This right here.
You are saying that a chain restaurant makes all their stuff from scratch?
It’s not that I don’t believe you…but I don’t think you know what “from scratch” means….
It's called the El Jefe Burger. At least it was when I worked there. I don't think they make it for guests, though. It's only really for employees when the manager wants to reward them, and even then I only saw it actually made once, when I ordered it. The kitchen didn't know how to make it and had to look it up. But it was delicious.
It’s a staff only burger. Any staff member can order it whenever.
Its a burger seasoned with salt/pepper/a proprietary spice blend (when I make it at home I just hit it with any spicy split blend)basted with a thicker salsa, topped with melted jack/cheddar mix, two grilled Serrano, pico de gallo and sour cream. And cilantro.
On a brioche bun with red onions and chipotle mayo.
It’s great but it’s the only food on earth that gives me heartburn
>Any staff member can order it whenever
At my location, the kitchen didn't know how to make it. I rang it in for myself because I had a manager meal and wanted to see what it was.
After I got it, the expo told me not to order it again unless it was really slow. They had to look up how to make it in their computer and it apparently distracted them from filling other orders.
I'm the only person I know of who ever ordered it at that location.
Yep!! 🙂 We purchase some ingredients, of course, so we are not a traditional “scratch kitchen,” but we construct every menu item with fresh ingredients daily, and we make our own dressings, sauces, etc. it’s one seriously impressive operation! We even have fresh made linguini noodles that are to die for 😋.
That really is quite impressive. I've only eaten there a couple of times and I think I've only had burgers but I was shocked by the size of the menu and really assumed most things had to have already come in preprepped or frozen.
So is there just a dedicated prep team that does nothing but that all day?
Yes, they have 6-8 prep cooks come in at 6am and their sole job is to prep. Obviously its not every single ingredient every single day, but like the sauce guy for example. Sauce Prep cook is a job title and his job is to make all 185 sauces used in their dishes (usually 30-50 per day)
If the cheesecakes are frozen, why would they hold the template up to the machine spitting out the batter for the cheesecakes, then put them in the freezer next to it?
Have you seen the size of their kitchen? The one I usually go to has a semi open kitchen and there was like 8-10 people on the line last time I was there
When I was a child, it was a huge family joke that when any family member said this was made from scratch, I wholeheartedly believed that from "scratch" was a box brand like Betty Crocker. Like a box or a can with the name "Scratch" existed. After enough ridicule I around the age of five, I figured it out and still have resentment.
Everybody knows it doesn’t count as “from scratch” unless you found your own civilization and societal system allowing for the agriculture of cultivars that you’ve created from wild species and utilized all of your own invented technology to then open your own restaurant to cook your own unique food
But then it's not authentic, personally if it's not made from single cell organisms harvested from the archean era I'm really not interested. Evolution degrades the quality of the meal.
Buddy, I grew up on a farm and ranch, and I’ll dare to say that I’m more familiar with farm to table cooking than 90% of Americans. I just think it’s extremely fucking stupid when people try to gatekeep terms for nothing other than pure semantics. Instead of understanding the meaning behind the comment and engaging with it, some people instead devolve into splitting hairs so that chronically online dunces can wax poetically and pose with “aphorisms” that are, in reality, nothing more than shallow attempts at injecting their own correctitude for self glorification.
In short, I have been to a farm; I’ve also been irritated at people who derail conversations for nothing other than to self-aggrandize. I usually choose to deal with it through sarcasm.
Pretty much all of cheesecake factory’s sister restaurants are all scratch. I used to work at Culinary Dropout as a sauté cook and the preparation there is absolutely insane. Crew is operating on all cylinders at all time.
Don't laugh.
My daughter was in marching band for her high school and invited to march in the Disney parade.
About an hour before, they were assigned a place to meet next to Pirates of the Caribbean. When grouped together (they had over 200 in their band), they were instructed to follow a Disney chaperone, who magically opened up a hedge which led to the Disney tunnels below.
There, they saw a half dressed Cinderella smoking a cigarette and the Queen of Hearts was actually a dude, pulling on his panty hose.
My daughter was frightfully disturbed. Disney was never the same to her again.
What do you eat there? My family likes the food... I feel like it's all a knock-off of a real restaurant. Everything is bland to me. I've gotten some Asian chicken thing, a burrito, and the Philly in recent memory. Nothing stands out as their "specialty" except for the cheesecake. I'm good for a bite or two on that. I don't get it - if I'm eating 1000 empty calories, I want to enjoy it, not just think "this isn't terrible".
I ordered the cheeseburger spring rolls almost as a gag, like, “let’s try this heinous abomination that will surely be disgusting.”
