Calorie Pushers Come To Town
Am I the only one who’s not jumping up and down and clapping my hands like a giddy schoolgirl about the arrival of the Cheesecake Feedlot Factory?
This is a company that keeps their nutrition information under tighter security than Coke’s secret recipe. They refuse to tell their customers what they’re serving. Their web site states that they do not provide nutrition information, and it’s not available in their restaurants, or on most independent nutrition sites, either.
(check out CalorieLab, it’s funny.)
Emails to the company requesting nutrition this response: “At this time we do not provide nutritional information, such as caloric values, although we do hope to have that service available to our guests in the future.” I find it extremely difficult to believe that they don’t have the info.
They’d like very much for us to believe that their food is a step up from the frozen Sysco garbage that most chains serve. One of their claims is that “Everything on our menu is made in-house on a daily basis”. But those portion sizes! They are famous mostly for huge plates overflowing with pounds of high-calorie food.
Their business model is based on serving gargantuan portions. HUGE portions = huge profits = huge calorie counts.
Time Magazine:
It’s the big gulp theory. The basic laws of restaurant economics state that meals keep getting bigger because food is cheap and fixed overhead–staff, rent, equipment–is the same no matter how much is piled on your plate. So giant servings are a win-win: you pay a little extra for a lot more food, and the restaurant makes extra profit. It’s the same rule that created tubs of movie popcorn, venti-size coffee cups and Burger King’s Meat’normous Omelet Sandwich. It’s why no restaurant will ever give you a reasonably sized stack of pancakes.
How bad is it? A slice of their cheesecake has 1,150 calories, and 74 grams of fat. 317 minutes of walking, anyone?
Carrot cake’s healthy, right? Not at 1,560 calories and 84g of fat per slice.
A cook at Recipe Zaar re-created the Pasta Da Vinci, and came up with 3,736 calories, and 165 grams of fat. Is it any wonder that we’re turning into a country of 400 pounders?
To be fair, I should mention that the chain has made some changes in response to recent criticism of their business model. To their credit, they have changed their recipes and now have a trans-fat free menu. That’s a good thing.
They’ve got a “lunch size,” too, available until 5:00 pm. The “lunch size” meatloaf, for instance, is two slices, instead of three. The grotesquely oversized sides remain the same: a mountain of mashed potatos with gravy and a trough of corn.
They’ve also introduced a line of “Weight Management” salads. OK, good, I’ll order one of those, maybe the “Weight Management” California Salad, which has only - only? - 43 grams of fat. Than again, maybe I won’t…
Besides, how many people can bring themselves to order the “small” portion, when the large is only a couple of dollars more?
Look, I love cheesecake as much as anyone. But this isn’t just cheesecake, it’s gluttony.
Readers, you will most likely end up at this restaurant because of a social event that a friend or co-worker has planned. Be extremely careful. Plan to split your entree with a friend, or get a to-go box and save the other half. Stay away from foods that won’t re-heat well, like battered fried fish.
And hey, if you’re really jonesing for cheesecake, why not shop at a 30-year old local institution?
Anyone have comments on the architecture?
This article was also posted at: CalorieLab.com
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Itchy, GREAT post! Yes, absolutely we should be shopping at Cheesy Eddie’s. Those calorie counts are just out of this world.
They might not release their numbers, but Calorie King does
Man About Town has his own take on the Cheesecake Factory called Dairy-Based Baked Goods Mill: Enough is Enough Already!
Critics are calling it “Best rant of the month,” “So sad, but so true,” and “Wonderful post… a perfect summation of my feeling on the matter.”
Sort of true: Calorie King’s got the desserts, IMO the entrees are the killers.
If you’re looking for user-generated reviews of local restaurants, try Yelp.com.
I find that in the suburbs there are few if any truly healthy restaurants. A salad is not iceberg lettuce and a tomato wedge with croutons. Why does all fish have to be fried? Ever hear of a whole wheat roll? Balsamic vinegar and olive oil are not “fancy and exotic.” And wait for the judgmental squinty eyes if you are a vegetarian…then the scoff…If it doesn’t have parents, they don’t serve it.
Great post Itchy! Another reason to despise this new king of the chain restaurant hill. I must be a bigger jerk than most folks; I honestly would not meet friends or coworkers here. Then again, most people know better than to invite me to a place like this.
I really enjoyed WROC-TV’s coverage of the grand opening this evening. I’m sure Joylynn Whitfield spent years in journalism school for the sole purpose of giving free advertising to a chain restaurant and the opportunity to feign excitement about it.
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