The Iconic Chain Restaurant Known For Its Over 20-Page Menu & 250+ Items

Few restaurant menus read like a novel, but The Cheesecake Factory's does — a sprawling, 20-plus-page catalog boasting over 250 dishes. It's the kind of place where diners can jump from Thai lettuce wraps to Cajun jambalaya in one sitting, with a buffet's worth of options packed into a single, bound booklet. And yet, the question of why The Cheesecake Factory's menu is so long isn't just about indulgence; it's about evolution.

The story begins 1940s Detroit, where Evelyn Overton stumbled upon a cheesecake recipe in her local paper. This recipe would eventually shape an empire. What began as a small basement bakery eventually led to a family move west, where her son David opened the first Cheesecake Factory in Beverly Hills in 1978. At the time, the restaurant was simply a place to showcase his mother's creations, a bet that a dessert-heavy menu could hold its own in a crowded dining scene. He was right. Lines wrapped around the block from day one, and the buzz never really stopped.

Yet, The Cheesecake Factory's very first menu wasn't nearly as lengthy as the one that would follow. What began with a few simple dishes and a handful of cheesecakes would soon balloon into a culinary encyclopedia that mirrors the brand's appetite for reinvention. How it got there, though, had less to do with marketing than Overton's trial-and-error approach to building a restaurant from scratch.

When David Overton opened The Cheesecake Factory in 1978, he didn't set out to build a restaurant empire (or a menu that could double as a coffee table book). His plan was simple: Serve the cheesecakes his mother perfected alongside a few approachable dishes he knew he could cook himself. Early offerings reflected that simplicity: Burgers, sandwiches, and salads made up the bulk of the lineup, chosen as much for ease as for taste.

Then came the tinkering. Overton noticed customers loved variety, so he gave them more of it. Every June and December, he'd add new dishes based on whatever Americans were craving at the moment. The menu snowballed until, as Overton told VICE, "upscale casual dining" became the restaurant's identity, making it the type of place where a table could order nachos, miso salmon, and steak Diane without anyone blinking.

Somehow, the chaos worked. Despite its size, The Cheesecake Factory makes everything fresh — except the cheesecake, which is baked offsite at the brand's dedicated bakery. That commitment to freshness keeps the sprawling menu from feeling like a gimmick. Overton has said he probably should've kept things slimmer, but the restaurant's endless options became its charm. What started as a family bakery evolved into an encyclopedia of comfort food, proof that sometimes, too much of a good thing is exactly what people want.