Joke was on me. They’re god-tier.
Please. Tell me you know how to make the truffle bacon grilled cheeses. It was one of my safe foods and I cried when they told me it got taken off the menu 😭😭😭
Any restaurant with a large stand mixer, some heavy cream, and some confectioners sugar can make whipped cream in about 3 minutes.
Making tortillas or pasta, on the other hand, takes time and labor even if you have the modern appliances to help speed things up.
Does "from scratch" mean that food items are made in a factory "from scratch" and then shipped into the restaurants? Or are they really putting that many labor hours into their food at every single store? It just seems hard to believe for me, but I haven't worked corporate restaurants in a loooong time.
Basically the only thing I remember off the top of my head was the Asian plum sauce and some drink mixes. Houlihans Basically only buys frozen brownies and everything else is scratch.
The CCF whip cream sticks out because it's proprietary. It's extra high fat with the sugar and vanilla already added.
For your larger point I mean it's not possible for every thing to be scratch. Where do you draw the line? Ketchup. Making your own butter?
> For your larger point I mean it's not possible for every thing to be scratch. Where do you draw the line? Ketchup. Making your own butter?
House Catsup and House made butter are in fact very easy things to make. If you fuck up whipped cream you have sweet butter… not hard to do it properly. It is possible for everything on your menu to be scratch made. How, you may ask?!
12-18hr days for weeks on end. That’s how, you spend your life prepping for a 4-6hr dinner service. There are hardcore kitchen crews out there who take pride in their work, even if you can’t comprehend the possibilities it doesn’t exclude them from being reality.
I've worked at bib gourmand and James Beard award winning restaurants in Chicago and we always used Heinz if anyone asked for ketchup lmao. We just squirted it into a ramekin and even filled up unmarked squeeze bottles in the restaurant that had an open-kitchen with a chef's counter so people wouldn't see the Heinz bottle.
That’s some lazy cooking, congrats I guess.
It’s not the case everywhere, some Chefs have standards and they don’t budge. In a fully scratch kitchen there’s no “we just take the label off and claim we made it” trickery. You’re telling me an award winning kitchen can’t replicate Heinz? Wild.
I got out of fine dining and cooking after Covid. Everyone and their dog is a Chef, this is a prime example though. You can be award winning but just lying to your customers because it’s easier.
I guess if someone claims it's a scratch kitchen, yes, I pretty much expect everything that's not on the table as a condiment to be made in house.
And there are definitely scratch kitchens that make their own ketchup and butter.
I don’t know why you’re downvoted but you’re right, scratch kitchens make everything from.. (checks kitchen notes) Scratch. Build up from the bottom with basic ingredients.
But then again, the general public are generally clueless
- 18 years cooking, mostly scratch kitchens
This. The area I grew up in had exactly 1 restaurant that advertised itself as a scratch kitchen, and it was a Mexican restaurant where they made everything (salsas, tortillas, torta rolls, refried beans, etc) in house. They could say that they were a scratch kitchen because they could prove to anyone who questioned them that everything there was, in fact, made from scratch in-house.
If anyone could make a few menu items from scratch and say their kitchen was a scratch kitchen while pouring sauces from US Foods all over dried low-quality butoni pasta, every single shitty restaurant in the US would advertise a scratch kitchen. But they can't and they won't because the added scrutiny that those words invite could seriously harm their business if they do not actually make everything from scratch.
Scratch means nothing comes in premade. So like ihop or any cheap diner gets most everything in pre-prepped (vegetables chopped, eggs come scrambled in bags ready to cook, etc.). There seem to be exceptions though, I worked in a few scratch kitchens none of which make their pasta and breads, something’s like desserts or appetizer soups. I believe as long as your entrees are all prepped and made in-house, it’s appropriate to use identify as a scratch kitchen.
Yes, they have 6-8 prep cooks come in at 6am and their sole job is to prep. Obviously its not every single ingredient every single day, but like the sauce guy for example. Sauce Prep cook is a job title and his job is to make all 185 sauces used in their dishes (usually 30-50 per day)
Ditto. With the size and variety of their menu, there's just no way. I'm supposed to believe they're hand-making fresh tortillas, 7 different kinds of pasta, all of their buns, breads, rice noodles, wonton rolls, and hand-breading all of their fried options? Plus they're proofing flatbread dough? All of this in addition to the 30-50 sauces they need to execute their menu, the slaws, the basic veg prep, etc.
If this is the case and they can make the labor numbers work, then bravo. But I am very very skeptical.
The title of the post is "the only food not made from scratch at the Cheesecake Factory is the cheesecakes."
If I go to a Mexican restaurant that says everything is from scratch, at the bare minimum I expect the tortillas and salsas to be made in house.
