Cheesecake can add a few pounds to the waistline.
And, possibly, remove some competing restaurants from the neighborhood.
Two years after the Cheesecake Factory opened its first area location at South Side Works, news that a second mammoth eatery will open this month at Ross Park Mall has some local restaurateurs worried about keeping their slice of business.
"We're concerned that this branding of America, these big-name restaurants -- and Cheesecake Factory is one of the biggest names -- it's going to make it too difficult for the local entrepreneur to survive," said Victor Son, who sits on the board of the western chapter of the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association.
Son's company, Food Services Management in O'Hara, recently shut down two of its restaurants, the Dingbats and Abate at Waterworks Mall near Aspinwall. A Damon's Grill on McKnight Road also shut its doors last month.
Son blamed the drop in business that caused the closures on the openings of the Cheesecake Factory on the South Side and other national-chain eateries at Pittsburgh Mills in Frazer.
"These places are more than restaurants, they're destinations," he said.
Which is exactly how the Cheesecake Factory wants it.
Many of the 121 outlets that the California-based chain will have open by the end of the year are anchoring malls, which has helped the company push past the $1 billion mark in annual sales.
"Guests come to us to eat and then decide to shop or go to a movie," said Cheesecake Factory senior vice president Howard R. Gordon during a recent visit to Ross Park. "We are a destination."
Diners still wait as many as 90 minutes for a table at the South Side Works location, strolling nearby shops as they watch for the restaurant pager to buzz.
Each Cheesecake restaurant averages $11 million in annual business.
Some locals doubted the first location could do that kind of business in Pittsburgh, where the top restaurants historically top out at the $7 million mark.
Gordon would not disclose sales figures for the South Side Works location, but he said "in order for us to open a second restaurant, business must have been good at the first one."
John Lewis, owner of Bruschetta's restaurant on the South Side, doesn't doubt that the first factory was a success.
"It's gotten a little harder since they opened," he said, noting that his restaurant's sales have been flat over the past two years after growing by 10 or 15 percent annually. "It sliced the pie a little thinner."
Lewis said that restaurants in the North Hills will likely see the same Cheesecake effect that rippled along the Carson Street corridor on the South Side two years ago.
"Anytime a new, big restaurant like that comes in, people want to try it, so you lose some business," he said. "But then you'll see new faces, people who don't want to wait an hour to eat. And then the old faces will come back."
Tom Baron, president of the Big Burrito Group, which owns 10 local restaurants, knows his Mad Mex location on McKnight Road could be effected by the new Cheesecake Factory -- but he has a different take on it.
"I wish I owned a Cheesecake Factory because they're obviously doing something right," Baron said. "But no, I'm not concerned with them. I'm going to stay concerned with doing what we do best. Competition like that means you have to keep your own concept fresh."
Cheesy science
The Cheesecake Factory has feeding people down to a science, its leaders said.
When the 347-seat restaurant at Ross Park Mall opens Oct. 30, cooks will rely on a computerized recipe system that displays what a dish should look like when it hits the table, said Howard Gordon, a senior vice president with the Calabasas Hills, Calif.-based restaurant chain.
"We go for consistency in all our restaurants, just like you had it in Los Angeles or Chicago," Gordon said.
Yet the chain knows that tastes vary from city to city. So after the new restaurant opens, its executives will analyze which dishes are selling most to determine what needs to be ordered.
"It's all determined in ratios, and we taper down what we need to order so everything stays fresh," said Louis Sandor, the new location's general manager. "We'll know what people are going to eat here within weeks."
The 250 employees planned for the restaurant will be ready to sell all 200 menu items from the first day, though. New hires are tested often during almost three weeks of training and are required to score at least 90 percent to stay on, Gordon said.
Two days before opening, the kitchen will open for invited guests in a taste-testing that costs the company about $750,000.
"When the public walks in, we're done working out the 'kinks' because guests don't tolerate that today," Gordon said. "We want them to get the right experience every time."
