We know how Trump and Obama feel about The Cheesecake Factory. How do consumers feel?

The Cheesecake Factory has been in the news quite a bit lately, and between the record-breaking revenues and the, uh, interior-design-related feud between two presidents (a sentence I never thought I’d say), I’m wondering just how consumers are feeling about this suddenly-successful casual-dining chain.

Let’s start with what people are probably most curious about right now… It turns out people do, in fact, like The Cheesecake Factory’s aesthetic, with 92% of consumers rating the overall atmosphere as either “excellent” or “very good,” according to Technomic Ignite data.

The brand also scores well on “a welcoming and comfortable atmosphere” (91.7%) and “decor” (88.7%). (Quick, someone run those same surveys on the White House).

Decor, in fact, is The Cheesecake Factory’s third-strongest consumer-sentiment metric when compared to its casual-dining peers, including Applebee’s, Chili’s, Olive Garden, Outback, P.F. Chang’s, and Texas Roadhouse.

Other strengths, according to guests via Technomic Consumer, are menu variety (I mean, it is famously more than 20 pages long), uniqueness (is that a word?), and availability of healthy items on the kids’ menu.

To be fair to President Obama, who said, “prices have gotten so high, a lot of folks can barely afford to go out to eat,” The Cheesecake Factory does in fact rate poorly on related metrics.

According to Technomic, compared to its peers, three of The Cheesecake Factory’s five biggest weaknesses are related to value. It is 7.5 points behind on “prices relative to other, similar locations,” 5.8 points behind on “ability to provide value through quick, high-quality service,” and 5 points behind on “ability to provide value through use of technology.”

The Cheesecake Factory does score 2.2 points ahead overall on consumer sentiment, a nice place to be. It also scores well on interior cleanliness, while it lags on order accuracy, food quality, and food taste and flavor — but never by more than 3.2 points, which makes it a closer race than others we’ve seen.

Other weaknesses include advertising and online ordering experience.

Interestingly, visit satisfaction at The Cheesecake Factory has softened over the past two years, falling from 59.4% in Q4 2024 to 53.1% in Q3 2026, even as traffic has skyrocketed. It may just be that a bigger pool of consumers equates to more grouches.

Regardless, if the brand can work on its value proposition, I don’t see any reason why 2026’s positive sales and traffic can’t become a long-term win for the chain.

Leigh Anne Zinsmeister is a managing editor for Informa’s Foodservice Media, encompassing Restaurant Business, Nation's Restaurant News, and Foodservice Director.