The Incredible Amount Of Money The Cheesecake Factory Makes In A Year

When you go to the Cheesecake Factory, there's really no option other than to go big or go home. The restaurants are housed inside of truly massive spaces. Nation's Restaurant News tells us that the locations are each somewhere around 7,500 to 10,000 square feet. The spaces are so gigantic that they contain the styles of several different eras, like ancient Egypt and Victorian England, as designer Rick McCormack explained in an interview with Eater.

And then there's the food. Anyone who has walked into one of this nation's cavernous Cheesecake Factory locations and sat down for a meal is familiar with the massive menu. The Cheesecake Factory menu boasts 250 different items, which includes over 30 different types of their famous cheesecake, per Reader's Digest. The towering cheesecake slices can contain well over 1,000 calories apiece. Before you get your dessert, however, you'll likely scarf down one of their mountainous pasta dishes, and of course, you'll begin the meal by eating a few slices of their complimentary signature brown bread.

Everything about the Cheesecake Factory is physically big. But did you know that the franchise is also economically enormous?

According to Vox, there are 211 Cheesecake Factory locations in North America. Additionally, the official Cheesecake Factory website explains that there are 29 international locations. 

Statista reports that the 200-plus locations raked in a whopping total of over $2.9 billion in 2021, which was about 50% more than the chain made in 2020. Though the noteworthy decrease in 2020 can likely be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021's figure is still an impressive jump from the $2.5 billion that the franchise made in 2019. Statista also reveals that on average, a Cheesecake Factory location in 2021 had over $11 million in sales.

Vox tells us that the franchise's total earnings in 2021 were marked by quarterly profits of nearly $750 million. In the same year, on a weekly basis, the average location was generating around $230,000, per the official Cheesecake Factory website. So, how does a restaurant centered on cheesecake make so much money?

When you get a look at some of the Cheesecake Factory's ludicrous sales figures, you may start to get a sense of how the business's impressive annual profits are possible. Reader's Digest, citing an unnamed company spokesperson, tells us that the Cheesecake Factory sells 35 million slices of their namesake dessert every year. 

As for dinner sales, the most popular Cheesecake Factory menu item is fettuccine alfredo — 200,000 customers order the dish every month, per Vox. 140,000 plates of avocado egg rolls and 126,000 rounds of fried mac and cheese are also chowed down on a monthly basis.

According to Vice, Chuck and Odette Ebersole, a retired couple, eat at the Cheesecake Factory upward of 10 times a week. While we think it's probably safe to assume the Ebersoles' particularly extreme love for the restaurant makes them outliers, if they are in any way indicative of the nation's love for the chain, it's no wonder that the Cheesecake Factory is such a prosperous franchise.