What is the Cheesecake Factory?
Mr. Gordon: You need to go back to the 1940s, when Oscar and Evelyn Overton, from their kitchen in their house in Detroit, made cheesecakes to sell to restaurants and other businesses, becoming very popular. They continued this business for over 20 years. Then they moved to California in 1972 and started a similar business in a business park and continued to grow to the point that a full scale bakery was needed which they named The Cheesecake Factory. In 1975 their son, David Overton, who was going to school in San Francisco and studying to be a lawyer, decided to move to Los Angeles to join his parents and grow their business. After much success in wholesaling their desserts, David decided that he wanted to open a restaurant that would feature their cheesecakes and also served food. On February 25, 1978, the first Cheesecake Factory restaurant opened in Beverly Hills, California, and David decided to put a sign out on the door saying that they would be open at 2 PM so he could not hav
