Woman Finds What She Suspects is a Frog in Her Cheesecake Factory Meal

A college student alleged in a viral TikTok that she found something far worse in her Cheesecake Factory to-go order than shrimp tails in her Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Bethany, who goes by the username @bethanybutwith2arms on Tiktok, was so horrified to discover an unidentified black lump in her mashed potatoes that she pulled out her camera to document the gross finding on Tuesday.

"What the f**k? What is this, is in my potato?" she asked. She began pushing around the object and stabbed it aggressively with her fork several times, calling it "indestructible."

When she decided to get to the bottom of it and rinse the finding in the sink, she wrote, "I deada** think this is a baby frog." The video ends with Bethany on the verge of tears and gagging.

The video, captioned "There was a FROG in my cheesecake factory order should I sue," has been viewed over 7 million times and liked by nearly 2 million horrified TikTok users.

Bethany explained to Newsweek that she initially decided to pull out her camera to share the situation with her friends on Snapchat. "I thought it was funny, and then when I was washing it off and it appeared to be frog-like I was shocked."

When posting to TikTok, she anticipated a larger-than-normal audience to watch and weigh in on the predicament but was shocked at the wide reach her video got. "People on [TikTok] enjoy watching stories that unravel, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to entertain some people," she added.

"Omg the way her plate was completely devoured I'd cry myself to sleep," one shocked viewer commented. "If this happened to me it would send me over the edge," another said. One person even joked that Bethany would win if she took legal action: "You just came into a lot of money."

Shortly after finishing her meal, she reached out to research professors with access to the science labs at her college to further investigate and corroborate her frog findings.

"I know this sounds funny but if you can help me dissect this and determine if it's a frog I would appreciate it," she explained. In one professor's response, he noted, "Had to read your message twice to believe what I was reading ... I have eaten frog legs before, but I would not want to eat that."

A follow-up video posted on Wednesday revealed that after taking the sample to a lab, it wasn't a small frog in her food, but rather a large piece of "black mold." Later in the evening, she uploaded an additional video in the Cheesecake Factory saga, claiming that since eating her meal the night prior, her throat was red and her tonsils were inflamed.

"So this is super nasty but basically my throat really started hurting after yesterday," Bethany said. "I think it might be because of mold."

Concerned viewers keeping up with the restaurant drama insisted she go to a doctor or emergency clinic. "Ya bestie [your] tonsils [are] swollen ... looks like a throat infection," one hypothesized. "Go to the doctor and then sue lmao."

"I don't know if my tonsillitis is related to the consumption of this food, but tonsillitis is a symptom of respiratory infections due to black mold," Bethany told Newsweek. "I could just have a cold but I will need to have the object identified by a lab in order to confirm if this may be caused by the food I consumed. It's really all up in the air until I get confirmation of what this object is."

In a comment to The Daily Dot, The Cheesecake Factory has "been in touch" with Bethany and was "very concerned to hear of this incident." "We take food safety and sanitation very seriously and are committed to providing a safe dining experience to all of our guests whether they dine-in or order take-out and delivery," the official statement read.

Bethany has not yet decided if she will be taking legal action against the chain restaurant until she gets additional professional input that confirms the lump was black mold.

"If it was a biohazard in my food, I may consider taking action because this meal could have seriously put my health at risk," she said. "Taking action is time-consuming and expensive, and without confirmation that this object is a biohazard, I honestly don't know."

The Cheesecake Factory has also been in the news recently as their job application process was scrutinized in a separate TikTok video. The hiring questionnaire allegedly included an oddly existential question about the state of humanity that the company defended as a method to "gauge positivity" in prospective employees.

Updated on 4/9/2021 at 9:30 am to include Bethany's statements to Newsweek.