The Cheesecake Factory — Restaurant in Boston

On a rainy Saturday afternoon, our party of 11 had dinner at the downtown Boston Cheesecake Factory. This review is based on 3 meals out of the 11. My brother had a medium well done steak that came charred and cooked through and through. My friend had his hamburger cooked in the same manner. I had the orange chicken served with brown rice it was cold. We complained to our waitress who, after asking us how they should solve their problem, finally suggested they remake the steak, remake the hamburger and reheat my orange chicken. We would’ve considered the offer had we not waited 45 min for our food. We then spoke to the manager who approached solving their issue in the same manner. When we asked her what she thought they should do, her only solution for us was wait longer for new food, and that she’ll speak to the kitchen about the problem. Fearing the stories about complaining to the kitchen and all the movies we’ve seen, we decided to eat the tough steak and burger, and the chicken was already half eaten because we had been talking about the solution for 10 minutes. Three stars for the food, the appetizer was nachos, that was OK, the food we’ve discussed, and the final solution and compensation for the meal was 3 free slices of cheesecake, which were delicious. Three stars for the service. The appetizers came out quick, so did the drinks, the dessert came out quickly and was appreciated, but everything in the middle was a two star affair. The atmosphere was ok, we still enjoyed our time at dinner. Here’s what I would do differently if I was the manager of the cheesecake factory. One, I’d make sure the waiters and waitresses immediately called me to the table because our waitress was clearly an experienced person, but did not have the authority to offer free food or any other compensation. Upon receiving three complaints at once, the staff should’ve called over the manager immediately, and the manager should’ve realized that; 1 something went wrong in the kitchen. 2 this large party has been waiting a long time for their food and are now unhappy, and 3, are speaking with me, the manager, because I have tons of experience with these matters and I can immediately offer them all possible solutions. Ultimately the biggest issue was at both the waitress and the manager looked at us and said what would you like us to do? I guess our mistake was not saying that we want our entire meal of 11 people for free including a dessert…. We could and should have suggested that solution, as ridiculous as that, and then I guess we should have started to negotiate that solution down to the restaurant’s maximum policy? But what actually happened was that the staff’s approach was to not make the first offer, like a real negotiation - he who speaks first loses. All we wanted was dinner at a familiar and popular restaurant chain famous for their desserts and wide selection of great tasting food. The final context. Up until we had finished our food and now it was time to order dessert, at that time only, we were informed that, oh by the way, your three desserts will be on the house. Which means that the manager had left us without a solution for the remainder of our meal and left us wondering why did they not immediately offer this at the time of the complain, instead, we spend most of our remaining time eating cold tough food and complaining that the staff was really dropping the ball on what should’ve been simple solution, or even just an offer at the time. After writing this I’m...

We’ve always had a bad experience at this location but this time we will not be back. We were seated at 10:05/10:10 and we didn’t leave until 11:45. The reason was the terrible service we received. We ordered a few minutes after we were seated and didn’t get our food until about 10:50, 10 minutes before closing. It’s never taken this long before and it didn’t even seem that busy. The guy who handed us our food asked if we needed anything else and then sounded annoyed when we actually asked for a drink. He said “um, it depends what it is.” Then acted aggravated that I ordered a margarita. Good thing I asked that guy for a drink because our server literally never came back until it was time to give us the check. Never came to check on us during our meal, never asked us if we wanted dessert, and never gave us bread that he said he was going to get for us. Meanwhile, he’s serving all the other tables around us and avoiding us. It was not fair to us either that the table next to us got bread because they had a different server, when they were seated at 10:45 and we never did. Also, the other table next to us, who was seated around the same time as us, was able to get dessert because he actually went to their table to ask them and not us. Then, when he finally came back, we ask for dessert and he tells us no it’s closed and that there’s also no bread even though he told us we were going to get some. The servers name was Carlos and we are very dissatisfied with the service we received. He seemed to be serving many other tables and they all got better service than us which is not fair to us at all. Will definitely not be back to this location as it’s not the first time we’ve gotten bad service at this place. It’s unfortunate since it’s a convenient spot...

This is our 3rd time coming - the first time our food was really great and the reason we came back the other 2 times. But not again. Our second time was sub- par at best. I ordered the Alfredo with no chicken- and you’d think it would be simple enough- but I was served lukewarm noodles that were gummy and half stuck together, and a goopy thick lumpy sauce. Not great for a meal that was $22. The third time the same issue came up and that’s when I realized the 2nd time wasn’t a dud. Plus my husband had ordered Mac and cheese and they served him plain dried up pasta swimming in a yellow watery sauce that didn't taste of barely anything, to the point if he was served box mac and cheese he would’ve been happier! His shepherds pie was also extremely greasy. Lastly while the food was good first time, there was still a negative. We had expressed an egg allergy to the waitress and tried to choose something the least likely to be contaminated, a burger, and expressed we were on a time limit - but we had given ourselves over an hour for our whole meal. The waitress then proceeded to bring us a burger with mayonnaise! And it wouldn’t have been noticed if we weren’t extra cautious. She had also made us wait about 25 minutes before she returned, and we get it, they were busy. But you’d think with that amount of time she would’ve gotten our order right considering we gave her ample time and expressed our time constraint. We then asked for it to be corrected, which took another 20 minutes, so we weren’t a priority even with THEIR mistake and even then the burger still had some allergen because afterwards there were consequences. It’s unacceptable to be paying over $100 for a nice evening out and to be rewarded with such terrible service and food- proceed at...