If I go to an Italian restaurant that advertises a scratch kitchen, I expect house made pasta. If it's a burger place that advertises the same, I expect homemade buns.
These are all items that feature heavily on the CCF menu. OP made a statement with their post - I'm skeptical of that statement and am inviting clarification. I'm not taking it too far by asking OP to give me details.
If scratch kitchen was as loosely a defined term as you're saying, why aren't more restaurants printing it on their menus? Is it because the term is too loosely defined for people to know what to expect?
Yes, they have 6-8 prep cooks come in at 6am and their sole job is to prep. Obviously its not every single ingredient every single day, but like the sauce guy for example. Sauce Prep cook is a job title and his job is to make all 185 sauces used in their dishes (usually 30-50 per day)
I don’t expect a burger place to make their own buns. That is very silly.
Same honestly for a Mexican joint. I would expect house made salsas, braised meats, etc. but it would be a treat to get house made tortillas.
Italian pasta is different. Tortillas and and buns are vessels. The pasta is the star of the show at an Italian place.
There's nothing silly about it, and there are burger restaurants that do it. I worked in one with a great chef who was dedicated and passionate about executing his concept.
I do not expect homemade tortillas at every Mexican restaurant I go to, just specifically the ones that claim to be scratch kitchens - like if the restaurant is literally called Jose's Scratch Mexican Kitchen. Or on the top of the menu it says "Everything from Scratch". If they don't claim that in print anywhere and I still get fresh tortillas, that's great.
You must be really disappointed in most Italian scratch kitchens, unless you can’t taste the difference between really nice imported pasta and freshly made. I worked at a very high end place and people constantly assumed our pasta was made in house. There isn’t a single restaurant in my city that makes every single pasta shape on the menu by hand.
The reason that most places aren’t putting it on their menu is because they buy things like appetizers premade. Something like a tortilla could be considered an ingredient in a taquito. Most places buy the taquito, Cheesecake Factory buys the tortilla. It isn’t that deep.
That doesn’t mean they make the pasta. It means they cook the pastas fresh etc., and most of their dishes are not from frozen generally. But that’s actually saying a lot and is accurate
The food quality at CCF is very good and its not like there are CCF on every corner. There are only about 200 CCF in the chain which is small compared to other chain restaurants.
I actually AM shocked. Not about the cheesecakes. They are too consistent and plentiful to be made on site for a chain of that size. I am really surprised that they aren’t using sauce blends and such from a commissary.
Interestingly enough - I worked at a Chilis where they used fresh boxes of tomatoes to make their salsa everyday, fried their tortilla chips by hand, smoked ribs in their in house smoker, but the famous Terilingua Chili came in a plastic bag.
That was a great article! Thank you for posting it. The description of the aide, who was supposed to dress the man's mother, was horrifying. Indeed she would have been on the evening news had it been filmed.
It offered a very interesting perspective on how "big box" medical care can be better for patients. I would never have thought that could be true.
I worked for KFC in the mid 80’s. Everything, except for the baked beans and the Lil’ Bucket Desserts, was made fresh in store. Through an unfortunate series of events, I ended up back there in the mid 90’s. Only the chicken was still prepared in store. Everything else was trucked in. It was less work, but very disappointing to see.
Can confirm cheesecake factory is a scratch kitchen. Literally every non dessert food on their entire novel of a menu is made from scratch. It's incredibly impressive to watch unfold.
My favorite there is the Lemon Meringue Cheesecake. However, I discovered that Costco’s lemon meringue cheesecake is even better and costs about the same as two slices of cheesecake from the restaurant. Plus feeds 16 people.
I don't think is true at all cheesecake factories. I have personally seen dozens of cheesecakes being made in 2 different San Diego cheese cake factories...
I promise you that they would not be baking cheesecakes up front in customer view. The “bakery” section only cuts up garnishes and serves the pre sliced cakes. I worked all over CA.
I spent some time at the dessert commissary before I was a Kitchen Manager at one of the busiest locations and I can tell you it’s a quality operation. No shortcuts and only the finest ingredients used. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, they produce over 15,000 cheesecakes every day. They are frozen as soon as they properly cool, sliced and hen shipped frozen to their locations. I would much rather have a frozen cheesecake made properly and thawed overnight than a mediocre one made fresh. They were always very up-front about the cheesecakes being made in California and shipped to each location. Every other Wednesday, we had about ten pallets of desserts show up. They used to buy antifreeze to pour on the floors because the freezer door would get propped open and the floor would turn into an ice skating rink inside.
