The Cheesecake Factory — Restaurant in San Francisco

The SERVICE WAS THE ABSOLUTE WORST The Service!!! So bad in fact we did not wait and order cheesecake. David and Nicole were horrible! When our server first came to the table, I complimented his cologne, we were all smiles and good energy. I took my teenage daughter and her three best friends ice skating, and my sister met up at the table. We planned a bestfriends sisterhood day /gift reveal and a happy New Year's dinner. During mid dinner, the teenagers were scared to ask for anything, David was constantly rolling his eye, stomping away like a toddler. David, the server, was loudly making huffing noises if we needed something . The food server Nicole must have been having a horrible day. She had a sour look on her face with each meal she brought it was accompanied by a deep frown and aggressive attitude. The tab came to around $200.00. David's mood suddenly changed when he knew it was tip, time and it was instant smiles and politeness. The service was comparable to a WAR camp soup kitchen. David disappeared, frequently, leaving the smell of his versce cologne. My entire party was gracious and complimentary to everyone we came in contact with. all of them, with the exception pleasant astomphereI, had to call the front desk to bring our check. Their horrible energy definitely rained on our sunny disposition. There was also a language issue. It didn't seem to understand English, which would be immensely necessary when being a food server. David was the definition of "I HATE MY JOB," and we all felt that most of the staff really didn't want to be there. The food, however, was delicious!! We are really big tippers. My daughter and the other teenagers opted out because the service and the way we were treated were disturbing, to say the least. We are high-energy people, very happy people, so we made the most out of it, despite the of a negative mood interruptions. I left David a long tip on the back of the receipt and brought it to the front to give to the manager myself. I paid cash, and David, who had been, for the most part, absent during our dining experience, decides to chase me while screaming, "Miss" to the front desk after screaming that the Miss!! I was en route to the front desk, as I paid in cash but handed the others parties signed portion directly to his manager. It was embarrassing!! I brought the check to his manager directly so she could read my response to the service. The Cheecake factory has been a staple for decades of good memories for me and my family. In twenty years, I've never experienced such horrible service. Does our hard earned money not come with gratitude and a smile??? It's truly heartbreaking to see that service has practically become non-existent! Both servers literally terrorized our table. I wrote a detailed explanation on the receipt, but the horrible service definitely was the topic of our parties conversation. I will be calling corporate to submit a formal complaint. We didn't order our cheecakes because the service and energy of the employees were so bad. I ended up going across the bay to Fentons in Piedmont. They had the best service. It was a night and day experience! Oscar redeemed the entire service industry with his kindness, smile, and beautiful disposition. Positive energy is so important when sharing a meal. All of these chain restaurants need to DO BETTER!! The customers keep you...

So, this isn’t our first rodeo…. We’ve been to Cheesecake Factory locations all across the USA and indeed in Toronto, Canada.. we are somewhat CF fans to say the least. Therefore, we are familiar with the longer wait times, the busy environment etc.

Our wait time on Thursday night was around 30 minutes, which wasn’t bad -however it did take a further 10 minutes to get acknowledged at the front desk once our “ready” text had been received.

I didn’t catch the name of the really nice guy that took us to our table, however he was the star of this restaurant and I felt like he showed a genuine interest in us, where we were from and he made us feel like we should enjoy our visit.

Once seated at the table, we met our server who we will call “Penny”, because I believe that is the name indicated on our receipt. Penny was sugary sweet and nice to us, everything seemed to be going great. She was really pleasant when taking our order and all future interactions seemed fine, although sparse. We were never offered refills on our drinks, despite at least one of our glasses being in need of a refill before our main dishes had even arrived. I don’t have an issue with prices at the CF, but I don’t think a soda refill is a lot to ask.

By the way, our food was great, always is.

When it came to settling the bill, things took an interesting turn. We also ordered a slice of cheesecake to go, and wonderful Penny was falling over herself to assist with this.

Penny brought us the check, and we decided to pay cash. The food came to around $75, and we paid over $105 after taxes (including a “6% SF fee”). This meant that our tip was just shy of 20%, which I think is pretty fair. Remember for context: service at the front counter =slow, wait times=slow, refills =non-existent. So just under 20% seems pretty fair to me, on top of the 6% SF fee forced onto our cheque.

Anyway, cheery old Penny took the check holder away containing our money inside, proclaiming happily as she left “oops I forgot your silverware for the cheesecake to go, I’ll just run grab it for you!!” (FYI Penny, plastic cutlery is NOT “silverware” -don’t know if the person that trained you is an idiot, or if it’s you).

Apparently, ol’ Penny didn’t like the tip because as she handed me the “silverware”, she gave me an absolute death stare that went right into my soul, along with a look of absolute repulsion and a refusal to speak. I’ve never been made to feel like a piece of you-know-what in a restaurant like that before, it was humiliating. In hindsight, I would have taken my tip back completely if I could have. No treatment like that is worth a single Penny (excuse the pun).

The way that this server treated me after deeming a 20% tip to be beneath her (despite her service being basic at best when it came down to attending to our needs and providing actual service), was totally unacceptable. I don’t really know what else to say, worst server experience that I’ve had in my entire life -period. The fact that this server turned on the fake charm through the meal, only to show her true feelings of contempt for her customers at the end… well, what else can you say.

The legendary Rory Gallagher once sang: “Like a bad penny you've sure lost the glow But I'm out of reach, your smile's sure gone cold.” -maybe he had been to this Cheesecake Factory...

I hope no one has such a horrible experience at this place as I did.

The hostess, who should be the first person to meet the customer and make a good first impression, did the complete opposite. After waiting in line for a while, when it was my turn to order a table, she simply stayed on the computer for several minutes and didn't even say that it would "take a little while." So far, it was acceptable, but after waiting for several minutes, staring at her, a man twice my size cut in line and appeared next to me. And it was at this moment that she remembered that there were people in line, but guess what? She turned to the man who cut in line behind me and asked him how many people were at HIS table. After talking to her, she decided to serve me. But her poor service didn't stop there. She asked for my name and number so she could let me know when the table was ready. I told her my number, but maybe the altitude was causing her hearing problems, because she confused the number three with six 3 times (don't they even sound similar?!). I decided to show her the number on my phone, and even then she had to confirm it 4 times. Ending this horrible part, where I asked if my accent was maybe that bad (which makes no sense because I've been in SF for over a month and an 11-year-old said it almost didn't sound like I had an accent). After the self-sabotage, came the public humiliation, one of the hosts looked for a client "Wendy" to take to her table, and she didn't show up. I think you already realized what happened, right? I went to the counter because I received a message saying that my table was ready, so we discovered that I was "Wendy".... My name is Emily, I don't know where this horrible hostess got the idea that Emily would be Wendy

And to finish, I ordered a peach lemonade, there was no lemonade on the menu. But imagine my surprise when I drank this lemonade for +$6 and it tasted exactly like lemon. To give you one last bit of context, lemonade varies in price and flavor.

Not enough, 3 days after this experience, I discovered that they charged me a tip twice. I left the tip in cash in my wallet and put it on the receipt. But maybe the people in this establishment didn't complete the interpretation classes, because even though they saw that I paid the EXACT amount of the tip in cash that I put on the receipt, the waiter or maybe someone else decided to charge me on my card for the tip that I had already paid.

So, I hope the red-haired hostess cleans her ears, listens to more people talking (because it seemed like she had never heard words either) and learns what a line means. And may the person responsible for the double charge learn the...