Both Raffi and TJIC suggest that the Cheesecake Factory's long lines may counter-intuitively serve to drive demand up rather than demand. Unsurprisingly, Gary Becker has written an article on this: A Note on Restaurant Pricing and Other Examples of Social Influences on Price, 99 Journal of Political Economy 1109 (1991). It is available on JStor here.

For all of the reports of successful cooking endeavors around here, it is only fair to also report the occasional failure. This would feel like a noble try at least if I had been attempting something new or ambitious rather than the simplest steak with a pan sauce and a mashed potato. Somehow, I managed to undercook the potato, attempt to mash it anyway in the cuisinart (failure!), burn the steak (inedible) and scald the cream. Presumably this is the karmic revenge for making fun of Julian Barnes. I packed it all in and thawed some frozen peas with copious quantities of sol kminkowo czosnkowa, which even I could not mess up.

One more thing (and yes, I am obsessed). Tom posts this Slate article from a British food writer saying that CF is better than most equivalent cooking in the UK. I'll go one step further and say that a CF in the middle of London would raise the quality of mid-range restaurant cooking in the entirety of Britain by 7000%. One particularly awful chain called Old Orleans still haunts me on bad nights - I don't think I ever saw anything there that wasn't close friends with the microwave.

And it's a shame, because low end British cooking is actually really good. One of the two best fish dishes I've ever had in my life cost four dollars at Anstruther's "Fish Bar", and it should be a deportable offense to miss buying a smokie if you're anywhere near Arbroath. But between those things, and Gordon Ramsay, there's almost nothing. It's amazing.

So, I've had a great response in comments and email to my Cheesecake factory question. Here's a list of possible reasons the place is so popular.

1. "Branding" - this is Will's idea mixed with some of mine. People go to CF because everyone can agree on it, it sounds like a better night out than saying you went to Chili's, and because people basically trust it. Counter-intuitively, maybe the long waits even help by persuading possible customers that CF really is that good.

2. Meal Replacement - I'm not sure anyone mentioned this, but if you read the mid-90's restaurant trade press, the big thing was "meal replacement". Moms or Dads, apparently, were supposed to stop at places like Boston Chicken on the way home and pick up dinner. It turned out that people didn't like to have their meals replaced by Boston Chicken. But maybe CF portions are so gargantuan that people are able to squeeze 2 or even 3 meals out of one CF visit? Combined with the "chump factor", which would make people wary of going to other equivalent chains with smaller portions for fear of being implicitly taken advantage of, and you might well have a plausible explanation.

3. The food is super-fantastic - No. Even if we concede that the food isn't bad, any other chain is probably as good.

4. The Cheesecake - A lot of people mentioned that the CF Cheesecake was really good. So maybe people are being roped into a CF meal because they want to eat cheesecakes, like people buy Ipods because they want to use Itunes? Maybe so - but in the face of a long wait, wouldn't you tell the nice person behind the counter to put your cheesecake in a box, and then eat it at home?

5. "Bundles" - CF restaurants seem to almost always be in malls. So maybe the long waits aren't really waits, and people like to use the time to shop? If I was a mall, I'd certainly like a CF anchoring a corner. But given the numbers of people I see sitting outside these places, glumly looking at their restaurant provided beepers, I'm not sure.

6. First Dates: CF's entire revenue stream is driven by couples who ended up there accidentally on their first date, and feel obligated to go back ever since. Thanks, Mr. Poon.