GLENN BECK PROGRAM
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

GLENN: I read one last night, I started a chapter of one. I'm like, oh, this is going to make my head hurt. Do I have to read all of this? So that was his first approach. And then when that didn't work, he then also threw in, well, you're just a shill for big oil. And that's the way they are on everything. You're either too stupid or you're a shill. So anybody like me in a position of power, you know, you've got to be a shill. Because I have a microphone, they consider that a position of power and so I must be there just to do the bidding of some overlord. And everybody I speak to is just stupid, and I have to tell you something. They may be onto something and here's why I say it. Because one of these elitists happened to be hanging around the green room today when Stu and Dan and I were talking about the Cheesecake Factory and they couldn't understand why we continue to go to the Cheesecake Factory, and they may have a point. We may either be just shills for big cheesecake or just too stupid to realize, what are we doing standing around for two hours to eat at the Cheesecake Factory? How does this work on us?

STU: I've never seen a place like it. You cannot go to a Cheesecake Factory, in any section of the country at any time.

A typical line at any Cheesecake Factory

GLENN: Nope.

STU: And have less than an hour or two wait.

GLENN: I believe I went after one of the shows last summer. We were out, I don't know, some place in the middle of the country. We didn't have our vaccines. So we were very careful.

STU: Did they spell cheesecake right on the sign?

GLENN: No, they didn't.

STU: Because those people don't understand things like that.

GLENN: No, uh-uh. Cake was K-A-K-E.

It was after the show, it must have been 11:00, 10:00, somewhere after the shows. We still waited and it was in the middle of the week. We still waited.

STU: They should just take an entire wing of the small and turn it all into tables because that's how many they fill up. I went there this weekend. We walked in, a fairly late dinner. You know, it's in a mall area and it was -- they voted us an hour and a half to two hours. Then they told us that we could come back in an hour and get our beeper. That's like, you know, the little beepers they gave you? You have to wait an hour before they even give you a beeper at this place. Then we come back, we get the beeper and we're waiting. We go back and ask again after waiting for, like, 25 minutes just to see what the -- they said it could be 45 minutes, could be another hour and a half. Then they say, oh, well, you can go to the bar and hang out in the bar because there's a few, like, high top tables there. You can sit there. We're like, oh, my God, we'll eat anything at this point, I don't care.

GLENN: I'll eat on the floor. Just give me some feed.

STU: So we go and we do essentially what is like a special services like, you know, a secret service mission where we go and we stalk out everyone's meal to see what percentage of the steak that they've eaten so far.

GLENN: You could charge me -- you could charge me twice the amount that the Cheesecake Factory charges and I'll eat there over the Cheesecake Factory if I have anything -- my wife, my wife, we go to the mall and P. F. Chang's always makes her sick. We had a bad experience at another restaurant. So there's only the Cheesecake Factory. And you go there and she will say, well, that -- honey, let's not go to the mall if we're going to eat. Let's not go to the mall. We eat some place else, we go to the mall, there's only the Cheesecake Factory. "Oh, baby, it won't have such a big line." What!? On what planet have you ever seen a Cheesecake Factory that doesn't have a 14-day waiting list? It's like you're in Ethiopia. When they finally have the buzzer go off, I'm batting the flies away from my eyes. I've got a big huge belly, my kids are starving to death. I'm ready just to start a fire in my hut and just cook up some dirt. I mean, they just -- and yet when you eat there, you're like, this is really good.

STU: It is good. It's really good.

GLENN: It's not that good.

STU: Not a two and a half hour wait.

GLENN: It's not that good and yet we all do it like dopes. You know what it is? Some sort of disease that we got at a NASCAR race. We didn't get our vaccines. That's what happens. All of a sudden you start to think to yourself, my gosh, Cheesecake Factory is worth a two and a half hour wait. It's not, America, it's not!

STU: It's not. And the only way around it is to go to the bar and literally stalk people like you're John Mark Karr or something and you sit there. We had to wait over these people's shoulders for half an hour while they are trying to --

GLENN: It wrecks their experience, it wrecks your experience.

STU: And then there's another couple trying to get in on our business here. We had to look at them like they were murdering our children to make sure they didn't go near our table. We finish our entire -- we finally get the table, finish our entire meal and then those people who are going after our table, that's the next table they got. So they waited another hour past us. It's unbelievable. What are they serving at this place that makes us go back to it? I mean, fried Mack reason and cheese --

GLENN: A good answer, for me, for me it's the only place around if you're at the mall.

STU: I really like it, though. I really like it.

GLENN: I do like it but not for that. Dan, have you waited at Cheesecake Factory?

DAN: Yes, and I totally agree with that statement. It's because it's the best place at the mall. If you don't want to go to some fast place quick and you want to actually sit down it's by far the best place food-wise.

GLENN: It's good but it's not that good. You could have -- look, you could do Glenn's Catering by Cheesecake Factory. I could charge $10 more a plate, open it right up next door to the Cheesecake Factory. As long as you could get a table, people would pay the $10 more.

STU: Oh, yeah, totally.

GLENN: They would.

STU: Because I think if I'm like you, Glenn, and we think in the same terms in a lot of ways. I spend my waiting time at Cheesecake Factory obsessing about how Cheesecake Factory's in business.

GLENN: I do, too. I sit there and I say, you know what? And part of me, a part of me, I just want you to know, part of me is doing this on air to hopefully drive business away from the Cheesecake Factory so I can get a table.

STU: Exactly.

GLENN: But you sit there and you are looking at it and you are like, what's wrong with these people? And then you realize, I'm one of these people!

STU: Yeah, exactly. You are one of those people and then you spend your time waiting. I don't know about you. I go on -- first thing I do is go on the phone and I start looking up franchise opportunities. Can I franchise one of these things? Because if they are this crowded all the time, they have got to be the biggest moneymaker. Unfortunately they don't do that. Then I go out and start thinking of ways to solve the problems and here's what I came up with, Glenn. A free market section, okay?

GLENN: Oh, highest bidder to the table.

STU: Highest bidder gets the table. I will be happy to pay $30, $40, $50. You get so insanely frustrated, you will just throw money.

GLENN: Have you noticed that you start looking at people and go, what are you laughing about? What are they doing? They are finished. They've already paid their check. What are they doing? Get out, get out! And then you are so angry at the people who just sit there and linger afterwards and then you sit down and as soon as you get your table, you are like, what?

STU: This is paradise, I'm not going anywhere.

GLENN: You are not even thinking about anybody who's waiting anymore. You are sitting there lingering while somebody else is looking at you going, what are they talking about? They have already paid their check; get out!

STU: It makes you into a savage.

GLENN: Oh, it does, it does. It's bad for America. Forget Islamic extremism. What's going to be the death of us is the Cheesecake Factory.

STU: I would agree with you if they didn't have banana cream chase cake because that stuff is unbelievable.

GLENN: You know what it is? There is something in their cheesecake that's addictive. There's something in their cheesecake that just dopes you up long enough -- you know how things have half lives? This thing just dopes you up until you go there a second time and then you find yourself standing and going, yes, I'll have the beeper and I'll wait for two and a half hours; that sounds reasonable. So you can get your other dose of cheesecake dope, you dope.

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