The Chain Restaurant With The Hands-Down Biggest Menu

No chain restaurant's menu is as notorious as the Cheesecake Factory's: Arguably closer to a small book in size, it features around 250 items across 20 pages. And despite the name, only a tiny fraction of the menu is actually cheesecake — somewhere around 40 of the menu items are those titular cheesecakes (the exact number can be debated, depending on whether you count different sizes and pre-sliced versus whole versions of the same cake as different items). The remaining 200-odd non-cheesecake dishes cover some absurdly wide territory, including tacos, pastas, burgers, gumbo, grilled fish, steaks, stir-fries, meatloaf, salads, pizza, and fried chicken, to name just some. There are even breakfast dishes, "Skinnylicious" options for calorie-conscious diners, cocktails ranging from mojitos to spritzes, and non-cheesecake desserts like sundaes. The menu also changes twice a year, with the most recent update ditching white chicken chili and an ahi tuna salad, while adding ceviche and chicken shawarma (it reportedly won't grow any more beyond about the 250-item mark, though).

So why offer so many dishes, especially considering the common restaurant world wisdom that it's better to do a small menu and do it well, rather than have large restaurant menus which can be a red flag? Founder David Overton admitted that it was arguably a mistake stemming from his lack of experience in the restaurant world. The original plan was to focus the menu on cheesecake, but Overton was nervous about other restaurants trying to compete with him. So, the solution was to offer everything. This worked in the restaurant's favor, making it a good choice for dining groups with wildly varying tastes, allowing one diner to order waffles while another gets quesadillas.

It's no small task to offer such a long menu, and the Cheesecake Factory's kitchens are built fairly carefully to make it possible. With some 700 ingredients required for the full menu, a line cook at the chain must train for several weeks, and the recipe book they use can be a couple of inches thick for each individual station in the kitchen. Each location has line cooks divided into specialized stations for grilling, frying, and dessert prep (to name a few). One station can have several chefs, too, and there are even dedicated chefs whose sole work is to garnish dishes.

Perhaps most surprising is the fact that, contrary to what some might believe, Cheesecake Factory pulls this off by preparing most of its food from scratch (that includes some 160 sauces and dressings), and not with an army of chefs microwaving dozens of different meals. This is why the training is so long: Since cooks aren't just squeezing pre-made sauces, they need to be capable of producing recipes consistently before they're allowed in the kitchen (and it's been noted that the Cheesecake Factory is pretty consistent overall). Perhaps unexpectedly, it's the cheesecakes (and other baked desserts) that aren't made in-house: Every single Cheesecake Factory dessert comes from off-site bakeries. In the end, the Cheesecake Factory's massive menu isn't a gimmick so much as a strategy — paired with an extremely well-oiled machine of a kitchen to pull it all off.