More CAKE: Cheesecake Factory stock is surprisingly beating these Magnificent 7 tech giants—including Nvidia

The hottest stock around is a lot sweeter than sprawling data centers and humming GPUs. The Cheesecake Factory, fittingly represented by the ticker symbol CAKE, has been on absolute tear in 2026. The casual sit-down restaurant stock has soared by 122% this year after turning sharply upward in June. That growth is even more remarkable given how tough things are right now for the restaurant industry. Once-dominant fast casual and fast food chains have scrambled to make the math work, with rising costs cutting into a customer base that previously didn’t think twice about grabbing a quick bite to eat. Chipotle, a perennial fast casual favorite, has struggled with slumping sales for more than a year as diners either stay home or spend on more elevated dining experiences. On the fast food side, a flood of regional franchise operators are filing for bankruptcy as a toxic duo of high costs and low foot traffic crushes business. That’s led to a flurry of closures for Popeyes, Subway, Firehouse Subs, and Wendy’s. In total, around 700 restaurant operators have filed for Chapter 11 in 2026 so far. Even compared to the most buzzed-about, AI-juiced companies in tech, cheesecake dominates. Since…