The Cheesecake Factory — Restaurant in Huntsville

Helped open this store back in late 2021, relocated from the Nashville Green Hills store.

Overall, it wasn't a terrible experience, but difficult would be an understatement. I helped run the bakery, cashier stand, bussed, dishwashing in the back, pretty much everything minus serving/bartending and managing. The store itself wasn't terrible, I made really good friendships with new people, especially my bakery manager and the AGM there as well. The Senior KM was also very friendly and a hard worker. Unfortunately, I was given a suspension notice for apparently being too hard on some of the other bakers/cashiers and ultimately other staff members, being told about 6-7 people had put in complaints about me.

I was pretty surprised to hear about the notice. After being almost the only baker left from the beginning whom chose to stay, and not quit, I definitely felt betrayed, and stabbed in the back. I could have written a statement including my side of the situation and scenario against the claims, but I chose to pack my bags, and I literally took a uhaul just a few days after, and drove from Huntsville to Gulf Shores overnight in the pitch dark.

My experience at the Nashville location was easier for sure, but Huntsville I did learn a lot more since it was a new store and an opening. Meaning, I just got a lot tighter in terms of how things were to be operated by the books so to speak. But, it was still difficult. Probably the biggest difficulty were the 1-2% of customers that expected almost 5 star or Michelin star presentations of their desserts. If a cheesecake had one smudge inside of its plastic to go container, or one smudge of whipped cream, I remember a customer asking for it to be taken back, or replaced.

I got really good at placing cheesecakes inside of to go containers in a manner where there would be no smudge. On the downside of that, my expectations and goals for other bakers to do the same hindered their opinions of me. Meaning, I just held high expectations due to these customers.

Since leaving, I have never gone back to a Cheesecake Factory, and for what it's worth I will never return or buy an item from any store ever again. I actually had better work experiences at later jobs including McDonalds, than I did here...

I will say that I did have some incredible work relationships and friendships with other bakers and cashiers there, unfortunately most of them left before I did, and mostly due to the insane work load, and other staff members calling out (in part due to this as well). Expecting one person to open up a whole bakery was absolute travesty, and expecting one to close as well was the same. I could close on my own due to experience in Nashville, but expecting new bakers with minimal experience to close a whole bakery on their own, is nothing short of a labor violation... I really felt for some of the new bakers there especially who had to close on their own, or open on their own. And for those who didn't want to be there, or half ass the job, honestly even more so. I questioned why some of them even worked there, or were chosen for the position, but have since then have found the answer in the state of our economy (and especially in Alabama being the lowest wage/hr state, and it's wage laws actually just being referred to the federal wage laws). A lot of managers saying "Well, theres no state wage law here, so we can keep you as long as we like..." was a common manipulation used when getting servers, cooks and anyone FoH or BoH to work double shifts, sometimes up to 15 hours in a day. This same thing happened more at the Green Hills store in Nashville. The OT was great, in hindsight...

For what it's worth, I did make great relationships, ones truly I will never forget. But, the suspension notice, the claims, were very difficult esp someone not from Huntsville... I had to take close to half a grand just to move. I was very fortunate my apartment complex did not charge me 2 months rent for breaking my lease, and that drive was long. This review at least gives me...

