The Cheesecake Factory — Restaurant in Knoxville

Worst dining experience I've ever had. A couple weeks ago, I decided to take my family to run some holiday errands and we decided to dress up and enjoy a meal at one of our favorite restaurants, the Cheesecake Factory. We have two young children, 20 months and an infant, so we planned accordingly and ensured our infant was fed prior to our visit. We were seated at appx. 8:30 by a very pleasant host that went out of his way to track down a high chair for our little one. Upon being seated, we sat for close to 20 minutes before our waitress stopped by to visit our table. Upon her arrival, she immediately begins complaining to us about how she has been working there all day without a break. Not the greatest start, but figured we'd cut her some slack. We order waters all around, with a plastic sippy cup for our little one and a basket of bread. We did not see the waters or bread for another 10 minutes or so... Not the end of the world, but anyone with children knows time is a precious commodity with toddlers at a restaurant, and our daughter was displaying model behavior, quietly entertaining herself while our infant slept in his car seat. Upon receiving our bread, the waitress proceeds to take our order. My wife wanted spaghetti and meat balls, but they were out of meat balls, so she ordered the orange chicken. I just ordered a burger and Mac n cheese for our toddler. After taking our order, our waitress did not address our table for another 45 minutes. Never refilled our drinks, bread, or asked if we needed anything. After about 30 minutes of waiting for our food, our daughter accidentally knocked her water cup off the edge of the table while reaching to try and get more bread from the lingering empty bread basket. We threw some napkins on the floor and tried waving down our waitress to point out the little accident with the water, and upon her arrival, she points to my wife and states "I blame this one on the mother"... She then states that she will refill our daughter's cup with water. When we politely ask for her to bring us a new water cup, because the first one has been on the dirty ground, the waitresses reply was even more shocking, stating "well, she can just share your water." My wife's response was "actually our waters are empty and haven't been refilled, and she really needs a cup with a lid on it because she is still learning to drink out of a straw. The waitress's immediate response was " okay, I was asking a joke, you don't have to get all offended!". It was now close to 10:30, and we still had no inclination of our food. My wife slipped away to discuss the poor service with the manager while I waited for the water refill for another 10 minutes. Now, our infant who had been asleep the whole time was stirring, and our toddler was on the brink of meltdown mode because she had been seated for nearly 2 hrs without a meal... It was time for us to leave. So I grabbed the kids and met my wife who was still engaged with the manager, and the manager did not even offer to send us out with the food we ordered. It was soon getting close to 11, and nearly all other restaurants are closed at this point, and we had to leave with a hungry toddler with no other restaurant options available at this point. I tipped the host at the front on the way out as he was the only member we interacted with that deserved a tip... The cheesecake factory is more of a restaurant you go to for a special occasions, and it has a reputation for being one of the more high end chain restaurants. I've never been treated so poorly and rudely from a server, she even went as far as talking rudely about us to the table seated next to us. Note of advice for cheesecake factory, don't hire wait staff that doesn't have the customer service skills to man a dairy queen... She complained so many times to us about working all day... Well, you know what, I also had a long week working on deadlines before the holidays, and i wanted to celebrate the end of a long work week with my family, but didn't get to because of your...

"Nobody wants to work anymore"

I had scheduled a pick up order online, went back and forth on the phone, got transferred to the bakery only to have to call 2-3 times more because nobody wants to actually take responsibility for something. I've worked a POS system, it's literally not that difficult to look up orders.