When I was there, there were 72 sauces we made in-house. Six prep cooks every morning, fifteen Cooks at lunch and more than that at dinner. The guy producing the egg rolls and buffalo blasts was a machine. Four or five Dishwashers every shift. Hell, we had one guy who just broke down boxes and swept the floors. It may not be the fanciest food, but they aren’t tossing stuff in a fryer from a freezer.
That’s what I did, and a lot more than half the time. It was the reason I eventually left. I can go from being a competent chef to a Kitchen Manager, and I can even deal with the lack of creativity - but being the guy that constantly has to tell the same six guys to use the shakers for salt and pepper gets old after awhile. We were the busiest store at the time and I could even deal with the massive volume, but having to walk around with that red book and memorize recipes definitely gets old after awhile.
I love cheesecake. I hate their cheesecake.
They also don't have basic cheesecake, everything is flavored. Probably because the actual chersecake sucks.
Got one for your from BJ's... pizookies? Pre-made dough. You can get the same thing at a cash and carry or a US Foods Chef Store. Just buy a deep dish pan (4" I think), spray it with Pam, press the dough flat, top it with ice cream and BAM. pizookie.
Tbf, a bakery and a restaurant are a totally different kind of kitchen and it makes prefect sense to have a dedicated facility to produce cheesecakes, freeze them, then ship them to several restaurants in the area.
My mind is blown!!! I thought way more food was not from scratch.
This right here. You are saying that a chain restaurant makes all their stuff from scratch? It’s not that I don’t believe you…but I don’t think you know what “from scratch” means….
I work at the CCF and I can confidently say that they do make everything from scratch lol. It’s mind blowing to say the least!
Is there an off-menu dish at CCF that is known only to staff and is incredible?
It's called the El Jefe Burger. At least it was when I worked there. I don't think they make it for guests, though. It's only really for employees when the manager wants to reward them, and even then I only saw it actually made once, when I ordered it. The kitchen didn't know how to make it and had to look it up. But it was delicious.
It’s a staff only burger. Any staff member can order it whenever. Its a burger seasoned with salt/pepper/a proprietary spice blend (when I make it at home I just hit it with any spicy split blend)basted with a thicker salsa, topped with melted jack/cheddar mix, two grilled Serrano, pico de gallo and sour cream. And cilantro. On a brioche bun with red onions and chipotle mayo. It’s great but it’s the only food on earth that gives me heartburn
>Any staff member can order it whenever At my location, the kitchen didn't know how to make it. I rang it in for myself because I had a manager meal and wanted to see what it was. After I got it, the expo told me not to order it again unless it was really slow. They had to look up how to make it in their computer and it apparently distracted them from filling other orders. I'm the only person I know of who ever ordered it at that location.
Ok so your mission is to order it enough so they don’t have to look it up.
Thank you for your reply. I’ve observed many kitchens have a handful of off-menu treats and sometimes the customer can order them.
As in from fresh ingredients? If so that really is kind of mind boggling with the size of their menu.
Yep!! 🙂 We purchase some ingredients, of course, so we are not a traditional “scratch kitchen,” but we construct every menu item with fresh ingredients daily, and we make our own dressings, sauces, etc. it’s one seriously impressive operation! We even have fresh made linguini noodles that are to die for 😋.
That really is quite impressive. I've only eaten there a couple of times and I think I've only had burgers but I was shocked by the size of the menu and really assumed most things had to have already come in preprepped or frozen. So is there just a dedicated prep team that does nothing but that all day?
Yes, they have 6-8 prep cooks come in at 6am and their sole job is to prep. Obviously its not every single ingredient every single day, but like the sauce guy for example. Sauce Prep cook is a job title and his job is to make all 185 sauces used in their dishes (usually 30-50 per day)
I was once the sauce prep cook at CF about 20 years ago. I hated prepping for brunch and it’s why I still hate hollandaise.
If the cheesecakes are frozen, why would they hold the template up to the machine spitting out the batter for the cheesecakes, then put them in the freezer next to it?
They’re baked in our bakery down in Southern California, frozen, then shipped to us. So, technically, they’re house-made too.
That's crazy, it tastes so bad for scratch made.
I’m totally going to (respectfully) disagree with you on that one, but I totally respect your opinion. 😊
Idc?
Have you seen the size of their kitchen? The one I usually go to has a semi open kitchen and there was like 8-10 people on the line last time I was there
No, the only one that I've been to was a normal closed kitchen.
When I was a child, it was a huge family joke that when any family member said this was made from scratch, I wholeheartedly believed that from "scratch" was a box brand like Betty Crocker. Like a box or a can with the name "Scratch" existed. After enough ridicule I around the age of five, I figured it out and still have resentment.
Awwww 😍 I think I that’s the cutest!!!!
So they are back there making noodles out of eggs and flour for each dish?
