The Cheesecake Factory — Restaurant in Huntersville

By far the worst dining experience I’ve ever had and I am huge on fine dining and trying new restaurants. Our server was slow, unorganized and all over the place. We were told that the oven was broken so there were certain menu items we couldn’t order. So, we thought perhaps that was the reason we didn’t receive any of the complimentary bread, until we noticed other tables around us who had bread.

We waited an overwhelmingly long time for our dinner to arrive to the table, just for it to arrive cold. Not like warm, but cold. I’m not the type of person to send food back. Therefore, I simply asked for a Togo box so that I could warm it at home.

There’s an excessively long wait time to be seated, an overwhelming long wait for food to arrive to the table for it to get there and be cold. Not to mention, the female who brought the food out held my food in her hand and talked over my food while explaining something about another one of our parties meal that he ordered. She reacted agitated when I repeatedly had to ask her for my plate bc I didn’t want her talking over my food.

Fast forward to food that I ordered to go, it just sat so long that it came out cold because I had to ask for it.

The server didn’t do a good job of checking in on food or drink orders.

It took at least 45 minutes to receive our bills. Even after we paid our bills, we had to wait an additional 30 minutes on Togo cheesecake orders that we placed an hour beforehand.

When we stopped a manager to advise him of our experience, he made excuses for the server and rudely walked off as I attempted to explain to him our experience overall. How unprofessional. My family and I were dining out to celebrate my mother’s birthday and it was far less than enjoyable thanks to the underwhelming food, poor service, how freezing cold it was inside.

The parking is a congested nightmare because that area stays busy. The wait times are excessively long, the service is poor, the food subpar.

The unprofessional manager was a short white male who had on a striped colorful dress shirt. I regret that I didn’t get his name because he simply didn’t care. I wonder if he would have shown more interest , actually taken the time to listen , shown empathy and compassion and a resolution had we been of another race.

After spending over $100 on lackluster dining experience, I will not be returning.

Dine at your own risk. The Board of Health also needs to be contacted because our server gave us one refill and Diane check back for additional refills. He took 2 cups at a time to refill them and could have possibly switched the cups. Why not bring a refill pitcher or a new cup all together ???? His way was extremely unsanitary. When I witnessed him doing that for others in our dinner party, I had to specifically ask him to personally bring me a new glass, as I didn’t want him walking out my cup with zero lid on it and potentially confusing it with someone else’s drink/cup.

Our server seemed new and confused . If that’s the case, he should have never been placed on a table of our size alone. The entire experience was the worst dining experience of my life and I’m not a spring chicken when it comes to age, so I’ve done a lot of dining out. I even ran into another customer in the restroom and she admired my outfit and I admired her glasses and we begin to chat about our dining experiences. She stated that she ordered pasta and that it arrived to her table cold as well. So, there seems to be a disconnect between the kitchen staff and servers.

To the owners, if you do not have adequate staff to cover the amount of patrons , stop the overflow and cut off at a certain number. It’s sheer greed to allow all those customers to pile up in your restaurant and not adequately serve us and give us the dining experience we deserve and spend our hard earned money on. Especially in today’s economy where everything is so expensive. Plus, people still patronizing your business when it was very...

This is the email I wrote to the manager and got no response. Birkdale location.

Good Morning,

I needed to express my disappointment in last night's reservation that my 16 year old daughter had made for my birthday dinner. She got her 1st paycheck and it was a BIG DEAL to her.

My daughter wanted to take me out to dinner for my birthday. She is 16 and was so excited for some Mom/daughter time on my birthday. She made 7:15 reservations and was so proud.

We arrived excitedly and walked up to the hostess. My daughter was a bit nervous but she was trying so hard to make this a good night. It was her first time handling a reservation on her own. The host was horrible. Rude, not wanting to be bothered. My daughter went up and told her she was Lexie and had 715 reservations. The hostess. quietly said we will let you know when your table is ready. Couldn't even hear what she was saying as she said it with her back turned. Beyond odd but I kept silent. It was 7:10 when we arrived. I didn't want to be too early. At 7:35 we were still standing waiting for our table. My daughter even asked me why did I make a reservation. Finally, someone said Lexie come with us. It was just so rude. I honestly wanted to leave the moment we got there but I kept my mouth shut. We walked over to the table. NO GREETING, more of we were a bother I guess.

