The Cheesecake Factory story begins in Detroit, Michigan in the 1940’s. Evelyn Overton found a recipe in the local newspaper that would inspire her “Original” Cheesecake. Everyone loved her recipe so much that she decided to open a small Cheesecake shop, but she eventually gave up her dream of owning her own business in order to raise her two small children, David and Renee. She moved her baking equipment to a kitchen in her basement and continued to supply cakes to several of the best restaurants in town while raising her family.
In 1972, with their children grown, Evelyn and her husband Oscar decided to pack up all of their belongings and move to Los Angeles to make one last attempt at owning their own business. With the last of their savings, they opened The Cheesecake Factory Bakery and began selling Evelyn’s cheesecakes to restaurants throughout Los Angeles. Through hard work and determination their business grew to a modest size and Evelyn was soon baking more than 20 varieties of cheesecakes and other desserts.
With great foresight and intuition, their son David decided to open a restaurant to showcase his mother’s selection of cheesecakes. Somehow he just knew that guests would enjoy a restaurant with an extensive dessert menu. It was 1978 and he opened the first The Cheesecake Factory restaurant in Beverly Hills, California. The restaurant was an immediate success and today there are nearly 200 The Cheesecake Factory restaurants around the world that share the Overton’s commitment to quality and spirit of innovation and hard work.
At the heart of The Cheesecake Factory culture is a tradition of excellence that the Overton family instilled in the company. Their values with respect to quality, passion, integrity, people, service, leadership and performance formed the cornerstone of The Cheesecake Factory’s culture and continue to define the character of the company today.
There are three key elements that are critical to the success of The Cheesecake Factory – innovation, service and hospitality, and operational excellence – each of which is dependent upon the strong performance of its people.
