The Cheesecake Factory

The Cheesecake Factory
Macy's Union Square, Geary Blvd. 7th Floor
Tel: 415.391.4444

http://www.cheesecakefactory.com

The San Francisco outpost of this thriving, thirty plus unit chain
that is justifiably famous for some excellent cheesecake and a Willie Wonka
sense of spun silliness, is an enormous, cavernous and claustrophobic
football size mass feeding machine that actually turns out some excellent
food at fair prices to complement the sumptuous desserts that so many come
for. One enters Macy's seven story glass casket and has the choice of
escalating or elevating to the seventh floor where this hallucinatory
happening offers the weary shopper a respite from retail mania as practiced
by Federated Department Stores in our fair City.

Once inside the holding pen is one is jammed into a space way too small for the overwhelming number of people who want to eat here, and it becomes a real problem because it's almost impossible to beat a hasty retreat without banging into the ongoing stream of new arrivals. A glossy laminated full color book consisting of 18 pages and including advertising is what one makes choices from, and it's a daunting task, because it's well presented, and attractively described, and reasonably priced.

They offer a burger in several ways, and each one is good in my never humble opinion. One of my favorite lunches is their plate of Slider’s and a Boston Salad. The Slider’s are four small burgers with hand formed mini patties on good, dense parker style buns with melted cheese bubbling on top, some really good pickle slices and fries to die for. They also have their Factory burger, a full sized offering that’s a winner too! Again, they start with good beef, form it into generous patties, cook them to order and place them on lightly toasted housemade buns and pile great lettuce, tomato, pickles, onion and condiments and it’s an outstanding burger. The fries are also excellent, thin and perfectly cooked and miraculously they arrive hot which is a trick for thin fries. One of my favorite touches is that when you order a side of mayo, it’s delivered in a silver gravy boat for a touch of class. If you can stand the mayhem and madness in this overcrowded asylum, the burger, cheesecake and everything else I’ve had tastes great.