- Texas Roadhouse has become the nation’s biggest casual dining chain by sales, surpassing Olive Garden in 2024, despite only being open for dinner during the week.
Texas Roadhouse has been doing something right, attracting customers with the steaks it manages to keep so affordable and an engaging atmosphere that makes for a fun night out. That helped it overtake Olive Garden in 2024 to become the nation’s biggest casual dining chain by sales, achieving that success even as it’s only open for dinner during the week. As it’s been growing, the saying that everything is bigger in Texas has been true for it too, as the Lone Star State is home to the biggest Texas Roadhouse in the world — in Lubbock.
The approximately 12,000-square-foot restaurant opened on Slide Road in February 2023 as the new location of a Roadhouse that had been operating in smaller quarters elsewhere in the city. That footprint is around 40% bigger than the chain’s average of 7,500 to 8,000 square feet. Managing partner Mike Smith told Everything Lubbock that the massive new location gave them 20% more seats, along with a bigger kitchen and waiting area, and more than 200 parking spaces (via YouTube).
Smith said the move to the record-setting new space had been needed, as even the kitchen at the old restaurant where they had been for more than two decades was no longer big enough to handle the number of patrons coming in. Since it opened, customers have been filling the Lubbock restaurant, where they can get the most out of it with the Texas Roadhouse tips, tricks, and hacks fans should know.
Texas’ place in the chain’s history and how managing partners help it succeed
Texas holding the world’s biggest title seems appropriate given the chain’s name. However, the Louisville, Kentucky-based company didn’t actually get its start in the state. The first Texas Roadhouse was in Clarksville, Indiana, in 1993, and it wasn’t until four years later that one opened in Texas, in Grand Prairie. However, it’s now the U.S. state with the most Roadhouses (per ScrapeHero)…