14 Things You Didn't Know About The Cheesecake Factory

The entrees served at the Cheesecake Factory are deceptively treacherous in terms of fat and calories. Their miso salmon, for example, sounds like it would be a healthy dinner option, as opposed to the Factory Burger, but this is not the case. The miso salmon has about 1,800 calories and over 2,400 mg of sodium (meanwhile, their Factory Burger has 740 calories and 1020g of sodium. You might as well treat yourself to some fries (570 calories) and a slice of chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake (1110 calories). But their salad must be safe, right? Wrong — the Caesar salad contains a whopping 1,280 calories. McDonald's big mac has a meager 540 calories in comparison.

True, if you're eating at a restaurant with the word factory in the name we are doubtful you're looking to be health-conscious in the first place. But if you find your jeans getting a little tight and still want to partake in the festivities, try ordering the grilled mahi (580 calories) with a side of broccoli (60 calories).

The Cheesecake Factory is one of the country's most famous restaurants, and for good reason. At a time when many restaurants are trying to keep their menus small, this one went in the complete opposite direction with 250 regular menu items and at least 50 different types of cheesecake. It's a little on the pricey side, though, the sort of place most people probably only go for a special occasion or a well-deserved treat.

Maybe they're just doing us regular folk a favor by setting the prices a little high. It's actually a good idea to save it for a once-in-a-blue-moon sort of thing, for your waistline and your wallet. Like any restaurant, there are some things they'd prefer you just didn't know about.

The cheesecake matriarch, Evelyn Overton, did not actually develop the famous dessert recipe. The restaurant's staple dish was found in a 1940s newspaper, and Mrs. Overton began making cheesecakes based on it out of her basement for local bakeries. It wasn't until the early '70s that this trademark dessert gained notoriety. In 1972, Mr. and Mrs. Overton moved to Los Angeles with the hope of opening their own bakery, naturally focused around their delicious cheesecakes. From here, the Cheesecake Factory Bakery grew in popularity.

David Overton, the son of the two founders, later decided to take his parents' business in another direction, and in 1978, the Cheesecake Factory restaurant was born. Still,we can't help but wonder who wrote the original recipe ...

The Cheesecake Factory probably doesn't want you taking too close a look at the nutritional content of their food because they're well aware of just how bad for you it is. They don't even disclose nutritional information on their website. (They only publish it in paper format at restaurant locations in states that have made laws about disclosing nutritional information, for goodness' sake!) In 2014, the Center for Science in the Public Interest assigned the Cheesecake Factory a special XXXtreme Eating award when they found that three of the nine worst restaurant dishes (in terms of calorie count) came from the chain. They also noted that, as in years past, they easily could have filled the board with dishes from the Cheesecake Factory.

What was that, you say? You're not a health nut? You don't go to the Cheesecake Factory to count your calories? That's all well and fine, and you deserve a guilt-free, dessert-filled night out every so often, but hopefully you want to be walking away from that meal rather than being wheeled out on a stretcher. Let's start with the beginning of your day: breakfast. If you think it might be a good idea to start your day with something like their bruleed French toast, you might want to reconsider. The bacon is the healthiest thing on the plate, which should say something. It might be very tasty French toast, but it also has nearly 3,000 calories, 24 teaspoons of sugar, and 93 grams of saturated fat. That's almost a week's worth of fat.

"I'm going to the gym later, so I can burn it off," you foolishly rationalize. Okay, let's try it! Get in the pool. Start swimming laps. Keep swimming for the next seven hours. Even if you're not counting calories and keeping track of everything you're eating, there's a reason you'll feel terrible after a Cheesecake Factory breakfast.

As mentioned, it wasn't until state legislation regarding the complete disclosure of nutritional information that the Cheesecake Factory finally released some of the numbers regarding what their customers were eating. It's no wonder they didn't want anyone to know: if you thought that breakfast was terrifying, check out the rest of the menu. CalorieLab even suggests that one way to compensate for your trip to the Cheesecake Factory is to skip a few meals before in preparation and a few meals after in penance for your binge.

Feel like ordering the fettuccine Alfredo during a workday lunch with colleagues? Plan on that being your only meal for the day, because you're getting more than 1,800 calories and around 82 grams of saturated fat. That's one of the worst offenders, for sure, but scanning through the nutritional information for even the healthy options is enough to make anyone feel like they need to go for a run just reading it. Fish is usually a pretty healthy bet, but even their miso salmon packs quite the punch with more than 1,200 calories and 31 grams of saturated fat.

The moral of the story? Going out to the Cheesecake Factory for a nice, sit-down lunch with your coworkers might leave you snoozing at your desk and generally feeling non-functional for the rest of the afternoon.

