The real reason why restaurant desserts all taste the same

This is the famous lava cake at Chilis, the same item at Applebees, and then a lava cake from a fancy seafood restaurant nearby. And I am sure many of you all have all seen at least one of these lava cakes before. In fact, all three of these cakes are not made at the restaurants themselves, instead made in a commercial kitchen hundreds of miles away by a national food distributor like Restaurant Depot, Sysco, US Foods, or others. When we take a look at all the chocolate lava cakes around Washington D.C where I live, this becomes more apparent. They all kind of look the same. These lava cakes may be dressed up in ice cream and topped with whipped cream and sauce but they all have the same familiar shape and size. Take a look at this, this exact cake that you see in these photos can be purchased in a pack of 12 from restaurant depot, the Costco for restaurants, for just $30. Meaning that each cake only really cost them around $2.5 while it is resold at these restaurants from anywhere from $8 to $18 dollars. It also does not matter whether we are talking about your local Italian spots or exclusive fancy mediterranean date night spots. These items are identical. These places all source their desserts from giant food distributors who deliver these lava cakes throughout the week. These desserts are simply unthawed by the staff and reheated by them and served to customers. And sometimes these desserts are not even fully thawed leading to semi frozen cheesecakes which I have experienced before. SO why is this the case at some of these restaurants? And why don't restaurants simply make their desserts especially if we are spending our hard earned money. To be fair not all restaurants outsource their desserts, your local Gordan Ramsey approved restaurants might only source raw Ingredients like sugar or flour from food distributors, which then are used by pastry chefs to make unique in-house desserts. But this is time consuming and costly. For example, a popular chain like Founding Farmers around me is famous for their fried chicken and donuts which are made in-house at the Founding Farmers Reston Station. There are also numerous other restaurants who buy from local bakeries as well. But this may be impossible for many small restaurants or those with limited staff, limited expertise, or money. This is why every Kitchen Nightmares episode has at least 10 minutes of Gordon Ramsey shouting about how they serve frozen meals and charge top dollar. And not much has really changed since the show ended. This Vox video does a great job at explaining why desserts are the same and it is the reason why I started to research this video in the first place. Restaurants have low profit margins which vary depending on the type of restaurants. The majority of the money a restaurant earns is from entrees and drinks. Outside of these categories, your profit margin is relatively low. Pastry chefs are often the first to go during budget cuts or recessions. This is also compounded by the increased costs of operations (food, beverage, labor, rent, insurance, utilities, and of course inflation). This means that the restaurant industry is highly competitive, and restaurants may feel pressure to offer a limited, easily managed menu, including desserts, to streamline operations and reduce costs. Basically, pastries are not well valued or respected in the food industry. Instead, food distributors like Sysco give owners an easy way out, allowing them to buy in bulk and at close to wholesale not retail prices for raw ingredients and precooked options like desserts. I recently visited a restaurant depot in Alexandria, Virginia with my GF, where we found a huge quantity of common restaurant items like a 10 pound package of nuggets for $20. A gallon of BBQ. And my favorite restaurant cake. Other places like Sysco also allow a restaurant to buy 50 lb bags of sugar/flour/rice, gallon jugs of cooking oil, and a whole lot more simply online. Both these places also have an entire dessert section filled with cheesecakes, chocolate cakes, tiramisu and more. All these items are made in their factory and frozen to ensure quality and pre-cut to make it easy on owners. We even managed to find the famous lava cake that is everywhere for just $30. In the United States, the most popular items include Cheesecake, Lava cakes, and Tiramisu since most people enjoy these items and they can be outsourced easily. The same thing also happens in other countries.