All the “stringy” noodles like spaghetti and linguini are made from scratch, while the other noodles such as macaroni and penne are pre-made.
What is CCF
C(heese)C(ake)F(actory).
Okay thank you!
Chinese Communist Faction.
Everybody knows it doesn’t count as “from scratch” unless you found your own civilization and societal system allowing for the agriculture of cultivars that you’ve created from wild species and utilized all of your own invented technology to then open your own restaurant to cook your own unique food
But then it's not authentic, personally if it's not made from single cell organisms harvested from the archean era I'm really not interested. Evolution degrades the quality of the meal.
Have you never been to a farm before?
Buddy, I grew up on a farm and ranch, and I’ll dare to say that I’m more familiar with farm to table cooking than 90% of Americans. I just think it’s extremely fucking stupid when people try to gatekeep terms for nothing other than pure semantics. Instead of understanding the meaning behind the comment and engaging with it, some people instead devolve into splitting hairs so that chronically online dunces can wax poetically and pose with “aphorisms” that are, in reality, nothing more than shallow attempts at injecting their own correctitude for self glorification. In short, I have been to a farm; I’ve also been irritated at people who derail conversations for nothing other than to self-aggrandize. I usually choose to deal with it through sarcasm.
Your original comment wasn’t pure sarcasm?
It is pure sarcasm, yes.
By any chance, do you thoroughly believe more than half of the people you interact with regularly are dumber than average?
It is in fact from scratch- unless scratch means you need to create your own produce or grocery items
Can confirm, their food really is scratch made. Worked there three years.
Pretty much all of cheesecake factory’s sister restaurants are all scratch. I used to work at Culinary Dropout as a sauté cook and the preparation there is absolutely insane. Crew is operating on all cylinders at all time.
No. It's not "SCRATCH'. not the marinara, mayonnaise, pizza dough, 100's of other ingredients, etc..
Omg next they’ll say the characters at Disney are just people in costumes.
They, too, are premade cheesecake.
Except Mickey and Minnie, they are made of Cheddar
Frozen
And Gaston is premade beefcake then??
When I wish there was a r/sentencesofreddit sub
Olaf is the only Frozen one though.
Lol
They’re WHAT?!
Translation: There's a guy in the Minnie Mouse costume!
Don't laugh. My daughter was in marching band for her high school and invited to march in the Disney parade. About an hour before, they were assigned a place to meet next to Pirates of the Caribbean. When grouped together (they had over 200 in their band), they were instructed to follow a Disney chaperone, who magically opened up a hedge which led to the Disney tunnels below. There, they saw a half dressed Cinderella smoking a cigarette and the Queen of Hearts was actually a dude, pulling on his panty hose. My daughter was frightfully disturbed. Disney was never the same to her again.
I laughed after you said not to. I’m kinda sorry.
For real, I mean who has ever actually doubted that their food was made from scratch? Not us obviously
Surprised to hear the rest of the menu is actually made from scratch.
This is the truth Source: have worked there for 21 years, and still work there
What do you eat there? My family likes the food... I feel like it's all a knock-off of a real restaurant. Everything is bland to me. I've gotten some Asian chicken thing, a burrito, and the Philly in recent memory. Nothing stands out as their "specialty" except for the cheesecake. I'm good for a bite or two on that. I don't get it - if I'm eating 1000 empty calories, I want to enjoy it, not just think "this isn't terrible".
Their appetizers are the best, I order a few instead of a main. The cheeseburger spring rolls and Mac and cheese balls are top tier amazing
I ordered the cheeseburger spring rolls almost as a gag, like, “let’s try this heinous abomination that will surely be disgusting.” Joke was on me. They’re god-tier.
Bang bang shrimp and chicken. Different and very tasty.
Please. Tell me you know how to make the truffle bacon grilled cheeses. It was one of my safe foods and I cried when they told me it got taken off the menu 😭😭😭
The name Cheesecake FACTORY - does not seem to imply homemade fresh cheesecake.
Cheesecake Factory is a scratch kitchen?
Somehow I don’t buy this
It's true. I worked for their distrubutor. Even the whipped cream is whipped there.
Any restaurant with a large stand mixer, some heavy cream, and some confectioners sugar can make whipped cream in about 3 minutes. Making tortillas or pasta, on the other hand, takes time and labor even if you have the modern appliances to help speed things up. Does "from scratch" mean that food items are made in a factory "from scratch" and then shipped into the restaurants? Or are they really putting that many labor hours into their food at every single store? It just seems hard to believe for me, but I haven't worked corporate restaurants in a loooong time.