"Amaaazing service" I wrote on my check, with a $25 tip. Start of the meal I am startled by the feminine baritone voice over my shoulder greeting us. All the picture-perfect waitresses and we pulled the Waffle House employee... moving on... she asks our drinks and says bread will be right out. We're pretty happy, wistfully looking over the menu. The waitress seems to be absolutely livid when she realizes we tell her we'll be sharing an entrée. Heavier waitress so she probably thought we were broke and couldn't imagine the possibility of a diet. Our food comes out and the runner is like "anything else for you guys" and I'm like "yeah a refill LOL" as it had seriously been like 10 minutes. Before he can get back with tea, the waitress has came by and refilled my glass with WATER without asking. The runner comes back and offers my tea, I politely decline, seizing the opportunity to save money as I now expect to be paying for a water not a tea. And they charged it as water so that's fine. Free tea. Whatever. LOL. Salad comes. No bread. Food comes. No bread. Finally I ask if we can get some of the bread. Waitress says "OH YEAH I CAN GET YOU SOME MORE BREAD," mind you we haven't HAD any, so it's not really "more," now is it? She comes back pretty fast to the table, saying "now I got dis bread, I can have some hot bread out for yall but it gon be like 3 minutes." We graciously accept the bread which was not the brown bread we requested, but a sourdough and a brown. It was hard as a rock, as if she took it from another table. At this point we were both laughing pretty hard at the service. The most annoying part of the experience was sitting there, no drink, waiting on a refill, while sitting literally right next to the waitress computer, sat next to a table with no less than 4 extremely loud children, while our waitress ignores the heck out of us talking with her ratchet coworker. Ratchet talk on one side. Screaming kids the other. Felt like actual Waffle House. Then our cheesecake. Oh my gosh the cheesecake. Our food, the pineapple chicken whatever, was great. Wonderful. The cheesecake however. "Celebration Cheesecake" they called it. With wonderful descriptions of all the layers it supposedly had. What we got, was not that. Layers of some kind of sponge cake mixed in, cheap dry sponge cake. Layers of El Cheapo icing. Thin layers of like 2 different flavors of cheesecake. The top layer was good, however there were these awful flat sprinkles on it not mentioned on the menu, they were just bad. Discussing a comparable cheesecake, we both agreed this was like something you would expect out of a cheap expired discounted product at Kroger. For our next Cheesecake Factory experience, we'll be going to City Cafe Diner. Much better staff, much better cheesecake. P.S. my complements to the chef that chicken was amazing as heck and the breading perfectly delectable, the rice perfect, the mushrooms appropriately grilled, the food score I'm giving concerns the cheesecake only. The only reason it's not 1 star on the food is the...

Took an hour to get some chicken fingers and a plate of pasta. Saw multiple patrons who entered after me sit down and get their food while we waited, feeling forgotten about the entire time. This was a date night that ultimately was ruined because we were forgotten about. I had to go ask about our food 20 minutes in and it hadn't even been started yet. Felt very much like a second class citizen and was wearing my displeasure on the outside and got no apology, no attempt to make it right, no acknowledgement of wasting an hr of our time for something Olive Garden would have knocked out in 12 minutes but it's an energy issue at the end of the day. There was no urgency or attention paid to us as customers who had already paid for their meals and that is fine we just know now, just like Target, not to assume the energy we had excited to eat dinner there wasn't matched in terms of caring about us after taking our money. Its fitting that they gave Target energy cause we appeared to be invisible to them and the hr wait wasn't fixed or even mentioned. So like Target, thinking they deserve the money from our hard work when they don't care about us, we will come to see that Cheesecake Factory doesn't think much about us when it comes to customer service either long as they got their money. Won't happen to us again, and once more people see the way they get put on the back burner, we will more than likely laugh at the prospect of anyone mentioning going there to eat. So many tables had great customer service, I know cause I had the time to watch them sit, order, eat, and leave, while the building wasn't even full, yet for some reason I was left to wonder while my date went outside and sat in the cold she was so upset. It may not seem like a big deal to some, but no one is spending money in these times to be ignored. So take heed if you think this might occur to you, then trust me, its only a matter of time. Its upsetting because it was a date and I had talked this spot up to her, only to have her never wish to return, which is the only option after that. Besides the food was mediocre, mine had been sitting while hers was just never made for the longest. Needless to say we weren't too keen on the microwave energy the food was giving. What's the point of having cooks running around like they're busy when they have customers watching them skip making their food for an hr? The effort from the hostess was much appreciated, they handled business in the small contributing way they do, which is good as you never know who is watching and listening. I do recommend you go try out their menu though, as they can't possibly forget about everyone so someone is bound to have a good meal. Just wasn't our night, chx tenders must...