Want a healthier option than the Cheesecake Factory dinner menu? Head over to McDonald's and order the guiltiest pleasure on the menu, and then order another round to go. The Cheesecake Factory regularly makes headlines for being one of the unhealthiest places to eat, but hearing about it and actually seeing the numbers are two entirely different things. If you're starting to wonder why a notorious fast food chain like McDonald's is more transparent with their information, that's the first hint that there's something they just don't want you to know.

Remember how there are 250 menu items to choose from? According to the Healthy Eating Guide, 166 of them contain more than 1,000 calories. Any way you slice it, that's more than half of your food for the whole day. And what happens if you've already had breakfast and lunch, and head there for dinner?

Want that same fettuccine Alfredo in a dinner-sized portion with some lean chicken? The chicken is lean, but the rest of it isn't. You're looking at 2,590 calories and 104 grams of saturated fat. Feeling your arteries clogging yet? How about a light salad? The Cobb salad is a whopping 1,570 calories and 26 grams of fat. Pasta carbonara? Crispy chicken costoletta? Louisiana chicken pasta? Each of those dishes has more than 2,500 calories and more than 85 grams of saturated fat. Considering almost no one goes out for dinner and only orders an entree, tack on a couple drinks and an appetizer and you've eaten enough fat and calories for, in the best case, several days. Worst case? You've eaten enough fat for a week and a half.

Sorry, we aren't done yet. Even if you're heading to the Cheesecake Factory for a post-movie dessert and coffee, choosing something that will leave you feeling good about your choice is impossible.

A look at the cheesecake menu initially makes everyone want to try a piece or two or nine, but each one of those pieces has the calorie and fat content of one of their entrees. While their original cheesecake clocks in at a relatively slim and responsible 800 calories and 34 grams of saturated fat, order one of the specialty cheesecakes and you're really in for it. Toasted marshmallow s'mores cheesecake? Nearly 1,500 calories and 60 grams of saturated fat. The red velvet cheesecake? More than 1,500 calories and 57 grams of saturated fat. Most of the others fall somewhere in the middle, and there are only a few options that have a calorie content of less than 1,000. You might be the biggest dessert-lover in the world, but justifying that? It's tough to justify more than a bite or two.

But if you don't care about all that or you go there intending to share dishes with friends (something the restaurant encourages, to their credit), get ready for cheesecake choices. With a total of nearly 40 cheesecake flavors on the menu, you can eat there for a month without repeating your dessert. Not a great idea, but we can't stop you.

But the menu didn't begin with this extensive list of choices. There were around 20 flavors originally, but the menu grew as the business did. They now offer everything from tuxedo cheesecake (chocolate and vanilla), to decadent creations like peanut butter cup fudge ripple. The original menu has also gained several non-cheesecake additions over the years. Desserts like ice cream, warm apple crisp, and tiramisu now grace the restaurant's menu and tables.

If you don't have a Cheesecake Factory location near you, you're in luck. Now you can order cheesecakes online. Customers can purchase gift cards and have them sent to a friend with a personalized message attached, but you can also save your friend a trip and ship a cheesecake direct. The selection is limited, but if you can't physically get to one, it's an option!

This shouldn't be a huge surprise at this point, but it's not very skinny. With all the heavy meals and the headlines that happened once the Cheesecake Factory released their nutritional information, the development of a Skinnylicious menu seems like a step in the right direction.

They do publish the relatively modest calorie counts for their Skinnylicious menu, but what they don't want you to know is that while you're not getting the same calories, you're eating your weight in carbs and sodium. Take, for example, the Skinnylicious Asian chicken salad. Seems like it would be a winner for anyone who's a little health-conscious, and tasty, to boot. Healthy, maybe, except for the 2,944 milligrams of sodium and the 57 grams of carbs. The Skinnylicious turkey and avocado sandwich still has 10 grams of saturated fat, and it also comes with more than 1,600 milligrams of sodium and 37 grams of carbs. There are some better options if you're watching your sodium and carbs, like the grilled steak medallions, but then you're back up to 19 grams of saturated fat. It's like the entire menu can't be decently healthy even when it's trying, and that's a sad thing. Going out to a nice restaurant is great and all, but you don't want to spend the rest of the night feeling terrible.

Aside from the desserts, the drink menu might be your favorite thing about the Cheesecake Factory. There's no reason to be ashamed of that, but one thing that might make you think twice about tasting all your favorites is the price. A night out there is already expensive. While most of the drinks aren't as unhealthy as the rest of their menu, give the milkshakes a miss. An Oreo milkshake has more than 1,500 calories and 41 grams of fat by itself.

