The Cheesecake Factory — Restaurant in Minnetonka

It was a special night for us, our wedding anniversary.

We had gotten married in Honolulu and had the CF in Waikiki create our wedding cake because we love cheesecake. I wanted to surprise my husband with a special treat so I took the time to sign up for their rewards program 2 days in advance in order to make a reservation and request a decorated cake to take home this time with a our wedding date and "Aloha Forever" on it ( a phrase from our wedding ceremony).

Our server acknowledged receipt of the request as soon as we sat down and said not to worry. After we were done eating, she asked if we had room for dessert and if she could interest us in a slice of cake? I told her that we had just talked about this.... She said that they were taking care of it, just needed to know what flavor we wanted. Then someone- I'm assuming the manager for the evening?- came over and said that the cake was frozen so they couldn't write the message on it that I had requested. She said that she would be happy to give us a free slice of cheesecake as an apology. I told her that I was a rewards member (had to be to make the reservation and make my request for our special dessert) so I was supposed to get a free slice of cheesecake anyway. They only brought us one very skinny piece of cheesecake to share and wrote on the plate with gel icing. They had one job and 2 days to do it. I had indicated our favorite flavor already on the questionnaire that I filled out.

When they sent the multiple reminders about the reservation, why not clarify the cake size and flavor? Why didn't they take it out ahead of time if they cannot write on a frozen cake? It pretty much ruined the evening. I was excited about surprising my husband with a phrase from our wedding ceremony on a yummy dessert that was going to last all week, only to be told that they knew about it for 2 days but didn't do it. Then they offer a slice of dessert to go with my free slice, since we both obviously love cheesecake and instead we get one itty bitty sample...

This was my second time going to this location. I had called to see what the wait time was and if it was possible to put our name on the list. In a very unfriendly tone I was told 20 minutes and that was not possible. Maybe that should have been my first sign. Once there we put our names on the list. It did take a little longer than told but was fine with that. The person with me was diabetic and was needing to eat soon. When I ordered (had decided ahead of time what to get to make the process go quicker), I had asked for their salad to be brought out before my meal if possible. It took quite awhile for us to get our food, and it came at the same time. I ordered their veggie burger with the salad. They had precut the burger and because of the playing, I decided to eat the salad first. The waiter did come to check on us and I told him we were doing good. My salad was good, my burger on the other hand was lukewarm. When I finally got a chance to tell my waiter, it wasn’t until after I’d finished it all (it was close to 7 at this point, I was hungry). He had said he wished I would have told him earlier and he could have fixed it. When I got my bill, I was disappointed to see there was no discount at all. Ive worked at multiple food establishments and was a little shocked they didn’t try to make this situation better. For a strawberry lemonade, a slice of cheesecake, and a lukewarm burger with a side salad it came to 30.05. I had come back and ordered this burger because the first time I had it, it was perfect and delicious. Also, from when we got there and put our name on the list to when we left, it was almost 2 hrs. So basically it took an hour and a half for our food to get ordered, delivered, ate (which didn’t take us too long), and to us having to wait for our bill (which in itself took over 10 min). They were busy when we first got there, and I totally get it, but I didn’t think it was too much to expect a warm burger? I sadly will probably not...

Our family comes here regularly for birthdays and special events. We have been here numerous times, today was our first poor experience. This is what happened: first, my Steph mother ordered gluten free pasta. This was served very fast, but we didn’t think of it. She started eating it then realized about halfway done it was not gluten free. We are extremely lucky she isn’t very sensitive to gluten, but this could’ve been a serious disaster. Next, about 20 min later my brother and laws food comes. He ordered the Cajun chicken pasta- he got jambalaya. He let her know he did not order this. She said “no I distinctly remember you ordering it.” Everyone got there food, except me. About 15 min later, my pasta carbonara came without chicken. I let them know that I had chicken with it, and she stated “nope you never ordered chicken with this”. I just ate it without the chicken, this was close to a breaking point. My grandpa never got his wine- the server stated “I never had a chance to go to the bar to grab it”. That is your job??? Mind you, this was at the end of dinner so he was just telling her to please take it off of the bill. The server felt very rude and hostile, I don’t believe in “the customer is always right”, since I worked in the food service industry. However, when all of these things add up and the worker doesn’t take any accountability, that’s when it is a problem. Thank goodness the manager came and helped comp some items. We love Cheesecake Factory, but the way we were treated tonight like everything was our fault made our birthday dinner a very uncomfortable...