The Cheesecake Factory can’t get enough of the Gen Z ‘Tuscan moms’

Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg/Getty Images

It’s always going to be 2006 at the Cheesecake Factory. And for the crowds of young people dining there in cheetah print and sunglasses bigger than the restaurant’s portions, that’s exactly how they want it.

Take Caroline Fisher, a 23-year-old in Phoenix who embodies the “Tuscan mom” aesthetic, a style rooted in the nostalgia of early 2000s suburban mothers in Italian-themed kitchens.

On one night at the Cheesecake Factory, Fisher wore boot-cut flare jeans, a chunky brown belt and wedge heels that she thrifted. She straightened her platinum blonde hair and added a bump-it. She thinned her eyebrows and did a smoky eye with gold eyeshadow. The playlist on the way to the restaurant featured Norah Jones and Maroon 5, hitmakers from the aughts.

Courtesy Caroline Fisher

Fisher is among the mostly younger diners who have channeled “Desperate Housewives” at Cheesecake Factory, the gaudy chain restaurant known for its warm mood lighting and towering columns. And these “Tuscan moms” receive hundreds of thousands of views on social media.

Fisher ordered a salad and french fries, and split a bottle of wine with her friend. Her friend ordered off the chain’s Skinnylicious menu — “the ultimate Tuscan mom” lineup, she said.

The chain, which has over 200 locations in the United States, was recently caught in a culture war against its will , sparked by a joke from former President Barack Obama on its aesthetic. But the more interesting story is just how well the Cheesecake Factory is doing. Its stock soared above Big Tech this year (it trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol CAKE ). It just reported its second consecutive quarter with more than $1 billion in revenue.

A big reason for that? Social media trends like the Tuscan mom aesthetic, largely driven by younger consumers.

The company credited its expanded role on social media for much of its success in its latest earnings call last Wednesday. “A very large percentage” of guests skew younger, CFO Matthew Clark said.

Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

When any nondescript suburb opens a Cheesecake Factory, there’s no restaurant around that can compare to its palatial grandeur. It’s a “postmodern melange of a bunch of different references that looks almost otherworldly because it doesn’t really fit into one box perfectly,” Evan Collins, a designer and co-founder of the Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute, told CNN.

The plethora of options in its phone book-sized menu “naturally lends itself to engaging and shareable social content,” the company’s president, David Gordon, said on the call. The Cheesecake Factory notably did not acknowledge the political discourse whirling around it, and did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on the Tuscan mom aesthetic.

The Tuscan mom trend is rooted in nostalgia. Think over-sized kitchens with dark cabinetry, granite countertops, artificial grapes and many, many rooster decorations.

The Tuscan mom aesthetic reached peak popularity on Pinterest this summer, around the time the Cheesecake Factory topped $1 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time.

The appeal of the Tuscan mom aesthetic spans from fashion and beauty to interior design, Pinterest said. Searches for “Tuscan mom outfit” rose 4,975% year-over-year; “2000s Tuscan mom,” meanwhile, jumped 1,501%.

It echoes a time that Americans often romanticize: the housing boom before the 2008 crash, when purchasing an overvalued McMansion as a gateway to the upper-middle class was still feasible.

People were able to afford “driving in a nice Lincoln Navigator, bedazzled jeans and a fancy top, and going to the spa, and then after that going to Starbucks and Cheesecake Factory,” Collins, the designer, told CNN.

Courtesy Nikole Jackson

Nikole Jackson, a 32-year-old from San Antonio, Texas, described it as “2000s mature, not the whole Britney Spears type of 2000s, but more catered toward the Kardashians, who had more of a regal type of look to them.”

The Cheesecake Factory, unlike its other suburban strip-plaza counterparts like Starbucks and Barnes & Noble, has held on to that aesthetic, Jackson said.

“A lot of places have lost that character and replaced it with this almost bright, stark white clinical appearance,” Jackson said. “And thankfully, Cheesecake Factory never lost that.”

“Everything that they’re doing is resonating with guests,” Citi equity research analyst Jon Tower told CNN.

It started with the addition of “Bites” and “Bowls” to its appetizer menu last year, smaller portions of dishes like Chicken & Waffle Skewers and Teriyaki Salmon bowls at a lower price. But most importantly, Tower said, the company recently got a new creative agency as it took off on the internet.

