Cheesecake Factory Coming to Michigan

The long wait is over, Michigan residents.

The Cheesecake Factory has announced that it will open a location at Novi's Twelve Oaks Mall later this year.

The popular national restaurant chain, whose claim to fame is its huge selection of cheesecakes and desserts, can be found in nearly three dozen states.

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This will be the company's first official location in Michigan. However, some might say the restaurant chain got its start here.

David Overton, founder and CEO of the Cheesecake Factory, grew up in Detroit. The concept for the restaurant chain began when his mother, Evelyn Overton, opened a cheesecake store in the city in the late 1940s.

The family moved to California in the 1970s, where they started a wholesale cheesecake business that eventually evolved into the restaurant chain.

"Having grown up in Detroit and watched my parents start their cheesecake business here in the 1950s, opening a Cheesecake Factory at Twelve Oaks feels like a true homecoming," Overton said in a press release.

The Twelve Oaks restaurant is expected to open later this year.

“The Cheesecake Factory will undoubtedly be a huge favorite with our shoppers, and we’re delighted that Twelve Oaks was selected as its first Michigan location,” said William Taubman, chief operating officer of the Bloomfield Hills-based Taubman Centers, which runs Twelve Oaks Mall.

In addition to cheesecake, the restaurant offers appetizers, seafood, steaks, salads, sandwiches, small plates and snacks.

It was distinguished as America’s “best desserts” in Zagat's 2012 National Restaurant Chains Survey.