For the second consecutive year, consumers ranked The Cheesecake Factory their favorite casual-dining restaurant, according to Market Force Information’s rankings of that segment’s restaurants.

Texas Roadhouse and Olive Garden maintained their positions in second and third place from last year.

Boulder, Colo.-based Market Force polled more than 4,500 consumers across the nation in August and asked them to identify their single favorite brand from a list of 51 casual-dining restaurants. Once the total number of raw votes had been tallied, Market Force divided those numbers by the number of locations for each chain to mitigate the fact that consumers are likely to vote only for nearby restaurants they visit most often.

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Cheesecake Factory earned 7.1 percent of the vote share, with Texas Roadhouse earning 3.2 percent and Olive Garden 2.8 percent. P.F. Chang’s China Bistro and Carrabba’s Italian Grill rounded out the top five with vote shares of 2.5 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively.

Market Force distinguished 16 chains as top-ranked brands for each garnering at least 0.2 percent of the share of indexed votes.

Market Force officials acknowledged that consumers’ tendency to stick with their favorite restaurants may have been reflected in the top three brands’ repeat wins, but they also noted those chains’ operational superiority.

“Consumers are tending to go to their favorite restaurants, but the other thing is execution,” said Cheryl Flink, senior vice president of customer knowledge for Market Force. “These are good, steady companies that execute against their brands. All the winners tend to score high on great food and taste.”

Survey respondents also were asked why they chose certain brands, and Market Force kept a tally of core attributes they cited. The Cheesecake Factory, whose broad menu appeals across most consumer groups, achieved its favorite-chain status by performing well across the five key metrics Market Force tracks: food quality, taste, speed of service, cleanliness and overall value.