Obama, Trump sparring over Cheesecake Factory leaves Long Island diners cold

The Cheesecake Factory, a restaurant chain known for its generous portions and its desserts, was thrust into the nation’s political debate this week when a former president used its decor to criticize the current president.

"He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory," said former President Barack Obama, mocking President Donald Trump’s taste in White House renovations while campaigning for Democratic candidates in Ohio and Michigan.

Trump's White House renovations include a helipad, a 90,000-square-foot ballroom and golden flourishes and cherubs in the Oval Office. He was quick to jab back, telling reporters: "For you to say it’s a Cheesecake Factory, that just shows why you were a lousy president."

Then, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went to a Cheesecake Factory and ate a French dip cheeseburger — his usual, Fox Business reported. "I would just tell the Martha’s Vineyard set to give it a try," the secretary said.

There are four Cheesecake Factories on Long Island and on Tuesday at midday the one in Westbury at Samanea New York, formerly known as The Mall at the Source, had a lunch crowd of about 50 customers.

In interviews conducted in the parking lot outside the restaurant, the consensus was that "they should be talking about more important stuff," as Michael Feiner, a retired teacher from Queens, put it. "This is just typical political screwiness."

Joel Espi, of Copiague, said Trump was "Worrying about stuff he should not be ... I don’t really see a lot of benefits" to the White House renovations. On the other hand, he said, he was "kind of" insulted by Obama’s weaponizing of the restaurant’s decor. "I don’t really get the message," he said. "I love the food here, definitely ... We love to eat pasta a lot here, and the desserts are the best."

Donna Formica, of Sayville, said she disapproved of the way Trump had pursued his building projects in the White House and surrounding capital: "He didn’t follow anything, get any of the approvals" from cultural boards with oversight authority. She added that the Republican-controlled Congress "would throw a fit if it were the other way around" with a Democrat in the presidency.

Later, in a phone interview, Formica clarified a couple points: "I see nothing wrong with the Cheesecake Factory — I had a very nice lunch," she said. As for the White House decor, "I don’t like it. I think it’s garish."

The Westbury Cheesecake Factory was vast, covering two floors with four sets of arched upper floor windows overlooking the parking lot. Egyptian-style columns topped with faces anchored the upstairs dining room. The walls had an aged terracotta finish and cherubs smiled down from ceiling frescoes.

"I remember Westbury very well — that was one of our earlier restaurants," Rick McCormack, the former vice president of design for the Cheesecake Factory, said in a phone interview. "It was a challenging location ... Usually the more challenging restaurants turn out to be the nicer ones. All the hard work you put into it certainly pays off and creates a unique restaurant, not one that feels like it was rubber-stamped."

McCormack, who left the Cheesecake Factory in 2008 to run his own hospitality design firm, Studio McCormack, said he was fond of the Egyptian-style columns, a motif repeated in other Cheesecake restaurants. "We thought they were eye-catching and made a good design statement," he said.

The Cheesecake design philosophy, at least while he was helping shape it, McCormack said, was lavish but not grandiose: "We were creating a little fantasy for people to go celebrate special occasions in, hopefully an environment they had never experienced before ... Our goal was always to create an environment that would hopefully impress and surprise people, where you would walk in, and see the upscale environment, then be pleasantly surprised that prices weren’t high."

McCormack said he took no personal umbrage over his work being made the butt of a joke. But he objected on professional grounds: "You can't equate the glitz of what President Trump has introduced to the White House versus the glitz, I guess, of the Cheesecake Factory, if you don’t have any eye for design, but to me, it couldn’t be further apart."

It felt wrong, he added, "For [Obama] to put a ding on, really, an incredible American success story."

Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic campaign strategist, said he doubted that, in the weeks before midterm elections, the Cheesecake moment would amount to much more than a blip.

"Always in elections, it gets back to basics: can voters afford to eat, drive their cars, get a mortgage, afford a home, are we at war or not?"

Most Americans, he added, "can’t afford to go to the Cheesecake Factory — they don’t have the money to spend."

A Cheesecake Factory representative did not respond to a request for comment.

On Tuesday, the company reported its 383 locations had generated revenue of $1.03 billion for the third quarter of 2026, with comparable sales up 15.2% year-over-year.

The chain will open a new restaurant at the Green Acres Mall in December, Newsday has reported. The restaurant, which will occupy an 8,000-square-foot space on the first floor of a two-story former Kohl’s store, is set to open Dec. 15, the restaurant chain announced on its website.