5 Popular Chain Restaurants That Make Food From Scratch

Whether you dine out regularly or just on special occasions, it's reasonable to expect the restaurant food to be made fresh and with high-quality ingredients. The more emulsifiers, preservatives, stabilizers, and other processing that food goes through, the more that the flavor and texture change. Because of that, you'll always get better-tasting and satisfying meals when they're made from minimally processed ingredients — mainly made from scratch. Fortunately, several popular chain restaurants prepare made-from-scratch foods for diners.

The Cheesecake Factory, Texas Roadhouse, and Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen might be the most well-known restaurants that make scratch-cooked foods. However, you can also get freshly made dishes at Chuy's Tex-Mex and Cracker Barrel. There may not be a standard definition for "made from scratch," but it generally refers to food that starts with combining basic ingredients in the kitchen. For the most part, these restaurant chains do just that, although they might not make everything on their menus exactly from start to finish. Let's take a look at each one and the level of scratch-made food that you can expect.

As an iconic chain restaurant known for its over 20-page menu and 250+items, The Cheesecake Factory proudly professes that it makes "things fresh and from scratch in each restaurant." The chain puts a lot into training its kitchen 30ish cooks to handle the vast menu so that everything can be made fresh every week for guests, according to a former six-year lead cook trainer on Instagram. 

In a Reddit thread, a former employee of eight years described the impressive operation of more than 50 daily staff. This includes prep and line cooks who start arriving at the restaurant from dawn and are each responsible for a specific task, such as blending purees, making sauces, and slicing cheeses and vegetables. Also, the ex-staffer explained that ingredients and dishes with a few-day shelf life — such as dressings, sauces, breaded chicken, and meatloaf — are prepared every few days, wrapped, and reheated to serve.

What might be a shock to many fans, though, is that The Cheesecake Factory doesn't make its famed cheesecake or other baked desserts in its restaurant kitchens. Instead, these about 57 varieties are made in one of its two bakery production facilities in Calabasas Hills, California, and Rocky Mount, North Carolina. The desserts are still made from proprietary recipes from scratch, but they're flash frozen and shipped to each restaurant location to be thawed, garnished, and served to customers. Additionally, these desserts are distributed to other foodservice operators and retailers under The Cheesecake Factory brands and private labels.

When Texas Roadhouse founder Kent Taylor opened the first location in 1993, he had a vision to serve customers quality food at affordable prices without cutting corners. The chain has continued that commitment as it has grown to more than 700 locations across the United States and other countries. More specifically, the restaurant states that it serves "made-from-scratch sides," never-frozen, hand-cut steaks, and freshly baked rolls.

Texas Roadhouse takes the meaning of hand-cut steaks to a whole new level by employing butchers at each of its locations. That's the extra step that sets its steaks apart from other steakhouses. These staff members work in coolers to cut $1 million worth of meat every year per store, and their efforts are recognized and rewarded with the chance to win a hefty prize at an annual, one-of-a-kind meat-cutting contest. However, it's worth noting that a former restaurant worker said on Reddit that the only meat not cut in-house is the T-bone because the butchers don't have a bone saw.

Unfortunately, the steak fries are the only Texas Roadhouse side that isn't made from scratch, a restaurant representative told Eat This, Not That!. Rather than cutting potatoes in-house, each location receives this side item frozen. Some people have also been dismayed that its ranch isn't completely made from scratch. According to an employee on Reddit, the kitchens simply mix a ranch salad powder — instead of its own seasonings — with buttermilk and mayonnaise.

However, the most shocking dish served at Texas Roadhouse was Kraft macaroni and cheese, which was listed as such only on its kids' menu. That has changed, though. A representative confirmed to Daily Dot in June 2025, "All stores have switched to a house-made mac and cheese."

