80 degrees in March?!

Purgatory, thy name is the Cheesecake Factory.

Full disclosure: we were at the mall today. We are a family that spends Saturdays at the mall. We went to Foot Locker and Gymboree and, so help me God, Macy's. It was fine and if I'm being honest, was a bit nostalgic as it seems that the boom in Dallas has translated to 1996 era crowds at their local shopping centers. So, all in all, I'm not ashamed. Except for one thing.

It was 5:30 and we decided to get dinner before going home. The closest option? The Cheesecake Factory. We are a family that goes to the mall on Saturday and dines at the Cheesecake Factory. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. Foot Locker was nice, Gymboree was pleasant, and Macy's...well, Macy's was Macy's. So when the Temple of Cheesecake appeared on the horizon, I didn't balk. I haven't been to a Cheesecake Factory in well over a decade, but I remember them being fine; a bit kitchy but the food was good and abundant. This was key because we were starving.

Now, we should have known when we saw people sitting outside. People. Sitting. On the ground. Of the mall. Outside a Cheesecake Factory. Why? Because the wait for a table was two hours. TWO HOURS.

I can't remember ever waiting for any restaurant ever for two hours. The Spotted Pig never even had a two hour wait back in 2005 or when Beyonce and Jay-Z showed up there for dinner and took up the entire second floor*. There is no reason anyone, whoever or where ever you are, needs to wait two hours to merely sit down, let alone for f*cking soft cheese and graham cracker in cake form.

So needless to say, the Cheesecake Factory was abandoned and after a series of unfortunate events that we in no way anticipated (Traffic? In a parking lot?), we got home only just in time for Henry's bedtime and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Lesson learned.

*Thinking back, I'm pretty sure the wait was over two hours. But come on, it's Bey.

I-635