Soon, social media began trending with the revelation that almost everything on the Cheesecake Factory’s gargantuan menu is made from scratch ( except the cheesecake ). For many inflation-fatigued consumers, the fresh food, huge portions and fancy atmosphere are worth the price.

“When I get my herb-crested chicken parm, there’s three chicken pieces on that plate,” Jackson said. “And of course, they give you a bunch of bread.”

Food influencers began vlogging from the cushioned red booths in the past year. One viral “order hack” — the cajun salmon platter with cajun shrimp and extra Parmesan cream sauce — actually led to higher sales of the longtime menu staple, according to the earnings call.

Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

While social media trends come and go as quickly as the free bread at the Cheesecake Factory, Tower said the company has no shortage of content to work with.

“They’ve got 250-plus menu items to play with,” he said.

Obama’s recent remarks on the Cheesecake Factory stirred up conversations again on the restaurant’s aesthetic. He joked that President Donald Trump has “got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”

Rebecca Cook/Reuters

It quickly imploded , starting with accusations from right-leaning media of Obama-era elitism and ending with a former GOP congressman “clinging to my guns and religion at the Greensboro Cheesecake Factory tonight.”

But followers of the Tuscan mom lifestyle had little to say about the comment, if they were even keeping up with the controversy.

“Listen, the White House may look how it looks, but I think that the Cheesecake Factory does not deserve the slander because I love it,” Fisher said.

Patrick T. Fallon/彭博社/盖蒂图片社

在芝士蛋糕工厂，永远都是2006年的模样。而对于那些穿着豹纹服装、戴着比餐厅菜量还大的太阳镜在那里用餐的年轻人来说，这正是他们想要的。

以 23 岁的菲尼克斯女孩卡罗琳·费舍尔为例，她体现了“托斯卡纳妈妈”的审美，这种风格源于 2000 年代初期郊区母亲们对意大利主题厨房的怀旧之情。

在芝士蛋糕工厂的某个晚上，费舍尔穿着喇叭裤，系着一条棕色粗腰带，脚踩一双从二手店淘来的坡跟鞋。她把铂金色的头发拉直，还做了个蓬松的造型。她修细了眉毛，用金色眼影画了烟熏妆。去餐厅的路上，她播放的歌单里有诺拉·琼斯和魔力红乐队的歌，这两支乐队都是千禧年代的热门歌手。

承蒙卡罗琳·费舍尔惠允

费舍尔是众多在芝士蛋糕工厂（Cheesecake Factory）——这家以温馨灯光和高耸立柱而闻名的华丽连锁餐厅——模仿美剧《绝望主妇》造型的年轻食客之一。这些“托斯卡纳辣妈”在社交媒体上获得了数十万的浏览量。

费舍尔点了一份沙拉和薯条，还和朋友合喝了一瓶葡萄酒。她的朋友点了这家连锁餐厅的“纤体美味”套餐——她说这是“托斯卡纳妈妈的终极食谱”。

这家在美国拥有200多家分店的连锁餐厅，最近卷入了一场它并不情愿的文化战争，起因是前总统奥巴马对其美学风格的一个玩笑。但更引人注目的是，芝士蛋糕工厂的业绩有多么出色。今年，它的股价飙升，超过了大型科技公司（该公司在纳斯达克上市，股票代码为CAKE）。它刚刚公布了连续第二个季度营收超过10亿美元的业绩。

造成这种情况的一个重要原因是什么？社交媒体上的流行趋势，例如托斯卡纳妈妈的审美风格，主要由年轻消费者推动。

该公司在上周三的最新财报电话会议上表示，其在社交媒体上日益增长的作用是其取得巨大成功的主要原因。首席财务官马修·克拉克表示，其顾客群体中“很大一部分”是年轻人。

Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

当任何一个毫不起眼的郊区开了一家芝士蛋糕工厂餐厅时，周围就没有哪家餐厅能与之媲美，尽显宫殿般的奢华。消费者美学研究所联合创始人、设计师埃文·柯林斯告诉CNN：“它融合了各种不同的元素，呈现出一种后现代的混搭风格，看起来几乎超凡脱俗，因为它很难被完美地归类。”

