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About 18 months ago, there was an article (here on HN) suggesting that The Cheesecake Factory (an American casual dining restaurant, big chain) made their food

About 18 months ago, there was an article (here on HN) suggesting that The Cheesecake Factory (an American casual dining restaurant, big chain) made their food from scratch. This is trivially debunked. Go to their website, which has the menu for all locations in North America, and you can see for yourself that there is practically nothing that would or could be made from scratch. Everything, literally every menu item at the time, was something that could be brought frozen and reheated there (on a grill more likely than in microwaves, but I don't know which). Furthermore, I pointed out how I drive past one every day to go to work, and twice a week in the morning I will see the Sysco truck unloading in the back of the restaurant. Even the fucking salad, such as they are, are in plastic bags and dumped into a bowl. Pointing this out though, was worthy of more than one downvote. Why? Does HN have some deep bench of experts on American casual dining chains? Is it a technology topic? No, the echo chamber had already decided, and going against this insults the echo chamber even if there is no emotional investment. When I said there was an echo chamber, I pointed out that I was excluding politics because you kind of just expect that. But it's literally about everything no matter how trivial it should be. I have had many examples over the years, and if there were a point to it I could give you an exhaustive list. This is the human condition. Forever arguing over stupid shit for the rest of eternity, or at least until doomsday, which I suspect is less than a century off.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> This is trivially debunked. Go to their website, which has the menu for all locations in North America, and you can see for yourself that there is practically nothing that would or could be made from scratch. Everything, literally every menu item at the time, was something that could be brought frozen and reheated there (on a grill more likely than in microwaves, but I don't know which). I mean, what? So for example, Thai Chicken Salad: https://www.thecheesecakefactory.com/menu/salads/thai-chicken-salad https://www.thecheesecakefactory.com/menu/salads/thai-chicke... It has leafy greens that would get soggy if frozen or combined with the other ingredients for shipping. There is a slice of lime on the side. I doubt they ship them pre-sliced or heat the lime with the rest of the food. It's presumably "from scratch" in the same way that Blue Apron is and not in the sense that there is a local chef shopping at the local wholesale market to decide what to put on the local menu. But it's possible to distinguish the former from the thing where your meal comes out of a freezer and goes into a microwave as a single unit, with the latter implying that it contains no ingredients that haven't been frozen or stuffed so full of preservatives that they'll biodegrade some decades after the wrapper does. And even if some items have ingredients that could be frozen, that doesn't tell you whether or not they actually were. Or, for that matter, that a meal made "from scratch" couldn't have any frozen ingredients.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  This is what I'm talking about. > It has leafy greens that would get soggy if frozen or combined with the other ingredients for shipping. You know those plastic bags of chopped lettuce, often with carrots and cabbage in them too, you can buy at the grocery store? Sysco has those in their catalog, bigger ones. Everything's in a package, dumped in a bowl or on a plate, reheated (if needed) and sent out to your table. But all of HN was absolutely certain that they were some gourmet operation, and that some very large majority of their menu was made there, in the restaurant. And everyone still thinks so. Who thought this originally (if anyone) I do not know, but then you all sort of agreed. Enough of you agreed that disagreement wasn't welcome, and that was that. We live in giant echo chambers, and it's not just the polarized politics doing it. > And even if some items have ingredients that could be frozen, that doesn't tell you whether or not they actually were. I'm telling you that. I'm giving you an educated opinion, having worked in restaurants and knowing what non-previously prepared food looks like, having eaten in the restaurant in question multiple times, having studied the menu the day the story hit HN. No sauce, no pasta, no soup, no meal, no dessert, absolutely nothing there is "made from scratch". No primary ingredients are even available in the kitchen of that restaurant save tapwater and the few spices they would sprinkle on their overpriced sirloin steak on the grill are back there. And it's bizarrely naive to think so. It's also weird how insulted this forum is from people who don't sit in an office chair to earn their living. I guess there's only one Cheesecake Factory in all of San Francisco though, and the workers there live in the homeless tent camps so none of you talk to them.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

> This is trivially debunked. Go to their website, which has the menu for all locations in North America, and you can see for yourself that there is practically nothing that would or could be made from scratch. Everything, literally every menu item at the time, was something that could be brought frozen and reheated there (on a grill more likely than in microwaves, but I don't know which). I mean, what? So for example, Thai Chicken Salad: https://www.thecheesecakefactory.com/menu/salads/thai-chicken-salad https://www.thecheesecakefactory.com/menu/salads/thai-chicke... It has leafy greens that would get soggy if frozen or combined with the other ingredients for shipping. There is a slice of lime on the side. I doubt they ship them pre-sliced or heat the lime with the rest of the food. It's presumably "from scratch" in the same way that Blue Apron is and not in the sense that there is a local chef shopping at the local wholesale market to decide what to put on the local menu. But it's possible to distinguish the former from the thing where your meal comes out of a freezer and goes into a microwave as a single unit, with the latter implying that it contains no ingredients that haven't been frozen or stuffed so full of preservatives that they'll biodegrade some decades after the wrapper does. And even if some items have ingredients that could be frozen, that doesn't tell you whether or not they actually were. Or, for that matter, that a meal made "from scratch" couldn't have any frozen ingredients.

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
This is what I'm talking about. > It has leafy greens that would get soggy if frozen or combined with the other ingredients for shipping. You know those plastic bags of chopped lettuce, often with carrots and cabbage in them too, you can buy at the grocery store? Sysco has those in their catalog, bigger ones. Everything's in a package, dumped in a bowl or on a plate, reheated (if needed) and sent out to your table. But all of HN was absolutely certain that they were some gourmet operation, and that some very large majority of their menu was made there, in the restaurant. And everyone still thinks so. Who thought this originally (if anyone) I do not know, but then you all sort of agreed. Enough of you agreed that disagreement wasn't welcome, and that was that. We live in giant echo chambers, and it's not just the polarized politics doing it. > And even if some items have ingredients that could be frozen, that doesn't tell you whether or not they actually were. I'm telling you that. I'm giving you an educated opinion, having worked in restaurants and knowing what non-previously prepared food looks like, having eaten in the restaurant in question multiple times, having studied the menu the day the story hit HN. No sauce, no pasta, no soup, no meal, no dessert, absolutely nothing there is "made from scratch". No primary ingredients are even available in the kitchen of that restaurant save tapwater and the few spices they would sprinkle on their overpriced sirloin steak on the grill are back there. And it's bizarrely naive to think so. It's also weird how insulted this forum is from people who don't sit in an office chair to earn their living. I guess there's only one Cheesecake Factory in all of San Francisco though, and the workers there live in the homeless tent camps so none of you talk to them.