The Cheesecake Factory

On Saturday April 2nd, after about 2 months of planning, my family attended a Group movie night with about 120 of friends and family and children from our Christian congregation. My dear friend Selena P. is an event planner in the Los Angeles area who frequently organizes weddings and other events. She is absolutely professional and meticulous in everything that she does. Prior to the event she let us know that she had made arrangements for us to have dinner together after the movies at the Bella Terra Cheesecake Factory. I personally love Cheesecake Factory and was thrilled to hear that we would all have dinner together there. Unfortunately, when our large party arrived after the movies we were told that the manager onsite ROB COWLE would not honor the arrangements that our event planner had made with CHRIS WOOD. He was extremely rude to her while she tried to explain to him the prior arrangement. He would not even allow her to speak to Chris Wood who had been so kind in previously setting up the arrangement. As our large party (over 100 patrons) waited out front she tried to reasons with Mr. Cowle to accommodate us. He refused to do so or offer any other suggestion. He did not even apologize for not honoring her reservations. Selena did everything right. She visited the restaurant earlier in the week. She even provided pictures of the space days earlier after confirming with management. I arrived early to the theater and personally witnessed her go to the restaurant to reconfirm the reservation hours before our expected arrival time. I am the last one to ever complain about racism. However, I have never seen someone treated with such blatant disrespect. I have never been treated so horribly in my life, especially not by an establishment based in customer service. To see my friend brought to tears broke my heart and I am appalled at the way she was spoken to and treated. I can assure you that all of the other food establishments in the Bella Terra mall were thrilled that Cheesecake Factory turned us away because we visited about 3 other restaurants who treated us with the respect that our patronage deserved. The only color that should have mattered in this situation was green. At least human decency and an apology were owed but Mr. Cowle had none of those for us. If Cheesecake Factory is in the habit of mistreating groups of paying customers then it is no longer a place that I care to visit! Another Cheesecake Factory has opened in Santa Monica near my job and I have already vetoed anyone from my pharmaceutical company to have lunch or dinner meetings there. I was planning to patron the new restaurant in Cerritos also but I have a bad taste in my mouth from this experience...one that not even their Cheesecake can remove. I hope that they can make things right as I don't believe that they are in the business of mistreating paying customers!