I've never had leftover cheesecake to deal with but I would freeze it after baking -- just like you might buy it.

Cheese cake freezes very well....and is meant to be eaten in very small slivers....not great big slices.
My cheese cake....
5 half pound packages of cream cheese

1 1 /2 cups white sugar

5 eggs
3 tsps vanilla extract
1 rounded tablespoon of flour.
Mix all together and pour into prepared crumb crust in a 9 inch spring form pan....bake long and slow.

I freeze it and the ones you get in restaurants are often frozen and thawed out.

Cheese and cake are two things that freeze particularly well, and cheesecake is no exception. :)

There is such a known quantity as creamcheese pie which is very like a cheesecake with a pie pastry crust. Most of the cheesecakes I'm familiar with have crumb crusts. Often from some kind of hard biscuit (e.g., graham cracker, or oreo), or the kind of things you'd put in a crumble (oats, seeds) or something like ground almonds, which has enough fat it doesn't need butter or anything to bind it.

The only essentials for a cheesecake crust, besides a nice flavor, are that it be sturdy enough not to soak through, cut smoothly without cracking and lift cleanly to get the slice to your plate.

It's common for a New York cheese cake to have a pastry crust...in fact it's the usual. A circle cut for the bottom of the spring form and a strip for around the edge. Not sure where crumbs came into the picture, but at Lindy's it was a cookie pastry crust.
Brooklyn cheese cake contains sour cream and has a cake crust...not crumbs but a thin little cake baked in the bottom of the pan and the batter with the sour cream on top.

sometime in the late 50's there was a popular recipe going around for a no bake cheese cake pie....yeah right!
Make a graham cracker crust, then in a blended mix 8 oz cream cheese 8 oz of vanilla yogurt a cup of milk and a package of instant Jello pudding....it wasn't as bad as it sounds....and was quick and easy to make.....and a teaspoon of real vanilla helped disguise the fake taste of the instant pudding.

UGH! Linda, that is not the cream cheese pie I've been served, thank goodness! But then I think those were baked. :)

Interesting about the New York cheesecakes. I get the cookie crust. I may have seen that and not taken particular notice. I've never seen the pie crusts Emerogork mentioned. I don't see why it wouldn't work. :)

Oh, and Emerogork, about "special" for freezing, not "special", but like so many other things, prefreeze just in a box or bag to set it, then cover tightly with plastic wrap, before your outer wrap. That will help it not get gummy, or smelly, or damp.

I just cut the cheese cake in pieces the size I want...usually 1/4th for a 2 1/2 pound of cream cheese 5 egg cheese cake. I don't pre freeze nor pre chill...I just wrap well and freeze.
Never EVER had a cheese cake in the freezer get "gummy or smelly or damp".
Really?? Have you had that happen??

I've seen it at other people's houses where the cheesecake wasn't wrapped nicely (when I was helping in the kitchen and saw the wrap and thawing process). The middle of the cake doesn't get gummy, I don't think, but the top part did. Nasty. That's when you scrape it off and disguise the top with jam, or something. Smelly happens when it's a single compressor fridge/freezer combo, and the cake isn't wrapped nicely. It can get fridge odors. Damp happens when it's just a loose plastic freezer bag and ice crystals form. Which probably is a sister of gummy.

Linda, why would that happen to you? I can't imagine that you don't wrap your cakes properly. I didn't think of saying anything until the second time I read the thread, because it's second nature to me. But then I remembered the if onlys I've seen. I know a lot of people who really don't know their way around the kitchen. The cheesecakes were almost certainly boughten or brought.

I cool my cheese cake, wrap in saran and then in foil....no slimy no gummy....just like "new"....read my post....it has never happened to me. Maybe it's the recipe?

Linda, it's the way you wrap it! The question was whether there's anything "special" about freezing it, and I said to cool it, wrap in plastic and then the overwrap. The way you do! I added to prefreeze so if it were a softer cake, or stickier, it would be easier to do the plastic wrap without messing it up. That's they way you don't get slimy or gummy. You do it right.

This game is kind of fun. First I say something, then you protest but agree with me, then I tell you your agreement is correct and explain why, then you protest and agree with me. Does the winner get a prize? How do we choose a winner? I'm not sure I want to be keeping it going too long. I have company coming.

I've lived/worked all over NYC for 30 yrs and have never had a pastry crust. Lindy's closed in the late 50's, before I was born. Interesting to read the history...Lindy's originally had it on their menu as 'pie'. Then others started using a Zwibach crust....then I suppose the graham cracker became the norm.

It does freeze well if using a NY style with cream/sour cream, but no expert here. It is as common as a bagel. Once/four times a year is fine like the garden seasons.

Cook and freeze the 'pie'.

Sleevendog: What do you mean "Lindy's closed in the late 50's" ? I've eaten cheesecake at Lindy's much later than the fifties and a search shows there are still two locations in NYC.

The original deli closed in 57....but there was another location....and 2 locations are now being run by another corporation....as as you might expect Lindemann died in the 50's some time.
And New York cheese cake is not the one with sour cream....that's Brooklyn style,,,,and the crust is not a pastry in the sense of a pie crust....more of a cookie crust....a pate sucre.

"The "Lindy's" name and concept was resurrected in 1979 by New York City restaurant operator the Riese Organization, who determined that the name had fallen into the public domain, and later obtained the trademark"

NYC history is notorious for it's crooks and thieves especially in the cut throat restaurant game. The second location was taken over by another group. They fired the entire staff. Closed in '69. Anything called 'Lindy's' after '57 is not authentic and just a tourist trap, Imo.