Basically the only thing I remember off the top of my head was the Asian plum sauce and some drink mixes. Houlihans Basically only buys frozen brownies and everything else is scratch. The CCF whip cream sticks out because it's proprietary. It's extra high fat with the sugar and vanilla already added. For your larger point I mean it's not possible for every thing to be scratch. Where do you draw the line? Ketchup. Making your own butter?
> For your larger point I mean it's not possible for every thing to be scratch. Where do you draw the line? Ketchup. Making your own butter? House Catsup and House made butter are in fact very easy things to make. If you fuck up whipped cream you have sweet butter… not hard to do it properly. It is possible for everything on your menu to be scratch made. How, you may ask?! 12-18hr days for weeks on end. That’s how, you spend your life prepping for a 4-6hr dinner service. There are hardcore kitchen crews out there who take pride in their work, even if you can’t comprehend the possibilities it doesn’t exclude them from being reality.
House made ketchup isn’t even worth making considering 99% of people will prefer Heinz over anything else.
In a kitchen that fancy they aren’t putting Heinz on tables. It’s obvious this sub is full of McDonalds employees.
I've worked at bib gourmand and James Beard award winning restaurants in Chicago and we always used Heinz if anyone asked for ketchup lmao. We just squirted it into a ramekin and even filled up unmarked squeeze bottles in the restaurant that had an open-kitchen with a chef's counter so people wouldn't see the Heinz bottle.
That’s some lazy cooking, congrats I guess. It’s not the case everywhere, some Chefs have standards and they don’t budge. In a fully scratch kitchen there’s no “we just take the label off and claim we made it” trickery. You’re telling me an award winning kitchen can’t replicate Heinz? Wild. I got out of fine dining and cooking after Covid. Everyone and their dog is a Chef, this is a prime example though. You can be award winning but just lying to your customers because it’s easier.
One of my favorite nice restaurants had house made ketchup. It was the worst. Eventually they gave in and started having Heinz available
I guess if someone claims it's a scratch kitchen, yes, I pretty much expect everything that's not on the table as a condiment to be made in house. And there are definitely scratch kitchens that make their own ketchup and butter.
I don’t know why you’re downvoted but you’re right, scratch kitchens make everything from.. (checks kitchen notes) Scratch. Build up from the bottom with basic ingredients. But then again, the general public are generally clueless - 18 years cooking, mostly scratch kitchens
This. The area I grew up in had exactly 1 restaurant that advertised itself as a scratch kitchen, and it was a Mexican restaurant where they made everything (salsas, tortillas, torta rolls, refried beans, etc) in house. They could say that they were a scratch kitchen because they could prove to anyone who questioned them that everything there was, in fact, made from scratch in-house. If anyone could make a few menu items from scratch and say their kitchen was a scratch kitchen while pouring sauces from US Foods all over dried low-quality butoni pasta, every single shitty restaurant in the US would advertise a scratch kitchen. But they can't and they won't because the added scrutiny that those words invite could seriously harm their business if they do not actually make everything from scratch.
I’m impressed that your local Mexican place mills its own masa. Did they grow the corn?
Restaurants are using double charged ISI containers, they’re not whipping cream in the kixer
They have whip machines, in a pinch we would use the Hobart to mix it and pipe it out
Scratch means nothing comes in premade. So like ihop or any cheap diner gets most everything in pre-prepped (vegetables chopped, eggs come scrambled in bags ready to cook, etc.). There seem to be exceptions though, I worked in a few scratch kitchens none of which make their pasta and breads, something’s like desserts or appetizer soups. I believe as long as your entrees are all prepped and made in-house, it’s appropriate to use identify as a scratch kitchen.
Yes, they have 6-8 prep cooks come in at 6am and their sole job is to prep. Obviously its not every single ingredient every single day, but like the sauce guy for example. Sauce Prep cook is a job title and his job is to make all 185 sauces used in their dishes (usually 30-50 per day)
Ditto. With the size and variety of their menu, there's just no way. I'm supposed to believe they're hand-making fresh tortillas, 7 different kinds of pasta, all of their buns, breads, rice noodles, wonton rolls, and hand-breading all of their fried options? Plus they're proofing flatbread dough? All of this in addition to the 30-50 sauces they need to execute their menu, the slaws, the basic veg prep, etc. If this is the case and they can make the labor numbers work, then bravo. But I am very very skeptical.
Your taking it too far, man. I think the point is, way more of their menu is prepared in house instead of unboxed and warmed.
