This woman says she’s a Cheesecake Factory lover, but that her loyalty is being tested after two back to back incidents with her food.
The consensus in the comment section is that she’s making a bigger deal of the situation than it should be.
What would you do if you were in this position?
Cheesecake Gone Wrong
In a viral TikTok with more than 416,000 views, content creator Jules Black (@juleskadenblack) starts with a disclaimer: “There’s no one on this planet that loves Cheesecake Factory more than me.”
So when her husband, Chris, wanted to go there for his birthday lunch in Nashville, she was thrilled. The video was supposed to be a cheerful “what we ate” recap with bread with the perfect bread-to-butter ratio, Asian chicken nachos, steak Diane, and chicken Bellagio. But things took a turn when their dessert came out.
Black was about to dig into the cheesecake when her husband stopped her. His eyes caught what hers didn’t, a piece of hair on the cheesecake.
“No big deal,” Jules says. The server brought them a new slice, but it had hair on it too.
“Listen, we’re super chill and understanding,” Jules says in the video. “But happening once? That’s fine. Twice? That’s crazy.”
They told the staff so they could discard the cheesecake, and they left pretty disappointed that they didn’t get to enjoy dessert.
“It wouldn’t be a birthday without a #cakegate saga to add to the repertoire,” she said in the caption.
Why Hair In Food Feels Like Such A Big Deal
Finding a hair in your food triggers something primal even though, rationally, it’s harmless. According to Bon Appétit, swallowing a stray hair or two won’t hurt you. Hair is primarily composed of keratin (the same protein in your skin and nails), and your digestive system just passes it through.
The FDA has no record of anyone ever getting sick from ingesting stray hair. Individual hairs don’t harbor significant amounts of harmful pathogens, and while hair can pick up bacteria from the environment, it’s unlikely that a few strands would cause any health issues.
As dermatologist Dr. Amy K. Bieber told Bon Appétit, eating hair “isn’t dangerous, it’s just ‘gross’ because society tells us it should be gross.”
There’s just something off-putting about finding another person’s hair in your food.
What You’re Actually Supposed To Do
According to Food & Wine, the first step when you find a hair in your food is: Don’t freak out.
Before you assume it came from the kitchen, examine it. Is it sitting on top of the food or cooked into it? If it’s just lying on the surface, there’s a chance it drifted in from your own head or your companion’s. If it’s covered in sauce or baked into something, that’s a kitchen issue.
Tell your server calmly and privately. Most places will apologize, remake your food quickly, and possibly comp the dish. After that, accept the apology and move on.
If you feel the need to leave a review, make sure to mention how the restaurant handled it, not just that it happened.
@juleskadenblack It wouldn’t be a birthday without a #cakegate saga to add to the repitoire #cheesecakefactory
Commenters React
“THAT build up for a hair….I can’t,” a top comment read.
“lol. me picking it off and eating it anyway…..,” a person said.
“The way you were talking, I thought you saw a roach or a rat. A hair TWICE would have me upset but not enough to give up on the Cheesecake Factory all together,” another wrote.
BroBible reached out to Jules Black (@juleskadenblack) for comment via email and Instagram direct message and to Cheesecake Factory via email.