You show me someone who’s been to all 170 Cheesecake Factory restaurants and I’ll show you a liar. That being said, while we don’t have eyewitness proof to the contrary, they can’t all be that different, right? Regardless of whether one Cheesecake Factory is like visiting any other Cheesecake Factory, it’s still quite interesting that a Cleveland news site felt the need to publish a review of an area Cheesecake Factory location. Yes, I did just fit Cheesecake Factory in three times in one sentence.

The review on Cleveland.com (“powered” by the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Sun News community newspapers) is effusive, to say the least: The menu boasts “22 colorful pages long and almost mind-boggling, with one choice sounding better than the next.”

But wait, there’s more  — Cajun pasta and brunch options, meatless menu items and yes, all that cheesecake. Plus, it’s so pretty there:

It is one of the most attractive restaurants in the city. It has a worldly concept that reflects various countries and cultures. There’s handsome, huge Egyptian columns, French limestone floors, hand-blown lighting fixtures, handpainted fabrics with dark cherry wood and brass accents.

Hearkening back to the days of that infamous, earnest Olive Garden review makes us think hey wait, maybe this review is hitching its star to that viral wagon. But Slate.com’s Justin Peters sees it something else — indicative of the overall sorry state of newspapers today.

He points to the decision of Advance Publications, the owner of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, to cut down on its publication schedule and fire employees as a way for the paper “to continue to serve the community as the leading source of news and information for years to come.” But not to worry, as executives promised “the company would marshal its resources to deliver a quality product in the digital age.”

Is this kind of review, Peters asks, that quality product?

Perhaps not — it could just be a rerun of well-trod territory: As Consumerist reader Heath pointed out, that this same reviewer wrote about the location in question back in 2010 as well, and was just as over-the-moon back then.

Whether it’s a well-meant review of a place Clevelanders are interested in frequenting, a riff on the earnest-but-seriously-what-are-you-doing-reviewing-this? review or just another sign of the decaying state of newspapers, well, that’s not our call. I’m also the only person on the planet who despises cheesecake in general so I will never be able to prove this review wrong.

*Thanks for the tip, David!

Cleveland.com’s Review of the Cheesecake Factory Reveals the Sorry State of American Newspapers [Slate.com]
Cheesecake Factory in Lyndhurst offers delicious variety of entrees, desserts in a handsome setting [Cleveland.com]

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