Cheesecake Factory Open in Fort Worth by Year-End?
June 6,2014
Reposted from the Fort Worth Business Press
By Scott Nishimura
snishimura@bizpress.net
The Cheesecake Factory should be open at downtown Fort Worth's Sundance Square by the end of the year, the company’s senior project manager for the launch told Fort Worth’s Downtown Design Review Board Thursday.
The 8,800-square-foot restaurant - being built in the former Barnes and Noble Cafe at Fourth and Commerce streets and the Ferre restaurant space next door - will have space for 231 diners and patio seating for 44, Joe Avotins said.
The design goal is to fit the restaurant into the existing space without making significant changes to the exterior, Avotins told the Design Review Board, which approved the design plan. Cheesecake Factory will remove the Ferre patio and build a new patio that’s recessed into the restaurant and will include a big awning.
“I will say this is probably the most nuanced design process I’ve been through,” Avotins joked to the Review Board members.
Sundance Square and Downtown Fort Worth, Inc. executives supported the project plan. Sundance and Cheesecake Factory announced May 30 that the restaurant was coming.
Cheesecake Factory restaurants nationally have “raised the sales of the surrounding restaurants, because of the sheer volume,” Johnny Campbell, CEO of Sundance Square, told the Review Board.
Andy Taft, president of Downtown Fort Worth, Inc., said Cheesecake Factory’s reputation is one of appropriately fitting its restaurants into spaces.
“You know it’s going to come to you with a good deal of thought behind it,” he told the Review Board.
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