When Dina Barmasse-Gray tells people she works at The Cheesecake Factory, she sees their eyes light up as they share stories about their first date at their hometown location or how much they love the Cajun Jambalaya Pasta.
She’s been the chief people officer at the company since 2007, after starting her career at Boeing decades earlier, “putting people into space.” She told Newsweek that she had some restaurant experience growing up, but when she came to The Cheesecake Factory, she was amazed at the pride instilled in the work everyone did, especially from a human resources standpoint.
“All of us feel a responsibility to protect that,” she said. “Our job is to make sure that as we scale, we’re relentless about those things that keep our standards that high. And so that’s only through our people.”
The Cheesecake Factory started as a true mom-and-pop shop in 1972 in Los Angeles, using Evelyn Overton’s original cheesecake recipe from the 1940s. The franchise has grown significantly in 32 years — from eight to 370 restaurants — including locations in the Middle East, Mexico and Asia.
The company owns other brands as well, including Grand Luxe Cafe and Fox Restaurant Concepts, which includes Wildflower, North Italia, Flower Child and Zinburger.
The restaurant is beloved by many, especially for its upscale casual vibe, its unique eclectic design of columns, frescos and uplighting, its iconic 20-page menu and signature brown bread.
“The Cheesecake Factory is an experience like no other; our design and décor is distinctively our own, as is our 250-plus-item menu,” President David Gordon told Newsweek. “Our restaurants are inviting and full of energy. Similarly, we strive to create a welcoming environment for all guests and staff. Today’s guests crave experiential dining, and I believe The Cheesecake Factory and all of our concepts deliver on that experiential element of dining out.”
Every one of the 250 menu items is made from scratch on location using fresh ingredients to offer “something for everyone,” Gordon said. This makes The Cheesecake Factory a welcoming place for any occasion — birthdays, graduations, dates or just lunch with friends after a day shopping at the mall.
“The one thing that unites all these concepts is the shared commitment to making each dining occasion a memorable experience, as well as ensuring that absolute guest satisfaction remains our highest priority,” he said.
The company’s success is directly connected to its ability to create a positive work environment, Gordon added.
“We are committed to being a great place to work for all, where every person can bring their entire self to work, where everyone’s talents are recognized, appreciated and developed, and where everyone truly belongs, united by one shared purpose—to nurture bodies, minds, hearts and spirits,” he said.
The Cheesecake Factory has been featured on several of Newsweek’s “Greatest Workplaces” rankings in 2025, including America’s Greatest Workplaces for Women, Gen Z, Parents and Families, Black Americans folks. It has also been named a great workplace for diversity and mental well-being.
A great workplace starts with its people. At The Cheesecake Factory, the people team’s criteria for new hires is that they must be “so cheesecake.”
The origin of the phrase came after the HR team felt that a candidate nailed an interview. The team couldn’t explain exactly why, but they knew the candidate would be the perfect fit. Eventually, the company defined the new standard. According to Barmasse-Gray, it boils down to having an innate sense of warmth and hospitality, the desire to be challenged and held to high standards, and a love for celebrating and having fun, which all translate to the experience they provide for guests.
Gordon said employees who are “so cheesecake” share in the company’s commitment to excellence, a passion for taking exceptional care of guests and other staff members, and strive to bring their best selves to work.
“We can teach someone the technical part of their position, but we can’t teach them that innate sense of hospitality and pride in being the best they can be—which is essential to being ‘so cheesecake,’” he said.
Once a new hire joins the team, they are subject to a rigorous 60-day training that, Gordon believes, sets The Cheesecake Factory apart from its competition. He said the training is a baseline for providing the best experience for guests and contributes to high employee retention and satisfaction. Part of that training involves leadership getting to know each new hire from the moment they join the company to better understand their goals and motivations.
“We have a focus on our leadership so that they can be the supportive, caring, trustworthy leaders that help all of our restaurants and people succeed,” Barmasse-Gray said. “We can really cater to the needs of our employees [to] find out what’s important to them. That automatically starts to forge those connections to be able to build trust.”
Beyond the training for the nearly 48,000 staff members across the company, she said, there is also a culture of recognition, appreciation, fun and belonging that creates a foundation of trust with the approximately 250 employees at each location. This includes leadership training to get employees on the management track and hosting emotional well-being and diversity training to foster connection between employees.
It can be difficult to work at a Cheesecake Factory restaurant and deliver top-grade service with about 250 menu items. In addition to the training, it is a shared inspiration to deliver on those challenges that provide a consistent service across every location.
“We’ve found that if we can bring in people who have a desire to be at their best, we’ll give them the training they need,” she said. “We’re excited to be able to invest in people’s training because we know that makes them so much more capable and allows them to grow with our company.”
The menu changes twice a year to add new offerings for guests. For example, they added a new Bites and Bowls section over the summer and a Double Smash Burger earlier this year. One of the latest culinary trends Gordon is excited about is the rise in spirit-free cocktails and nonalcoholic beers. The company introduced a Zero Proof Margarita and Paradise Punch at The Cheesecake Factory and a Zero Proof Pina No-Lada and Faux Me Twice at North Italia. Next year, he said, The Cheesecake Factory will introduce an app for its rewards program.
“We are always listening, whether it is through a direct dialogue with our guests, a guest survey, or constantly reviewing our guest sentiment and feedback, we know that there are valuable insights that can inform our future decision making,” Gordon said. “One of the competitive advantages of our scratch kitchens is that they give us the flexibility to regularly add new items to meet our guests’ needs, and that we know they will love.”
But while the menu might change, the culture will remain constant. Barmasse-Gray said the pride Cheesecake Factory’s employees have in their work allows them to pull off what she describes as an impossible concept and provide excellent service. The strong culture supports high retention rates that enable the company to withstand the capricious nature of the food service/restaurant industry, from COVID-19 to inflation.
“We can really make sure that we keep our people motivated and engaged and that we’re having open lines of communication,” she said. “I think those things are our best bedrock defense against anything that’s happening externally, outside of our four walls. We can’t control what’s happening outside that, but what we can control is the environment we create for our staff and so there’s been a lot of different challenges, but I think for us, it’s always about staying ahead of it and remembering that you want to control what you can control within your four walls.”