We sat down and 15 minutes later still no one came over. We had waiter after waiter look at our table and keep on walking. I am not shy about making eye contact. Not one person said have you been helped? Maybe someone could have offered us some water or at least taken a drink order and say I will get your waiter, etc. Not a thing. I watched my daughter's face fall and that is when I started getting beyond annoyed.

I had had enough. My heart was broken for my daughter and her experience of trying to make something special was ruined.

I told her I didn't want her to spend a dollar there supporting a business like this.

It might not be important to you or your staff but to her it was everything. I went up to the host desk and told her we had not been spoken to the entire time we were seated, which was over 15 minutes. It was busy but there were empty tables so it was not packed.

I am appalled and utterly disappointed that on my birthday we experienced something like this. NO big deal as I am an adult but to a 16 year old, it was a big moment ruined.

I did let the hostess know that we were leaving and that I wanted the manager's information. She looked nervous and someone else came up and found me a business card and told me this is who to email. At least this person seemed to want to help me.

I have been in the hospitality industry for over 17 years. Customer service and Human Resources are my specialties. I no longer work in the corporate world but I still do consult now and then and let me tell you, I go in and train companies, staff and small businesses on how to treat customers and employees. Your establishment does not possess the staff it needs to have. It was not just one host, one waiter or waitress. Over 10 people walked by us, looked at us and went right on by. I would suggest some better training by upper management.

I would love you to convey to your disinterested staff that last night your staff not only hurt a 16 year olds feelings which might be a joke to all of you, but lost much business as social media goes far in my vast industry of friends and family.

FYI:

If someone books a birthday reservation, does someone bother to read it or even see it? A helpful hint, maybe they can actually read the reservation and utter the words Happy Birthday. It might go far in an establishment...

The tall, big man with white dyed hair at the cake counter (describing because his name ID was turned inside and not displayed for anyone to see) does not have a very nice attitude, poor customer service skills, and interaction with customers is questionable. There was an issue with my order as I did not receive a slice of a cake that I ordered. So I politely asked him what happened to my missing slice of cake that I ordered. He got attitudy and said I didn’t pay for it so he’s not giving it to me. I told him that I have no problem paying for it if it wasn’t on my original order and I requested a receipt for my original to-go order. He showed more attitude and immediately radioed in the manager to come while immediately taking a call. I never requested a manager to come for assistance as I just wanted to get a receipt for my online order. I happily paid for the cake that I wanted while he was talking on the phone (not yet knowing if it was or was not paid for on my original order) I requested no whipped cream on the cake please, he did not react to me took another phone call and after he hung up, I once again requested no whipped cream on the cake please. As I am still waiting for him to print out my original receipt and for the cake to be placed for me for takeout the manager shows up and so is the cake is put in front of me WITH loads of whipped cream. All of the sudden, this tall man at the counter very loudly telling his manager that this customer (me) has an attitude three times repeating himself, like seriously? I am right here. It felt like kindergarten. I was so confused at first why the manager was even there as I did not request for him, so I explained to the manager that I just wanted my original receipt to make sure that I didn’t pay twice for that slice of cake. And that I wanted the slice of cake not to have whipped cream. Manager Paul was professional and printed a receipt for the original order and requested the slice to be remade (I checked my original online order receipt and it showed that the slice of cake was not charged to my original order and mysteriously disappeared, it was not on the receipt) (this is the second time I noticed this is happening when I come to pick up a to-go order from this location) the first time it happened, I did not check my order before leaving and was left without a slice of cake that I paid for and did not receive) So as I get home I open my to-go bags, and all of the food which had a good amount of liquid is spilled out of the container into the bag as the container was not closed. It did not shift or tilt in the vehicle as it was placed in a special non-slip transport container in the vehicle. So it had to be somewhere in the restaurant. Upon opening the rest of the bags, I noticed that both slices of the cake were missing a good amount of the slice. I was very disappointed in this whole experience so I called the restaurant and spoke with the same manager Paul. He was professional to address the issue that I was experiencing until he sounded a bit confrontational saying that he was putting the slice of cake in the bag himself, which is true, however on my observation he did not observe the cake slice that he was bagging. It was also dark in the area where he was bagging it so how would he see that it’s not a full piece? I told him that I would be happy to send him photos as the conversation sounded a bit confrontational as. I never got a place where to send the photos so I’ll attach them here. Prior dine-in experience we had at this location was exceptional, however I do not recommend getting to-go...