The Cheesecake Factory — Restaurant in Lakewood

I have come to the Cheesecake Factory my whole life and have never had a terrible experience until I brought my family here last Friday night (which it was there first time ever coming and I had totally hyped up the place). The six of us were sat at a booth in the middle of the restaurant, and were literally ignored for 45 minutes. The waitress stopped by after 10 minutes and told us she would be right back to take our drink order and it literally took her 45 minutes to come back. When she finally made it, we ordered 4 sodas, 2 cocktails, 5 appetizers and a sandwich as our entire order. We were delivered a drink that wasn’t ours, then the sodas took another 15 minutes to arrive and then the waitress drops the two cocktails as she’s bringing them from the bar to our table (which happens, that’s not the problem). The replacement cocktails took another 15 minutes to arrive and when they did, one was made so incorrectly that it was undrinkable. Our food showed up 30 minutes after we ordered. Thankfully, the food was the saving grace of this story. It was hot and delicious. Another waiter came over and boxed up our leftovers. We finally flagged down our waitress after we had been in the restaurant for 2+ hours at this point to ask her for our check and she literally told us No! She said we couldn’t have our check until we ordered cheesecake. I thought she was joking, but then she came back with cheesecake menus instead of the check. We ordered one slice to go because she literally wouldn’t leave the table until we did, and then she brought us our check. She charged us for the two drinks she dropped! I asked her to remove the two extra drinks and the drink that was incorrectly made from the receipt, and she brings me the check back for the second time having only taken off the one drink that was incorrectly made. I then had to ask a manager to remove the two drinks that she had dropped. We sat in the restaurant for 2.5+ hours and were ignored for most of it, and did not even order a full meal or alcoholic beverages for each person in our group. We were forced into ordering cheesecake when we asked for our check, and the waitress tried to overcharge us by nearly $50! ($16.50 per drink!!). I was so excited to have a new location in Lakewood but will unfortunately not be returning because the service was literally the worst restaurant service I’ve ever had. While eating we heard what sounded like an entire tray of drinks or food being dropped at least three times. It was a wildly chaotic...

Food was good (maybe not $20 for a club sandwich good) and service was prompt but I was put off by the fact that they don't list mixed drink prices on their menu. I know it's not legally required in Colorado, but it just feels scammy, especially when the server offered virgin versions to our kids before we knew that we'd have to wait to get the bill before finding out how much those drinks would set us back. Needless to say, I didn't order any drinks, so that was their loss.

They could also do a better job letting their servers know when they've run out of certain menu items so they can let customers know before they place their orders. I initially ordered a Cuban sandwich and only found out that they "ran out" (really?) after the server took our menus and placed the order. She offered to bring me a menu, but I didn't want to make my table wait so I just ordered the Club because it was the only other one I remembered that sounded okay. I guess I'm just one of those weirdos who has a hard time eating something they didn't initially ask for because I just couldn't get into it.

I hope they do better and this is just ironing out the kinks after their grand opening. There are too many restaurants in Denver that make you feel like they just want your money and don't care if you come back again.

Some tips: If you don't list drink prices, and a customer seems put off or confused, maybe ask them what they were going to order and tell them exactly what it will cost (maybe even comp them one for their trouble?) instead of just saying you'll talk to corporate. I might have actually ordered a drink or two.

In a situation where a customer has to make a quick decision because their original order was now off the menu, make extra sure they are happy with what they ended up ordering, and rectify that if they are not. I sat there with one barely eaten quarter of my Club sandwich and the server didn't seem to notice I wasn't touching my food. A "Hey, it looks like maybe you aren't happy with that order, what can I do?" would've...

Apparently, service here is hit or miss. I couldn't tell what ours was. We came on a Monday night to celebrate a birthday. We were seated, and Arlene was our waitress. She brought our drinks and bread. Took our orders, and that's when it went downhill. We waited 40 minutes for our entrees. At one point, i thought we were waiting for our checks, but someone reminded me that we hadn't eaten yet. When the food arrived, it all came at once. The portions were huge. The chicken shrimp gumbo was good, but I wish it had more sauce. The vegan salad was enormous. We didn't realize vegans ate so much. Most of our plates we're very well seasoned and tasted great. The French dip cheeseburger wasn't too impressive. Everything else was on point. We had brought a small cake with us and asked if they could personalize it for us, which they agreed to. When it was time for the cake, Arlene brought the cake in the box with the instructions on top. She apparently checked out at this point and was just being weird with us. We don’t want to cause her to lose her job because i know she was trying. She may have just been overwhelmed with all her tables. We continued celebrating the birthday. The manager came by twice to check up on us. On two separate occasions, we heard something crash in the kitchen area, like someone dropping plates and glasses. Prices were a little high, but we realized this isn't McDonald's either. Overall, it was an...