New York City has been blessed with yet another chain restaurant to turn our beloved metropolis into the suburban , mall - scaped waste we ’ve always want it to be .

Today , Cheesecake Factory officially makes its high - calorie marking on Gotham , opening its first - ever location within urban center limits at the Queens Center shopping mall in Elmhurst . The California - base Sir Ernst Boris Chain is probably easily cognise for its sprawl 250 - item fare and notoriously enormous portions . But its theme song foodstuff is , of course , cheesecake – more than 30 sort , in fact .

It ’s a bluff move , number to NYC , where cheesecake is more iconic than even the unstoppable Cronut ® . Cheesecake Factory interpreter Alethea Rowe say the mountain chain has been “ eager ” to make it to the Big Apple and compete with local cheesecake purveyors like Junior ’s for year : “ New York is an incredible , energetic urban center that ’s be intimate for heavy solid food , and we are excited to at long last have a restaurant here ! ”

Cheesecake Factory

Cheesecake Factory’s original cheesecake topped with strawberries|Melissa Kravitz/Thrillist

When many New Yorkers hear “ groovy food , ” their first thought is believably not White Chocolate Caramel Macadamia Nut Cheesecake , much less other Cheesecake Factory staples , like Tex Mex Eggrolls or the ill-famed Louisiana Chicken Pasta – a dish that has been ranked among the unhealthy restaurant meals in the land .

Nevertheless , I wanted to see how the Factory ’s stock cheesecake compare to the NYC banner - bearer at Junior ’s . According to Rowe , the California version is design a fleck differently than what most New Yorkers are used to . “ Our cheesecakes are considered to be ‘ California creamy ’ and are much light and creamy than New York - fashion cheesecake which is much denser than ours , ” she explained via email . “ Both varieties of cheesecake are delicious , but our creamy - expressive style cheesecake is much more conducive to adding in ingredient such as confect , cake , and topping . ”

For the function of comparison , I ordered the original , go past with strawberries , very similar to the direction it ’s serve at Junior ’s , the Brooklyn asylum that we all live has the best cheesecake in all of New York . In a restaurant make out for big portion , the piece was noticeably small than I wait , and at $ 7.95 , not any cheaper than a husky slice of Junior ’s original . ( In fact , it ’s the accurate same price . )

exceed with impudent pip cream , this silky cheesecake was surely low-cal , like sticking your spoonful into a blob of cheesecake - flavored yogurt – the character that healthy - ish people in California probably love to eat after going to the gym ( the same type of citizenry who think In - N - Out is honorable than Shake Shack , but we can relieve that for another sentence ) . The loose mill cheesecake , which for sure did n’t offer as much satisfaction as the more substantial yet still delightfully airy Junior ’s variety , come on a cardboard - thin graham snapper crust , which was not at all crunchy or crumbly like a homemade cooky crust . That ’s another major departure fromthe fashion at Junior ’s , which uniquely features a tenuous layer of quick study patty on the bottom rather , giving legitimacy to the name " cake " being used to describe this dessert . Without that cake impertinence , you might as well call it a Wedge of Sweetened Cream Cheese . That said , I slowly feed the entire slice .

All things considered , the Cheesecake Factory interpretation did n’t leave much to kick about – except that it was n’t Junior ’s and never will be . NYC is certainly big enough for both styles , but it ’s safe to say that the California transplant wo n’t be overturn Junior ’s for the local cheesecake crown anytime presently .