The Cheesecake Factory — Restaurant in Santa Monica

Me, my wife and our two daughers live in Brazil, and were recently in LA on family trip vacation. We had been in three different The Cheesecake Factory locations during our trip, and were amazed by the quality of service and food in the first two experiences at The Grove and in Beverly Hills. But on the other hand, on the third experience at Santa Monica Place we had a terrible service experience.

We arrived at the restaurant at 8pm and there were many free tables, and we were made to wait for 15 minutes. We found it a little strange, but so far so good. The problem started when we were waiting more than 10 minutes for the waiter to come, because he was chattering with the hostess. When he arrived, instead of being kind and offering a starter with bread and butter, as in the other two previous experiences, he treated us indifferently. One of the dishes we ordered he said was missing and, without apologizing, before we said anything or chose another dish from the menu he left. With the restaurant empty, and no more than 10 tables occupied, it took him over 15 minutes to come back and bring the drinks we ordered. When we tryed to order again, he said he had another table before us. We waited another 15 minutes for him to return. To our surprise, when we went to order the other dish he said it was also out of stock, and to our absolute astonishment, he left again before we could say anything or choose another order, without giving any reason.

I went to complain to the hostess and quoted the situation, and she apologized and apparently went to check with the waiter what happened. I went back to the table and we waited another 10 minutes until my patience ran out. I don't usually do this, but as it was almost 9 pm, we had a return trip to Brazil early the next morning, and we were tired and hungry, I decided to leave the restaurant with my family, after almost 1 hour of waiting without even ordering. Honestly it was the worst service experience of our lives, and unfortunately we were left with a very bad impression.

I know the care and quality that your company has with its customers, because we really felt very good in the first two experiences. And that's why I felt I needed to register this complaint, so that the same doesn't happen with other customers.

PS.: I had first registered this complaint as a private message in Facebook and Instagram, but since I have no reply until now, I needed to...

Save your money and go to another restaurant that has properly trained staff and management. This location is a joke so I wasn’t the least bit surprised about its low star ratings when I searched for them on Yelp to write this review.

My family was shopping in the area and decided to stop by to grab some appetizers since they have outdoor seating and we had our small dog in a stroller. My husband went in to ask for a table outside and informed the host that we have a dog. No questions were asked.

We were promptly seated outdoors since there were only two other small parties dining outside. Our waitress was friendly, took our order quickly and brought out complimentary bread. We were seated for about 20 minutes when (presumably) a female Hispanic manager came over to us while we were eating the bread to ask if my dog was a service dog. I told her no and she said we had to leash our dog on the fence outside while we dined. I told her that we very clearly informed the host we had a dog which is why we requested outdoor seating. She asked which host and if it was the red head. We were gobsmacked because instead of trying to resolve the problem, she seemed more interested in knowing who to place the blame on. After we repeated to her that we were not told only service dogs can dine on the outdoor patio and that we already placed our orders, she reiterated that we had to leash our dog on the other side of the fence (where it was sunny) while we dined. I told her that was inhumane and her response was “huh?”. At this point, we were all tired of her poor attitude and service that we told her to cancel our order and left. Her response was just “Ok.” No apology for the inconvenience, nothing.

In reading other reviews, it sounds like many patrons had negative experiences with the manager at this location. There is clearly a disconnect in training if the manager seems to be the only one who has an issue with well behaved dogs dining on the outdoor patio. That lady was extremely unpleasant and does not know the first thing about good hospitality. Highly suggest corporate to bring in new management to run this location because the current one is the reason why this restaurant has a 2.5 star rating on Yelp - 2 stars too many in my opinion.

To be clear - my dog was not disruptive and was sleeping in his stroller the entire time we were waiting for our food/having this interaction with...

Only leaving a 1 star because the hostess at the front her name : Celest , she had made my family and I wait (2 people) for over 30 min to seat outside. Since we preferred outside seating. She specifically stated there wasnt any table at all available! Another woman had come and had asked for outside seating also and she was given the seating almost immediately. I didn’t know that she had given her seating until I got seating 30min+ I felt as we were discriminated against. Since the other woman was a different ethnicity as us and had two other people at her table. Honestly, it baffles me that such things still happen.

Update- We decide to take our leftover food to go as the server Christian A. asked if we wanted a to go box. He then puts a dirty plate he picked up from our table and puts it on said leftovers. I then tell him I was supposed to take those leftovers and a manger comes and asks me what’s wrong. The server says he will FIX the issue and make a new batch for me to take. Instead, he boxes me the leftovers that he had put on a dirty plate. I have never felt so disrespected and disgusted at the lack of cleanliness in this restaurant. Furthermore, as a healthcare worker, this is preposterous. We then go to the front to pay and just leave. Again the hostess Celest, says she can’t help us with our payment and to go to the cheesecake area. We agree and head over and the woman there says she can’t assist because Celest has to send over the access. So it shows lack of professionalism in Celest since she can’t even even do her own job correctly and seems like she didn’t care. The woman then goes and speaks to the manager. Prior to this we had told Celest we don’t want to see the server because it can cause a ripple of an altercation etc. To my surprise she had told the server to come over and give us the check which is what we didn’t want. To see him because it could cause issues. He then asks us what’s wrong and we say would like to speak to the manager. So he looks at us in dirty looks up and down and then grabs his coworker and laughs at us . Again LACK OF PROFESSIONALISM?!?! AND WORK ETHIC. I will say that the manager tried to smooth things out for us but the lack of. Professionalism in this establishment and care and customer service is poor. I don’t even treat my patients like that why should someone in customer service...