“We’re completely booked for the week,” the cheery voice told me over the phone.
I probably should’ve known better. We’re talking about the rooftop Cheesecake Factory at Union Square during the holidays, after all. At least the host consoled me by noting that, as policy, the restaurant keeps a lot of tables available for walk-in guests.
When my partner and I rolled up at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, however, the situation looked dire. The Cheesecake Factory is the crown of the eight-story Macy’s building, and there was already a line of 10 people waiting for the elevator near the department store’s main entrance.
When the elevator doors opened to the restaurant, all I could see were bodies in jackets, milling around the waiting area as others anxiously checked in with the host. It seemed every demographic under the sun had shown up for dinner: giggly teens on dates, families with children, a few middle-aged couples dressed in elegant coats, and a grandma in a pink leopard track suit. Amid the rumble of the crowd, I heard strains of Spanish, Hindi, and Cantonese.
It was going to be a 50-minute wait. So we went for a walk.
The doom and gloom about the state of Downtown SF’s recovery didn’t abate much in 2024. Yawning storefront vacancies, the mourning of Macy’s future, and a publicly visible addiction crisis fueled debate during a contentious election cycle. In turn, Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie has emphasized downtown improvement as a key priority in 2025. (One tip: It would probably help if Dior security guards didn’t run over teenage girls and cyclists.)
There are obvious problems. Beyond the vacancies, I see exactly zero interest in the ultra-luxury brands like Ferragamo and Dior that clog up so many of the streets around Union Square; full of stern-looking sales reps, these shops are hardly inviting spaces for working people to explore (plus, heavy branding is déclassé among the tech elite who can actually afford it).
The “Winter Wander-land” programming along closed portions of Stockton Street is more welcoming, but the project feels half-complete, just a handful of food trucks and vendors crammed under a too-small tent.
If there’s one gleaming beacon of high-revenue business in the downtown district, it’s the Cheesecake Factory at Macy’s. For better and worse, this massive national franchise has cracked the code to drawing the masses to a much-maligned corner of SF.
Part of the attraction is a restaurant that melds American maximalism (consider the 20-page menu) with in-your-face value (the gargantuan portions), offering quite literally something for everyone. Plus there’s the bizarro comfort of the restaurant’s slapdash interior design, which inspires comparisons to everything from a “post-modern hellscape” to the Daedric Shrines in the fantasy video game Skyrim.
Last Thursday’s visit was the first time I had been to the Cheesecake Factory in about five years, but I still laughed out loud when the full feverish reality of its aesthetic hit me. The room is rife with references to Greco-Roman architecture, pseudo-Egyptian symbolism, and the exotic Orientalist vibe beloved by a subset of White America. It feels gaudy and cheap, yet perfect in its singularity. You couldn’t replicate this even if you wanted to. Only Cheesecake corporate can bend such chaotic power to its will.
The best seats in the house are the booths on the patio that overlook Union Square. We were lucky enough to snag one, and the gorgeous view took the edge off another long wait for our food. (Understandable, given the sheer number of diners Cheesecake served that night.)
As for the food? It’s exactly what you need it to be, which is to say it’s pretty good, and they give you a lot of it.
The too-big menu is a trap for people with what I call “poor menu instincts” — those who struggle to pick something and end up with some weird fringe dish that the kitchen can’t execute on. The key here is to stick to the classics. For me, that meant a sampler of four different egg rolls, a mountainous barbecue-ranch chicken salad, and the Cajun jambalaya pasta with shrimp and chicken.
Much of the food still triggers happy memories from my high-school days. I could eat a whole plate of those crisp little rolls of warm avocado, and the salad has just the right amount of dressing. Even better, the shrimp in the pasta were cooked to a perfect snappy texture, rather than the rubbery pellets I feared.
After consuming about 2,000 calories each, my partner and I split a Basque cheesecake with strawberries, almost out of duty to the brand. It was spectacular, if a little more dense than my favorite versions.
As we departed at 8:30 p.m., I was stunned to see the line for tables had not shrunk at all, defying the narrative that nobody goes downtown anymore except to work. Apparently, they do — as long as it’s for a giant plate of decent food in a psychedelic environment that aims to please.
I think about the pair of women who arrived near the end of our meal to gaze happily at the view while taking pictures of each other. One of them peeked over at our dishes and asked about the jambalaya pasta, which I explained was a longtime crowd favorite.
“I guess we need to come back downtown!” she told her friend, who nodded eagerly.