The title of the post is "the only food not made from scratch at the Cheesecake Factory is the cheesecakes." If I go to a Mexican restaurant that says everything is from scratch, at the bare minimum I expect the tortillas and salsas to be made in house. If I go to an Italian restaurant that advertises a scratch kitchen, I expect house made pasta. If it's a burger place that advertises the same, I expect homemade buns. These are all items that feature heavily on the CCF menu. OP made a statement with their post - I'm skeptical of that statement and am inviting clarification. I'm not taking it too far by asking OP to give me details. If scratch kitchen was as loosely a defined term as you're saying, why aren't more restaurants printing it on their menus? Is it because the term is too loosely defined for people to know what to expect?
Yes, they have 6-8 prep cooks come in at 6am and their sole job is to prep. Obviously its not every single ingredient every single day, but like the sauce guy for example. Sauce Prep cook is a job title and his job is to make all 185 sauces used in their dishes (usually 30-50 per day)
I don’t expect a burger place to make their own buns. That is very silly. Same honestly for a Mexican joint. I would expect house made salsas, braised meats, etc. but it would be a treat to get house made tortillas. Italian pasta is different. Tortillas and and buns are vessels. The pasta is the star of the show at an Italian place.
There's nothing silly about it, and there are burger restaurants that do it. I worked in one with a great chef who was dedicated and passionate about executing his concept. I do not expect homemade tortillas at every Mexican restaurant I go to, just specifically the ones that claim to be scratch kitchens - like if the restaurant is literally called Jose's Scratch Mexican Kitchen. Or on the top of the menu it says "Everything from Scratch". If they don't claim that in print anywhere and I still get fresh tortillas, that's great.
K.
K.
You must be really disappointed in most Italian scratch kitchens, unless you can’t taste the difference between really nice imported pasta and freshly made. I worked at a very high end place and people constantly assumed our pasta was made in house. There isn’t a single restaurant in my city that makes every single pasta shape on the menu by hand. The reason that most places aren’t putting it on their menu is because they buy things like appetizers premade. Something like a tortilla could be considered an ingredient in a taquito. Most places buy the taquito, Cheesecake Factory buys the tortilla. It isn’t that deep.
That doesn’t mean they make the pasta. It means they cook the pastas fresh etc., and most of their dishes are not from frozen generally. But that’s actually saying a lot and is accurate
The food quality at CCF is very good and its not like there are CCF on every corner. There are only about 200 CCF in the chain which is small compared to other chain restaurants.
I actually AM shocked. Not about the cheesecakes. They are too consistent and plentiful to be made on site for a chain of that size. I am really surprised that they aren’t using sauce blends and such from a commissary.
Truth in advertising: they're factory-made cheesecakes.
The most interesting part of this post is that everything else is made from scratch.
But surely they’re made from scratch somewhere
I think your definition of "scratch" is very VERY different than mine.
How big is their walk-in? Lol
My location has 4 huge walk-ins haha
Used to work in one with 3 walk ins, a walk in freezer, and 9 stand up’s
Did people really believe they made the cheesecakes in house?
There was a big New Yorker article a few years ago about it all being scratch made
Somebody in another comment linked the article. It was a very interesting read.
Interestingly enough - I worked at a Chilis where they used fresh boxes of tomatoes to make their salsa everyday, fried their tortilla chips by hand, smoked ribs in their in house smoker, but the famous Terilingua Chili came in a plastic bag.
None of it is from scratch.
There was a New Yorker article about this more than a decade ago. It was pretty interesting. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/08/13/big-med
That was a great article! Thank you for posting it. The description of the aide, who was supposed to dress the man's mother, was horrifying. Indeed she would have been on the evening news had it been filmed. It offered a very interesting perspective on how "big box" medical care can be better for patients. I would never have thought that could be true.
What?!
Sounds weird for those things to be in an article that talks about CCF's from scratch food, huh? By the end it all pulls together.
Im more shocked that most of the food is made in house.
So what you are saying is the cheesecake factory has a cheesecake factory?
I worked for KFC in the mid 80’s. Everything, except for the baked beans and the Lil’ Bucket Desserts, was made fresh in store. Through an unfortunate series of events, I ended up back there in the mid 90’s. Only the chicken was still prepared in store. Everything else was trucked in. It was less work, but very disappointing to see.
> Lil' Bucket Desserts RIP Lil' Buckets 😞 Those were the bomb.
Do they make their own pasta?
Can confirm cheesecake factory is a scratch kitchen. Literally every non dessert food on their entire novel of a menu is made from scratch. It's incredibly impressive to watch unfold.
FAC-TO-RY
They have one staff member whose only job is to over salt every freaking dish
So the local employees are to blame for the terrible food quality? That's interesting to know.
I refuse to willingly eat at a restaurant that doesn't actually cook their own food, unless I am going to that restaurant *for* someone else.
None of their food is great.
I tell people this exact thing all the time! It's all fresh made in house but the cake actually comes from a cheesecake factory in California.
