The Cheesecake Factory Has Nearly 20% Of Its Locations In One US State

The Cheesecake Factory is one of the most recognizable and popular restaurant chains in the United States. Whether it's the iconic brown bread or its famously and massively long menu that has brought them there, most people in the US will have at least considered eating at the Cheesecake Factory.

So it makes sense that it would have the largest share of its locations in the most populous state in America. According to data company ScrapeHero, 38 out of the United States' 212 locations of the Cheesecake Factory are located in California. That's 18% of its restaurants, in a state that accounts for about 12% of the US' 333 million residents.

The next highest percentage of the Cheesecake Factory's locations is in Florida. The Sunshine State has 22 locations, a distant second place at 10% of the total 212 Cheesecake Factories. Texas has 8% of all locations with 18, New York with 6% at 12, and New Jersey, whose 10 locations account for 5% of all locations of the popular restaurant.

No other state has 10 or more restaurants, meaning its percentage of restaurant locations won't come in any higher than 3%. And there are currently 11 states with no Cheesecake Factories at all: Arkansas, Maine, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Vermont, Mississippi, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Montana, and Alaska. Most US territories – such as Guam, the Virgin Islands, and American Samoa – also do not have a Cheesecake Factory, though there is one in Puerto Rico's capital city of San Juan.

Today, according to ScrapeHero, the Cheesecake Factory has locations in 191 US cities, including the 38 in California. That's certainly a lot of Cheesecake Factories, but while California has both the biggest population and biggest number of Cheesecake Factories, it isn't necessarily the state with the highest concentration of restaurant locations.

That would have to be New Jersey. Though not even in the top three in terms of number of Cheesecake Factory locations, its 10 restaurants for a population of around 9 million means that there is one Cheesecake Factory for about every 900,000 people in the Garden State. California's 38 locations for a 39 million person population means that there's slightly less than one restaurant per million.

Meanwhile, Florida's 22 locations in a population of around 22 million people mean that there's roughly one Cheesecake Factory restaurant for each million people who live there. And its most recognizable city, Miami, has the most number of locations of any in the United States, with four restaurants spread out through a city of 440,000 people. Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, both popular Florida destinations in their own right, each have two locations.

Granted, the Cheesecake Factory doesn't just have popularity or population going for it when it comes to the Golden State. The Cheesecake Factory has been a California business from its inception, having been founded in 1972 by Evelyn and Oscar Overton after they moved from Detroit, Michigan to the Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills.

Though this first location wasn't a restaurant but a wholesale bakery, the first restaurant location was opened just six years later in Beverly Hills, with a second restaurant coming five years later. To this day, the company's headquarters are located in the Calabasas Hills neighborhood of Calabasas, just about an hour northwest from that first restaurant. The Cheesecake Factory wouldn't open its first location outside of Southern California until 1991, when it opened a restaurant in Washington, DC.

Though a large number of its current California locations are concentrated in the greater LA Metropolitan area, the Cheesecake Factory also has restaurants as far south as Chula Vista –- just north of the border with Mexico –- and as far north as the Sacramento suburb of Roseville. Most major cities, including San Diego, San Jose, and San Francisco, have at least one Cheesecake Factory in their city limits. And this doesn't even include the other restaurant chains owned by the Cheesecake Factory.