Showing his Late Show audience a special edition book that stands 3ft high by 4ft wide Stephen Colbert recently joked, “It’s almost as big as the menu at The Cheesecake Factory!” Known for having over 250 dishes, The Cheesecake Factory is synonymous with choice, the casual dining concept that “…destroys the veto vote,” says Alshaya’s Vice President of Casual Dining, Jeff Kellen.
There are three menus at The Cheesecake Factory; one just for kids, another so special it’s trademarked Skinnylicious and the main menu. The range of item categories itself is large, you’ve got Specialty Drinks, Small Plates & Snacks, Appetizers, Specialties, Lunch Specials, Glamburgers, Salads, Sandwiches, Eggs & Omelettes, Friday & Saturday Breakfast, Cheesecakes, Desserts and Beverages! Phew! And, when you look more closely, as Jeff Kellen points out, you can see so many cuisines; European inspired items, Northern American favorites, super tasty Southern Cajun offerings, dishes which travel down through Mexico and options that venture across to Asia. These cleverly curated culinary plates span dietary lifestyle choices too; pescatarians, ovo-lacto vegetarians, and meat eaters can sit and enjoy a meal time together. Could this be the original flexitarian menu?
This is certainly a menu that flexes at any rate, especially as every single dish is made from scratch. It’s tough enough to successfully cater for when your picky uncle and surly teenage cousin are coming to Friday family gatherings at home! The Cheesecake Factory has to deal with customers who all want, what they want, to a consistent standard and at the same time, with great customer service. How does The Cheesecake Factory do it? Jeff divulges some of the restaurant’s secrets, and it is not just team work, but the size of your team that matters.
While taking bazaar Studios on a tour of the Grand Avenue location, which launched The Cheesecake Factory in Kuwait in 2012, Jeff pops his head through to the kitchen’s line-up section. It is hours before the first customer would even think of stepping in and ordering anything, but there’s already a row as far as you can see of staff chopping, slicing, and dicing. Literally like a factory, each person is responsible for their own section, readying the ingredients for whatever combination of dishes that may be ordered by hungry patrons throughout the restaurant’s lengthy opening hours.
It is ‘combinations’ that gives us another clue as to how this ship sails through the demands of the day so well. A set number of ingredients can combine to make a number of dishes, in the same way that the numbers 0-9 can combine to make ten thousand four-digit numbers. For example, you will find mushrooms in several pasta dishes, on pizzas, on burgers, in salads and in other dishes. This means less waste of the prepared items as they have the potential to be used in any number of dishes.
There must have been quite a few busied staff even further behind the scenes than we could see, because when it comes to taking the group photograph three times as many staff members as we saw working the line-up come to the front of the store. Walking around to another section of The Cheesecake Factory we can see even more staff being trained on the latest updates from the brand. It’s a big team and training all of them is vital. Knowledge is very important here. The menu is updated every six months, which is a huge investment when you think that this means printing new menus, getting the kitchens to roll out the new dishes correctly, have the servers understand these dishes and explain them to customers. This constant renewal keeps The Cheesecake Factory fresh, and gives regular patrons something to look forward to. It also means that the business is responsive to what does and doesn’t work so you can be certain to find something that you do like on the menu. When asked what is the most popular dish, Jeff responds by telling us that what he has noticed is that each item on the menu is someone’s favorite dish, which is really lovely to hear and seems to justify always keeping these many options. But try the Fried Macaroni and Cheese.
The Cheesecake Factory didn’t start out with these many dishes. David Overton who founded the restaurant may not have been from the restaurant business, but nor was he pie-in-the-sky. He actually only started with his mother’s cheesecakes and as the business grew, the menu grew. Slowly building the infrastructure, then adding skills, recognizing the culinary opportunities that investment in specialized equipment brings, thorough host brand research and development and full franchise support. This is what makes The Cheesecake Factory in Kuwait able to bring to you so many choices made from scratch; except to the question, “Where do we all want to eat?” For that, there’s only one choice and it’s The Cheesecake Factory.
The Cheesecake Factory is located on the Gulf Road complex between Shaab and Bneid al Gar, Grand Avenue – The Avenues, Sidra Restaurants in Mahboula. For more information, follow @TheCheesecakeFactoryME.