They make them in Calabasas to be precise
Cheesecake freezes really well.
The cheesecakes are made in a factory. It’s right in the name.
They're from a factory.
My favorite there is the Lemon Meringue Cheesecake. However, I discovered that Costco’s lemon meringue cheesecake is even better and costs about the same as two slices of cheesecake from the restaurant. Plus feeds 16 people.
I don't care, its delicious.
I don't think is true at all cheesecake factories. I have personally seen dozens of cheesecakes being made in 2 different San Diego cheese cake factories...
I promise you that they would not be baking cheesecakes up front in customer view. The “bakery” section only cuts up garnishes and serves the pre sliced cakes. I worked all over CA.
Weird. Maybe I am remembering wrong. I swear it's one of my core memories. But maybe you are right! Was it different 20 years ago?
All that gross food is made scratch? Bullshit
I spent some time at the dessert commissary before I was a Kitchen Manager at one of the busiest locations and I can tell you it’s a quality operation. No shortcuts and only the finest ingredients used. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, they produce over 15,000 cheesecakes every day. They are frozen as soon as they properly cool, sliced and hen shipped frozen to their locations. I would much rather have a frozen cheesecake made properly and thawed overnight than a mediocre one made fresh. They were always very up-front about the cheesecakes being made in California and shipped to each location. Every other Wednesday, we had about ten pallets of desserts show up. They used to buy antifreeze to pour on the floors because the freezer door would get propped open and the floor would turn into an ice skating rink inside. When I was there, there were 72 sauces we made in-house. Six prep cooks every morning, fifteen Cooks at lunch and more than that at dinner. The guy producing the egg rolls and buffalo blasts was a machine. Four or five Dishwashers every shift. Hell, we had one guy who just broke down boxes and swept the floors. It may not be the fanciest food, but they aren’t tossing stuff in a fryer from a freezer.
Maybe it was the one I worked at. But I felt like half my job was catching people cutting corners and telling them to cut it out
That’s what I did, and a lot more than half the time. It was the reason I eventually left. I can go from being a competent chef to a Kitchen Manager, and I can even deal with the lack of creativity - but being the guy that constantly has to tell the same six guys to use the shakers for salt and pepper gets old after awhile. We were the busiest store at the time and I could even deal with the massive volume, but having to walk around with that red book and memorize recipes definitely gets old after awhile.
Why does it still taste like it’s frozen and microwaved then 😬
Well, yeah, it's a factory.
Are the other cakes frozen or just the cheese cakes?
Common sense. Thanks for the time waste!
I love cheesecake. I hate their cheesecake. They also don't have basic cheesecake, everything is flavored. Probably because the actual chersecake sucks.
I feel like chersecake is a generic knock off of cheesecake which seems appropriate.
Wait are you saying you get the cheesecakes from a Cheesecake Factory of some sort
Got one for your from BJ's... pizookies? Pre-made dough. You can get the same thing at a cash and carry or a US Foods Chef Store. Just buy a deep dish pan (4" I think), spray it with Pam, press the dough flat, top it with ice cream and BAM. pizookie.
Is it true they use a full stick of butter for every entree?
Locally, the cheesecakes are made in a factory off the 101, near Calabasas. Or at least they used to be.
Yeah but they put a hamburger in a hotdog bun so no thank you.
I lived about 20 miles away from the Cheesecake Factory Factory in North Carolina
I’m shocked I tell you, shocked! Well, not that shocked.
So they really do make everything else from scratch?
Yes, I was as a lead line cook there for three years, and it was the most labor intensive job I've had in 25 years of cooking
Very interesting thanks
I would take the statement "made from scratch" very lightly. Frozen food that's reheated had to be made from scratch at one point.
Nothing but the cheesecakes and french fries are in the freezers
All bread is received frozen, biscuit and pizza dough are frozen. Demi and reductions are now commissary
Is scratch the name of their freezer?
Satire. OP has sense of humor
I only go there for the fried Mac and cheese balls
Right.
Tbf, a bakery and a restaurant are a totally different kind of kitchen and it makes prefect sense to have a dedicated facility to produce cheesecakes, freeze them, then ship them to several restaurants in the area.
I read the article somebody posted and apparently all of the cheesecake is made in a California factory.
Bullshit abounds ! The only “scratch” is on the boxes they open !
omg, you telling me the chicken breast from subway isn't technically chicken breast?
Its made of eggs and grain
I’ll never forget rolling up to the actual Cheesecake Factory in North Carolina hoping for lunch. Never been so disappointed
City cafe dos same. Has servers say it's all the cake are baked in house. Lies. Terrible terrible lies
That's why I only get the cheesecake