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The first Cheesecake Factory was little more than a simple café when it opened in Beverly Hills, Calif., in 1978 as a place to feature the cheesecakes that Overton's parents made in their nearby bakery. "I just set out to help my parents," he says. Overton had no training in food and no "culinary influence" other than hours spent hanging out in San Francisco cafés. So he stuffed the sandwiches with sprouts, served espresso drinks nine years before Starbucks did and kept himself open to new ideas. In California in the 1980s, they were everywhere. Early on, he added burritos and a stir-fry to the menu. He loved casual Asian-inspired restaurants like Spago and soon started spending some time each day developing new recipes with his best line cook.
That effort has evolved into the Cheesecake Factory's epic epicurean tasting trips. Twice a year, Overton and his team of R&D chefs visit the best restaurants in New York City, London, Singapore and other cities. A recent New York itinerary included Mario Batali's Del Posto, Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto's Morimoto and Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Spice Market. A weeklong trip might include three lunches and dinners every day, during which they often taste every item on the menu--plus snacks.
A man of Falstaffian proportions and equally wide-ranging tastes, Overton wants his food to be both popular and populist. "The stuffiness of waiters? That's got to go," he says. Not everyone can afford the $30 miso-glazed black cod made famous by Nobu, but the Cheesecake Factory's best-selling miso salmon is only $18 and three times the size. "Why should that memorable food experience be limited?" asks Bob Okura, the Cheesecake Factory's corporate executive chef. Critics call the portions a gimmick; health policy experts call them a dangerous contribution to obesity; the Cheesecake Factory sees value, encouraging customers to make a second meal of leftovers. Overton loves the attention that celebrity chefs have brought to dining out, but there is no room for ego in his restaurants. The person in charge of the food at a Cheesecake Factory is called a kitchen manager, not a chef. The emphasis is on consistency, not creativity.
Instead, creativity is channeled into the company's $1 million R&D kitchen. There, Okura and his staff of 10 chefs, line cooks and pastry chefs have free rein to experiment. Brandon Cook, one of three R&D chefs and the only one who has cooked in a Cheesecake Factory, is riffing on the lobster roll--subbing crab and shrimp for lobster and thick white bread for the traditional top-split hot-dog buns in this classic New England sandwich. Before setting out samples--one on grilled bread, another toasted--he has gone through half a dozen iterations, playing with the dressing and the proportions of bread, seafood, tomato and lettuce. Overton loves the grilled bread, but Cook wants to wait until he can try it with a top-split hot-dog bun before moving it forward in the menu competition. "You can only get those on the East Coast," he says. "I know it will probably taste better."