With the word "scratch" in the name, Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen must make everything from scratch in its restaurant, right? Almost. In a 2015 television news segment with KMTV 3 News Now (via YouTube) marking the chain's rebranding from Cheddar's Casual Café, culinary manager Nick Stukenholtz confirmed that "over 90% of our menu is made in-house."

That may have changed at least a little since the restaurant was acquired in 2017 by Darden Restaurants, which also owns Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse. However, Tim Evans, the service manager at the Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen location in Riverdale, Utah, confirmed to the Standard-Examiner in 2023 that the restaurants are still cooking from scratch. "We are a scratch-made restaurant, and we offer great food at great prices with a great atmosphere."

One of the most popular menu items is the homemade chicken pot pie, which actually states on the menu that it's prepared with a "scratch-made cream sauce." It's the reason Cheddar's landed on Daily Meal's list of chain restaurants with the absolute best chicken pot pie. But that's not the only menu item that's made in-house. Some of the menu's other homemade items include queso, onion rings, soups, chicken tenders, and honey butter croissants.

As for the rest of the menu, your definition of "made from scratch" could matter. A former Cheddar's kitchen manager explained in a Reddit thread that the desserts, for example, are baked in-house using box cake mix for the batter. Also, the buttermilk ranch is made with buttermilk, mayonnaise, and a ranch seasoning packet, and the mashed potatoes were made with both freshly cooked and mashed potatoes, as well as boxed potato flakes, to get more servings.

Founded in Austin, Texas, in 1982, Chuy's is a Tex-Mex restaurant built on a vision to serve authentic, fresh food in an appealing and funky-fun atmosphere. Not everyone has heard of Chuy's, but it's becoming one of the Mexican chain restaurants that are taking over the country. Just one year after Darden Restaurants' acquisition of Chuy's in 2024, 11 new locations were opened throughout its home state, and new locations continue to open today. The chain has expanded its presence in 14 other states over the years, too — from Colorado to Virginia to Florida.

The menu at Chuy's features ingredients and recipes from across New Mexico, South Texas, and towns along the Mexico border. Best of all, the restaurant clearly states that "every dish" is "made from scratch each day in our kitchens." And, it's not kidding. The staff members carefully select items from the produce that arrives in the morning. Some of that produce goes into making the chain's nine sauces, all of which are made from scratch.

Additionally, the kitchen is constantly making corn and flour tortillas throughout the day. Even fresh whole chickens are roasted in-house for use in various dishes. Plus, the kitchens aren't even equipped with large freezers like most major chains. Instead, the freezers are about the same size as residential freezers, which are only used for French fries and push-up popsicles or ice cream for kids.

Established in 1969, Cracker Barrel made changes to its logo in 2025 but brought its old logo back a week later because of customer backlash. However, one thing that didn't change and that the restaurant reiterated never will is its commitment to serving "scratch-cooked food made with care." It also boasts making comfort food from scratch in the real kitchens at its more than 660 locations in most U.S. states.

For instance, the restaurants roll buttermilk biscuits and dip their fried chicken in a breading mixture by hand, and all day, the kitchens are preparing gravy and mashed potatoes from scratch. On top of that, the majority of the ingredients the restaurants use — such as carrots, green beans, sweet potatoes, and turnips — come from American-based farms. Even all of its chicken, dairy, eggs, farm-raised catfish, and pork are domestically raised, along with 98.7% of its beef.

Despite that, there are a few Cracker Barrel menu items that aren't made from scratch in the kitchen. The macaroni and cheese, for example, is made with noodles that come from a company that has been making pasta since 1848. Meanwhile, the cheese comes in a premade package that the kitchen mixes with the macaroni and then bakes, according to an employee on Reddit.

A line cook in another Reddit thread noted that the hashbrowns for the hashbrown casserole actually come frozen rather than being made from scratch. And, while Cracker Barrel is open about getting its pancake mix from Shenandoah Mills, the restaurant's kitchens still combine it with wet ingredients to prepare pancakes fresh daily.