Restroom Review: The Cheesecake Factory beneath the Hancock Center

★★★✩✩

Whenever I go out to eat, I almost always end up in the restroom halfway through dinner. I don’t know why this happens. Perhaps its nervousness, or maybe I’m just gluten-intolerant — I do have all of the classic symptoms; caucasian, likes yoga, and shops at Whole Foods. Anyways, I’m kind of an authority on public restrooms, and with that sort of knowledge comes the responsibility to look out for my fellow man. Read on and be spared the fate of having to squat over the porcelain throne.

This past Friday I went to the Cheesecake Factory, located beneath the John Hancock Center, for dinner and drinks with the girls. Ugh, we are so bad. I ordered two skinny cosmopolitans and immediately defeated their purpose with a slice of Oreo cheesecake. Being a germaphobe, I stopped by the restroom to wash my hands before tucking into the bread basket.

The restrooms are shoved into some hidden corner of the restaurant, behind a massive pillar that looks like it was inspired by some crossover between The Lost City of Atlantis and one of those fish tank toys.

Besides being hard to find, the restrooms are dark. I did not deduct points for this as no one really wants to see themselves after inhaling a gargantuan slice of cheesecake. When you first enter, you are greeted by a full-length mirror, flanked by two smaller mirrors. There are no sinks in this main area; they’re located in the stalls. The stalls themselves are actually little rooms, closed off by heavy wooden doors, so there’s no way to tell if they’re occupied. You have to awkwardly tug at the ugly, flower-shaped doorknobs until the person inside uncomfortably mutters, “sorry, just a minute.”

The little rooms themselves are nice, but they are lacking a mirror. This is probably designed to cut down on the amount of time people spend in the individual stalls, but it’s a mild inconvenience as it forces you to use the dimly lit main area mirror.

This particular location has a 3.5 star rating on Yelp. For that, I expect a bathroom worthy of 3.5 stars. It was clean and well-stocked, but poorly designed and lacking in ease of use. So, while it gets close to being worthy of its Yelp rating, the Cheesecake factory’s restroom just barely misses the cigar.