FACTORY SUCCESS SWEET POPULAR RESTAURANT TO OPEN 100TH SITE.

Byline: Brent Hopkins Staff Writer

CALABASAS - It started 27 years ago as a means to sell off excess sweets from the Overton family's bakery in Beverly Hills and took five years before it mustered a second location. A third came another five years after that, giving The Cheesecake Factory a taste of a growth plan. It would be years before the concept caught on beyond its loyal local following around Los Angeles.

On Monday, that pokey little company will open its 100th location in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. Its locations bring in more than $11 million apiece on average each year and the company has never shuttered a restaurant. By far, it is the highest unit volume in the restaurant industry.

``There are very few competitors that have the quality, brand and culture that Cheesecake has,'' said Dean Haskell, a director and analyst with JMP Securities in San Francisco. ``There's no one else like them on a national scale.''

And after it hits that 100th location, the company has no plans to slow down. It opened 18 spots in the last year and plans to proceed at a similar clip until it gets in the 200 range. For its upscale Grand Luxe Cafe, the Calabasas-based company aims to grow from its current five restaurants to as many as 150.

``We're in a great position where with the success we've had, we can pick and choose the sites we think are best,'' said Mike Dixon, the company's chief financial officer. ``We've got landlords who want us in their projects and they'll actually build a new structure just for us.''

In the early expansion days, the company generally went into premier food towns like Miami, Las Vegas and Chicago. Now, it's become large enough that they company can pull off openings in Des Moines and the Chicago suburb of Lincolnshire. Its main concern finding locations is a population density of 250,000 people within five miles with an above-average income. Once found, it won't build another Cheesecake Factory within five miles, though it has found Grand Luxes won't cannibalize sales from the flagship concept.

But even with an empire that spans Hawaii to New York, it's still run with elements of the philosophy from it's beginning as a one-spot joint.

Founder David Overton, who's both chairman and chief executive officer, still visits each restaurant before opening with a team of executives. Even with an 18-page menu with 200 offerings, the company still reviews its cuisine twice a year, swapping out 10 items at a time for something new. Nearly every item's still made from scratch.

``When the founder of the company cares that much for every single detail in the restaurant, it really strengthens every single person who works for us,'' said Howard Gordon, senior vice president of business development and marketing.

And there's plenty of people who need that strength; each restaurant opens with 10-14 managers and an hourly staff of as many as 200 employees. The company has advised investors that finding enough quality workers to run the new sites has been the only drag on even more growth. With as many as 250 more restaurants planned between its two concepts, that's more than 50,000 people the company would have to recruit just to run its stores.

``We're growing rapidly, but it's in the same way we always have,'' Dixon said. ``We still deliver the same taste and the same experience as we always have. . . In a country of this size, 100 restaurants isn't that many, so we're a long way from being saturated.''

Brent Hopkins, [phone]

brent.hopkins(at)dailynews.com

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Server Joseph Kilby carries food to customers at The Cheesecake Factory's restaurant in Sherman Oaks.

(2 -- color) Baker Wendy Parras, Assistant General Manager John Lite and server Steele Harder work at The Cheesecake Factory's location in Sherman Oaks.

John Lazar/Staff Photographer