I've often said that CF is a quintessentially American restaurant. Like if you had someone visiting from another country and you had to pick one restaurant to demonstrate (celebrate?) the supersized suburban American experience, you could do a lot worse than CF.
The funny thing is in my social circle at least all the people who go to CF are young, extremely highly educated, well-paid immigrants -- For most of these reasons plus hours are predictable, seating is guaranteed, and there is food to satisfy most dietary restrictions. They're probably not assimilated enough to realize CF is declasse lol
Location to location quality is variable. I am very much a big tent, easy-to-please person when it comes to food and the nearest Cheesecake Factory to me has been a big letdown
The way people talk about CF in this thread as if they don't make their food the exact same way, from the exact same suppliers, as other big box chains... well, it shows why places like CF get the free word of mouth and stay in business.
It's interesting what people will do for the sake of feeling "fancy". I have a friend that keeps taking me to the boogiest restaurants for the most mediocre food and I don't enjoy the stuffy ambiance. I don't think he does either, but then he gets to tell people and show the photos and JFC I can't live like that.
Honestly it makes me sad, American "culture" is so ill-defined that... we apparently epitomize showing it off by pointing at our corporate largess. Look our big menu and even bigger microwave! Gross! America actually has a lot of cool stuff, cool sub-cultures, great local food. In non-pretentious settings even. But I guess that depends on why you're going out for dinner...
- drive to the strip mall
- chain restaurant
- menu has everything
- with a ton of calories
- ads in the menus?
- good food
- price to quality ratio is good