Another thing they don't want you to know is how simple many of these drinks are. Not only are a lot of your favorite signature drinks incredibly easy to make at home, but it'll only cost you a fraction of the price. (And, you won't be tempted by cheesecake.) Their J.W. pink lemonade, for example, is the perfect drink to add to a meal during the hot summer months. It's refreshing, it's light, it goes down easy, and it has only a few ingredients. Mix up some pink lemonade, then add some Chambord raspberry liquor, and some Absolut citron vodka in a glass with a rim dusted with sugar, and you're good to go. Even a signature favorite like the Georgia peach has a relatively easy recipe, and all you need is some vodka, peach liqueur, fresh mint and some fresh (or frozen) peaches and raspberries.

What about something like their Asian pear martini? It's only slightly more complicated, with sake, Absolut's pear vodka, Licor 43, pear nectar and some Torani passion fruit syrup. Whip any of these up at home to skip paying an arm and a leg in the restaurant.

The Cheesecake Factory is obviously best known for the incredible selection of delectable cheesecake. There's one single cheesecake that started it all, and chances are good that every time you've gone to the Cheesecake Factory, it's started with wanting a piece or two of that singular dessert. Now that you know how bad the food really is, you might be wanting to know just how you can get some of your favorite parts of the restaurant without setting your health back quite so drastically.

There are a few things that make the Cheesecake Factory's most famous dessert a little better than what you're used to picking up at your local grocery store bakery. The graham cracker crust is a must, and according to Todd Wilbur's knock-off recipe, it's knowing the secrets behind the baking process that makes this one a complete winner. Baking your cheesecake in a water bath will help keep it moist and give it just the right amount of springy, jiggly goodness that you expect to be served when you go out to eat. Cheesecake can be one of those desserts that's incredibly difficult to get right, and in this case, the method is just as important as the ingredients. Add in some non-traditional ingredients (like cinnamon), and you'll be serving up your own award-winning cheesecake in no time. Once you've perfected this recipe, you'll have the ideal base to start experimenting and creating your own variations.

The success of any restaurant hinges on getting you in the door, and when you sit down to order several courses and a few rounds of drinks, that's what keeps their lights on. Sit down at the Cheesecake Factory and you're going to be started off with some of that amazing honey wheat brown bread, and chances are good that you're in love with it. It's the perfect addition to any meal, and you can't go wrong with that ever-so-slightly-sweet and non-traditional bread. It goes without saying that they don't want you to know how to make it.

Fortunately, Kitchen Trials did all the experimentation for you and came up with this knock-off recipe. Whether you want to make the little mini-loaves like at the restaurant or if you're looking for something that's a little more standard size, this recipe's a complete win. Their signature bread might be whole wheat, but that shouldn't dissuade you. There's a bit of cocoa powder in there, too, a touch of coffee or espresso, and some molasses as well as honey. Tuck this recipe away for those days when this is the only reason you want to head out of the house.

Have you ever been out to dinner with a large group and felt uncomfortable asking the waiter to split the bill 12 different ways? Well, Cheesecake Factory hears you and has launched an app called CakePay that allows customers to split the bill in whatever way they choose and pay from their phones. The app can include the tip, making it much easier to dine out or pick up curb-side orders. However, not every location participates in the app. Make sure to check whether your favorite Cheesecake Factory accepts CakePay before trying it out. Nothing beats being able to dine out with your cheap friends in pleasantry and peace.

In 2014, Cheesecake Factory was named one of the best places to work by Fortune (coming in at number 92 on the list of 100 companies) and rightfully so. A hard-to-top 100 percent of their managerial staff were hired internally, and started in entry-level positions. The restaurant, not content with making it once, has remained on the list for the last three years. It boasts the successful operation of 201 locations, and a recruiting program to aid military veterans in finding kitchen jobs. Another bonus of working here? Before your first day, the Cheesecake Factory sends your favorite cheesecake flavor home with you. Now if they did the same thing every Monday, they'd be No. 1 easily. (Hint hint, Mr. Overton.)

The Cheesecake Factory also owns RockSugar Pan Asian Kitchen and Grand Lux Cafe. These are popular in their own rights, and the cafe has 13 locations. If you're partial to Asian cuisine, RockSugar has an extensive menu featuring dishes from Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, India, Vietnam, and Thailand. Rock sugar is a staple ingredient in Asian cooking, inspiring the name of the restaurant. However the founder does not hail from Asia — David Overton himself developed this concept, with the help of a Singapore chef.

RockSugar has a modest dessert menu, but it looks especially puny next to Cheesecake Factory's lavish Book of Cake.