The average Cheesecake Factory customer visits the chain four to six times a year. The company thinks that a new loyalty program can get them to add one or two more.
Launched in 2023, Cheesecake Rewards gives members access to online reservations, a free slice of cheesecake on their birthday and personalized “surprises” throughout the year.
The chain has not revealed how many customers have signed up, but said membership is exceeding its expectations so far. And members tend to have higher check averages, higher frequency and higher satisfaction scores.
The main benefit of the program for Cheesecake is that it allows the brand to communicate directly with these valuable customers, and try to get them to visit even more often.
For instance, a rewards member who only comes in for dinner may get an email letting them know that Cheesecake serves lunch portions at lower prices, and recently added a new line of bowls, explained President David Gordon during the Barclays Eat, Sleep, Play, Shop investor conference on Wednesday.
If a few months go by and the person still hasn’t visited at lunch, the brand can dangle an incentive, like a free slice of cheesecake if the person comes in for lunch on a Monday through Thursday and spends $40.
The Calabasas, California-based Cheesecake Factory has the good fortune of operating busy restaurants. This means its growth tends to be steady, but slow: On Wednesday, it said it’s expecting a same-store sales increase of 1% to 2% for 2026, for instance.
Being able to drive incremental visits during slower times, like lunch, is one way it can sustain and even build upon that growth. As such, the chain is putting a lot of investment behind that loyalty program.
“That's really the best way to spend dollars on marketing that you can actually see that ROI,” said Gordon, according to a transcript from financial services site AlphaSense. “I'm going to know whether or not you came back in. I'm going to know what I offered to you.”
Next year, The Cheesecake Factory will roll out its first loyalty app. It will make it easier for members to make reservations, place to-go orders and track their rewards. And it gives the chain another line of communication to members.
“So if you were to have a reward in your wallet, and you had geolocation turned on, as an example, and you were at the mall, we could send you a notification to say, ‘Hey, Jeff, did you know, you still have a complimentary slice sitting in the Cheesecake wallet? You want to come in and join us today?’” Gordon said.
The app will also potentially include a pay at the table feature, allowing customers to pay and leave faster.
“We know that real estate on somebody's phone is tough to come by, but we think that the development we're doing today will make the app pretty compelling for people,” Gordon said.
Loyalty programs have become increasingly popular at restaurants as they look to drive frequency and gather more data on their customers. They are still somewhat rare at casual-dining chains, where frequency tends to be lower than in fast-food or coffee concepts. But Cheesecake has seen strong demand for its program, even without promoting it too much.
“We have really increased awareness through our social channels and it's worked great,” Gordon said. “So we're going to continue down that path. Even as recent as this past quarter, we saw the amount of folks that were signing up higher than what we would have anticipated and we plan to have that continue through next year.”
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