The One Menu Item That Isn't Made Fresh At The Cheesecake Factory (It's Not What You Expect)

The Cheesecake Factory is synonymous with two things: a massive, 20-page menu that reads more like a book; and of course, the impressive selection of cheesecake. But there's a surprising detail about those 57 or so cheesecakes that are ready for you to order at any given moment: they aren't actually made at the restaurant. Yep, every Cheesecake Factory location has frozen cheesecake shipped in. The restaurants pre-pull them from their freezer a day before they're served to you for dessert. It's one of those Cheesecake Factory secrets only true fans would know. 

Every single Cheesecake Factory dessert comes from two bakeries owned by the Cheesecake Factory. One is located in Calabasas, California and the other is in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, with plans for a third bakery production facility to open in Charlestown, Indiana. But there's good reason the Cheesecake Factory uses its own bakeries rather than going to a third party, which would cost more money and likely end up adding to your dessert bill. By using its own in house bakeries, the chain can ensure quality control, meaning every cheesecake tastes the same no matter what restaurant you order it from.

How the Cheesecake Factory prepares most of its food may surprise you. Of the 250 menu items at Cheesecake Factory, everything else besides the bakery items is made on site from scratch daily, and prepared fresh for the customer when ordering. This is something that is done in every single restaurant location across the country. That includes freshly made sauces and dressings, which one might think would be the logical item to have made ahead or ordered from another company. Redditors who work for the chain share that there's even a sauce prep cook, whose job is solely to make the approximately 185 sauces used in the restaurant's dishes.

The Cheesecake Factory is known for making sure that customers have a consistent experience at every one of the 362 restaurant locations, and it goes beyond making sure the cheesecake is the same everywhere. The chain is said to have detailed policies about everything from how much ice is served in each glass to how many pats of butter in the bread basket. But the process seems to be working, as the Cheesecake Factory is consistently named as one of the top companies to work for, year after year.