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- Restaurants stick to classic desserts like cheesecake and lava cake because they’re easy to outsource and have low profit margins.
- Making desserts in-house requires extra space, specialized chefs, and expensive ingredients, making it less cost-effective.
- Some restaurants are breaking the cycle with viral, Instagram-worthy desserts that drive customers and increase profits.
Why Cheesecake and Lava Cake Are Everywhere: The Restaurant Dessert Dilemma
You just finished an amazing meal at a restaurant. The entrees were creative, the drinks were bold, and then… the dessert menu arrives.
👀 Cheesecake.
🍫 Chocolate lava cake.
🥧 Some kind of fruit pie.
🍨 Maybe sorbet or vanilla ice cream.
Sound familiar? That’s because most restaurants serve the same predictable desserts.
But why? If chefs get so creative with the rest of the menu, why does dessert feel like an afterthought?
The answer comes down to cost, efficiency, and consumer psychology. Let’s break it down.
The Harsh Reality of Restaurant Profits
Running a restaurant isn’t as profitable as it seems.
💸 Most restaurants have a profit margin of less than 10%.
🍽 Entrees bring in the most money, and drinks have high markups.
🍤 Appetizers and desserts, however, have some of the lowest profit margins.
Why Are Desserts So Expensive to Make?
1️⃣ They require specialized skills.
- Making high-quality desserts isn’t like grilling a steak. Pastry chefs need specific training, and hiring one isn’t cheap.
2️⃣ They take up valuable kitchen space.
- Many restaurants simply don’t have room for a full dessert station.
3️⃣ The ingredients are costly.
- Think about the butter, chocolate, vanilla, and nuts that go into many desserts—they’re not cheap.
- The price of vanilla spiked in 2018 due to a crisis in Madagascar and never fully dropped back down.
- Cocoa prices are rising due to poor weather in West Africa.
The Simple Solution: Outsource Everything
Since making desserts in-house is expensive and complicated, many restaurants just outsource them.
🛒 They buy pre-made desserts from suppliers.
📦 They arrive frozen and ready to serve.
💰 It’s much cheaper than hiring a pastry chef.
This is why you see cheesecake, lava cake, and generic pies everywhere—they’re easy to mass-produce and require zero effort from the kitchen staff.
👀 Ever had a slice of cheesecake that tasted identical at multiple restaurants? It’s probably coming from the same supplier.
Why Most Restaurants Don’t Take Dessert Seriously
Many restaurant owners see desserts as an afterthought rather than a moneymaker.
🚫 Only a small percentage of customers even order dessert.
🍰 If desserts don’t sell well, why invest in making them special?
It’s the classic "if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it" mentality—if cheesecake and lava cake work, why change it?
But here’s where things get interesting…
Gen Z and Millennials Are Changing the Dessert Game
Boomers and Gen X aren’t big on ordering dessert, but Gen Z and Millennials are obsessed with it.
📊 Only 11% of Boomers order dessert at restaurants.
📊 Over 30% of Gen Z and Millennials do.
💡 Restaurants that understand this shift are using dessert to drive business.
Instead of serving boring, outsourced desserts, some restaurants are crafting visually stunning, Instagram-worthy treats that make people want to visit just for the dessert.
The Power of a Viral Dessert
🍋 Take Bad Roman in NYC, for example.
They created a lemon-shaped cheesecake that became an instant viral hit.
📸 It looks like a real lemon.
🍽 You crack it open with a spoon.
👅 It tastes amazing.
Result? People started coming to the restaurant just to try it—and they weren’t leaving without ordering drinks and entrees, too.
The Future of Restaurant Desserts: A New Era?
If restaurants want to attract younger diners, they might need to rethink the boring, outsourced dessert strategy.
✅ Create desserts that are unique and visually striking.
✅ Make them interactive—something customers "experience" rather than just eat.
✅ Leverage social media to turn desserts into a marketing tool.
Some restaurants are already reinventing the dessert experience, and they’re seeing massive success.
But for now, if you’re staring at yet another cheesecake or lava cake on a menu—you’ll know exactly why it’s there.
And if you’re lucky? Maybe one day, restaurants will finally get as creative with dessert as they do with everything else.
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