公司总裁大卫·戈登在电话会议上表示，其厚如电话簿的菜单上琳琅满目的选择“自然而然地造就了引人入胜且易于分享的社交内容”。值得注意的是，芝士蛋糕工厂并未对围绕其展开的政治讨论做出回应，也未回应CNN就其“托斯卡纳妈妈”美学风格提出的置评请求。

托斯卡纳风格的妈妈风潮源于怀旧情结。想象一下：超大的厨房，深色橱柜，花岗岩台面，人造葡萄，以及数不胜数的公鸡装饰品。

今年夏天，托斯卡纳妈妈的审美风格在 Pinterest 上达到了人气巅峰，而与此同时，芝士蛋糕工厂的季度收入也首次突破了 10 亿美元大关。

Pinterest 表示，托斯卡纳妈妈的审美魅力涵盖了时尚、美容和室内设计等领域。“托斯卡纳妈妈穿搭”的搜索量同比增长了 4975%；与此同时，“2000 年代托斯卡纳妈妈”的搜索量也增长了 1501%。

这让人想起美国人经常浪漫化的一段时期：2008 年金融危机之前的房地产繁荣时期，当时购买一套价格过高的豪宅作为进入中上阶层的途径仍然可行。

设计师柯林斯告诉 CNN：“人们有能力开着漂亮的林肯领航员，穿着闪亮的牛仔裤和时髦的上衣，去水疗中心，然后去星巴克和芝士蛋糕工厂。”

图片由Nikole Jackson提供

来自德克萨斯州圣安东尼奥的 32 岁女子妮可·杰克逊将其描述为“2000 年代的成熟风格，不是布兰妮·斯皮尔斯那种 2000 年代的风格，而是更迎合卡戴珊家族的风格，她们看起来更有王室风范。”

杰克逊说，与星巴克和巴诺书店等其他郊区商业街的同类店铺不同，芝士蛋糕工厂一直保持着那种美学风格。

杰克逊说：“很多地方都失去了那种特色，取而代之的是那种近乎明亮、冷冰冰的白色诊所式外观。值得庆幸的是，芝士蛋糕工厂从未失去过那种特色。”

“他们所做的一切都引起了顾客的共鸣，”花旗集团股票研究分析师乔恩·托尔告诉 CNN。

去年，这家餐厅在开胃菜菜单中新增了“小食”和“碗装菜品”，例如鸡肉华夫饼串和照烧三文鱼碗，这些菜品分量较小，价格也更低。但更重要的是，Tower表示，随着公司在互联网上迅速发展，他们最近聘请了一家新的创意代理公司。

很快，社交媒体上就出现了一条热门话题：芝士蛋糕工厂庞大菜单上的几乎所有菜品都是手工制作的（除了芝士蛋糕）。对于许多饱受通货膨胀困扰的消费者来说，新鲜的食材、超大的分量和优雅的用餐环境都物有所值。

杰克逊说：“我点的香草烤鸡帕尔马干酪，盘子里只有三块鸡肉。当然，他们还会给很多面包。”

过去一年，美食博主们开始在舒适的红色卡座里拍摄视频博客。据财报电话会议透露，其中一条爆红的“点餐秘诀”——卡津三文鱼拼盘配卡津虾和额外的帕玛森奶油酱——实际上提升了这道长期供应的招牌菜的销量。

Mel Melcon/洛杉矶时报/Getty Images

虽然社交媒体潮流来得快去得也快，就像芝士蛋糕工厂的免费面包一样，但Tower表示，公司并不缺乏内容可供使用。

他说：“他们有超过250种菜品可供选择。”

奥巴马最近关于芝士蛋糕工厂的言论再次引发了人们对这家餐厅美学的讨论。他开玩笑说，唐纳德·特朗普总统“把白宫弄得像萨达姆·侯赛因开了一家芝士蛋糕工厂”。

路透社/Rebecca Cook

它迅速瓦解，先是右倾媒体指责其带有奥巴马时代的精英主义色彩，最后以一位前共和党国会议员“今晚在格林斯伯勒芝士蛋糕工厂紧紧抓住我的枪支和宗教信仰”而告终。

但托斯卡纳妈妈生活方式的追随者们对这一评论却鲜有置评，即便他们关注着这场争议。

“听着，白宫现在的样子可能就是这样，但我认为芝士蛋糕工厂不应该受到这样的诋毁，因为我很喜欢它，”费舍尔说。