the waitress her customers food couldn't be made, and that she needed reminding of what it was we ordered...I don't buy it. This will be my last visit to this location, for sure, if not the chain as a whole....

Congratulations on winning the worst restaurant I have ever visited!

We had an 11:30am reservation. We sat outside on the patio. The grass and weeds were at least 7-12" tall and desperately needed mowed. After about 15-20 minutes our server came over and asked for our drink order. When she returned, she asked if we wanted to order an appetizer... we said no, but were ready to order our meal. The server said, "I have to go check on this other table then I'll come back for your order." I've NEVER had a server leave me when I'm ready to order for another table. We didn't see her again for another 30-45 minutes. A different server came to our table with an appetizer of calamari, we explained it wasn't ours. It ended up being for the table adjacent ours next to the railing. At this point FIVE more tables had been seated around us and were already being served their entrees..... After we had been waiting even longer, our server came back and asked how things were.... I said, "Well since you asked, there have been six tables that were seated after us that have been served appetizers, entrees and now desserts (two had left and been reseated with new customers) and we hadn't even ordered yet." Her response was NOT "I'm sorry" it was "I'm new." We finally placed our order..... after about 5 minutes a server came with two entrees that we hadn't ordered; again they were for the adjacent table. Then 2 minutes later a different server came with what I had ordered, he placed it in front of me. We prayed to give thanks for our time together and for the meal. My daughter in law told me to go ahead and eat; however, I told her I wanted to wait for theirs to come out....she jokingly said, you don't suppose that was also for the adjacent table. I looked over and sure enough there was a third person at their table who didn't have their entree yet.... I waved down our server and she scooped up the plate in front of me and took it over to the adjacent table and placed it in front of the third customer. After about another 30 minutes my grand daughters filet steak came out.... she ordered medium and got medium rare to rare. My waffle/chicken/eggs benedict came out and one of the eggs was off to the side and broken open and the yolk was no where to be found..... Our server had to go back to the kitchen to get my daughter in laws beet salad with grilled chicken. I was very hesitant to eat my meal because of the condition of the egg.... I couldn't tell what had happened to it. After we had almost finished our entrees our server stopped by and asked if my grand daughter wanted a refill of her water... she said yes... the server reached across the table and grabbed the top of the glass with her fingertips, lifted the glass, and removed it to be refilled. GROSS..... so much for sanitation policies..... Finally, we gave her our dessert order. She came back about 10 minutes later and said that the flavor that my grand daughter wanted was sold out (Lemon Meringue Pie) so we explained that at this point we didn't want any dessert... Check Please..... my grand daughter had two dishes of French fries left and the server asked if she wanted to take them home, my grand daughter responded YES... the server took them and said she would box them up..... we NEVER got the fries returned to our table! To top it off while my daughter in law was signing the bill, another server stopped by our table with two entrees.... can you guess who they were for? NOT us.... again the adjacent table by the railing!!! ...

Shame on the manager. Kudos to the server. Here's the story...I visited this restaurant with my family on 5/27/23. We arrived around 5pm with a party of 11 people. Since the restaurant does not accept reservations for large parties, we knew it might be a long wait but thought we had a chance since we were arriving fairly early. It was my daughter's 16th birthday and Cheesecake Factory was where she wanted to celebrate.

The hostess had to find the manager when we told her we had such a large party. The manager arrived and promptly told us that it would be at least a THREE HOUR wait because "he was expecting large groups this evening." Does that make any sense? Remember, reservations are not accepted for large parties. So if we were the first "large group" that arrived, shouldn't we have seating priority?

The story continues...it seemed pretty obvious that the manager did not want to seat us for whatever reason. A server named Hunter heard us talking in the lobby. She approached us and told us that if we were willing to sit outside on the patio, she could seat us. Why didn't the manager offer that? It would have been very nice if he said something like "I can't seat you inside the restaurant but perhaps you might be interested in sitting outside on our patio?." It was a beautiful evening, so we accepted Hunter's offer.

Hunter said that she just had to ask her manager if she could move tables together so that we could all sit together. Surprise, surprise...the manager denied her request. I am not sure what his problem was and why he didn't want the large amount of money we were about to spend at his restaurant.

We still decided to stay and just sat in three tables next to each other and it was fine. But it sure would have been nice if the manager would have let his employee move a few tables so that we could all sit together. Not sure why that was such a big deal to him.

Anyway, Hunter was FANTASTIC. She was on it. We were so gracious that she heard our predicament and immediately spoke up to help accommodate us. She was super polite and provided us with amazing service. She even brought my daughter an ice cream sundae for her birthday and a plate that said "Happy Birthday" on it. Hunter deserves many kudos. The manager deserves a cheesecake smashed in his face.

The food was delicious and the atmosphere was fantastic. Hopefully we can return someday and the manager will have learned his lesson. So to explain my 3 star rating: 5 stars for Hunter, and the food. 1 star for the bad experience with the manager. That balances out to...