Anyway, when I came in to pick up my order, I told the hostess and she immediately directed me to the side bakery where they hold pick ups. I was behind two other women who took 10 minutes ordering from the menu when I could see my order in its bag right there. I made eye contact with a girl behind the counter when she cut me off and told me that "pick ups are over there" and pointed less than 2 feet away to where the cashier was taking the orders. I kept looking back at the hostess who knew I was there for a pick up and could have said something to her co-workers. There were about 4-5 people standing and chatting behind the counter instead of simply asking me if I was the 4:00 pick up. If I wasn't, then sure, they wouldn't be able to help me until the other women got done ordering. Chat away. But there was literally only one order sitting on top of the counter marked at 4:00 when I came in. I'm 23. I also work full time tirelessly at a low pay job. I know what the job market is like, and I don't blame people for not wanting to do things outside of their responsibilities when they're probably getting paid $17 or less in this economy. I'm not a Karen who doesn't understand restaurants, POS systems, whatever, because I've worked the same jobs. But I think it's really a testament to how absolutely low grade the service industries are becoming. It's getting harder to reward people with patience and kindness when that behavior is never rewarded in return. I would have apologized for the wait seeing as I could have handled it earlier and given the customer some sort of complimentary thing like even a slice of cheesecake if I was in that position. You don't need to ask a manager for every small thing (and I hope the managers are aware of this). I also work a customer service job and don't need to go to my boss to offer someone a complimentary service. If you're too scared to take the initiative, then it's a toxic work environment. You need to actually be empathetic and think on your feet instead of blatantly ignoring people, and for management, you need to actually reward people who are perceptive and can defuse situations before they escalate. I was considering becoming hostile in the 10 minutes I was just standing there looking at my order. If that's the motivation for employees to start complaining to upper management, then so be it.

Next time, I'm going to start biting people's heads off (despite being the same age and me literally getting where they're coming from) and maybe then management would care to actually pay and reward the servers enough to provide a bare minimum service. How much has Cheesecake Factory grossed in the last year alone compared to the last 10 years? Knoxville is the 3rd largest city in TN with high population growth and the COL and housing market is through the roof, way way way too much for this excuse of "well it's the South, min wage is $7, that's what we're capped at in our budget". I felt extremely disrespected after coming back from work and I'm glad I didn't tip. Will not be ordering out again. I'm sure the employees will rejoice in having to deal with one less extra person and their family because I would at the hourly rate they're...

This restaurant probably has the worst service in East Tennessee, maybe the entire state. We had a reservation for 5:30, arrived at 5:20 and were seated promptly at 5:40. We waited for several minutes until Janine A, our waitress came by and got our drink order and meal order and disappeared. I gave her my rewards number, even though I it was on the reservation, and she looked at me like she had no idea what I was talking about. After awhile a man brought us our meals and brought me another diet coke. Janine did a fly by awhile later and in passing asked how everything was. She was gone so quickly she wouldn't have heard us had we said anything. I had the Cuban sandwich and my wife had the Lemon Garlic shrimp. Both were good and hot. After finishing our meals the man came back again and got our plates. Janine managed to come by once again and asked if we were ready for our check. She threw it down and started to take off, and not wanting to be there at closing I called to her and handed her my credit card and told her that I had two rewards to use. One of which was the complimentary slice of birthday cheesecake. Second time in two weeks we've been to the Cheesecake Factory and never offered the cheesecake, which is OK I guess, because I really don't need the calories. Janine came back with the check, tossed it on the table and was gone like her hair was on fire. The service two weeks ago wasn't any better and reading reviews this seems to be the normal for this restaurant. I have both receipts on my desk and I noticed that Ice Tea and soft drinks prices have been raised from $4.50 to $4.75 in two weeks. Really? There are some take aways from all of this. 1. You're in a mall and people are still spending and you can get away with this, for awhile longer. 2. $4.75 for a soft drink is an absurd cost when you have such poor service. 3. You have a culture of good food and poor service. You're not cheap and poor service will be your demise. 4. If you're going to have a rewards program, honor it. On both of my receipts it says I'm a rewards member but I was never offered the birthday cheesecake. 5. We've cutback from dining out 3 - 6 times a week to 1 -2 and will probably be cutting back to 0-1, all because of this kind of service. As a business owner I have one recommendation. Fire the manager and the entire wait staff and start over. If I were an investor in The Cheesecake Factory I would sell your stock at the open. I have quit tipping 20% just because. Poor Service = Poor tip. So the end result is that instead of getting around a $12 tip, Janine got $.26, and that is really more than she was worth. The Cheesecake Factory has lost a customer for life, as I'll never return to any Cheesecake Factory,...