The casual dining chain ended 2024 with increased sales, traffic, and margins, while average unit volumes exceeded $8 million for the first time
Texas Roadhouse capped off a strong 2024 with revenue growing to nearly $5.4 billion and average unit volumes exceeding $8 million for the first time in the company’s history. For context, the company ended 2023 with $4.78 billion in sales.
Additionally, Texas Roadhouse’s fourth quarter 2024 included positive same-store sales and traffic, as well as a bump in restaurant margins. The brand, which has outpaced the broader industry for several years now, reported a 7.7% increase in same-store sales at company restaurants and 6.3% increase at franchise restaurants. Of that 7.7%, 4.9% was traffic, marking positive gains on that metric for at least 11 years in a row at the chain.
Meanwhile, weekly sales at company restaurants were $153,867, of which $20,067 were to-go sales, versus $141,653 last year, of which $17,793 were to-go sales.
“We continue to see great demand on the to-go side and an increase in occurrences, which are up 13% year-over-year,” head of investor relations Michael Bailen said during the company’s earnings call Thursday. “This continues to be something the guest appreciates, and our operators have gotten better on executing on the to-go business.”
Texas Roadhouse does not offer delivery but it is currently available in a single location, as well as both its Bubba’s 33 and Jaggers concepts. This is noteworthy as with Olive Garden’s recent partnership with Uber, Texas Roadhouse remains one of the final holdouts in offering the service.
“We have (third party deliver) in Jaggers and Bubba’s 33, we have it in one Roadhouse and we’re continuing to learn and that’s where we’re at right now,” chief executive officer Jerry Morgan said during the earnings call.
Also during the quarter, restaurant margin as a percentage of sales increased to 17% from 15.3% in the prior year, driven primarily by higher sales. The benefit of a higher average guest check, the benefit of the additional week, and improved labor productivity more than offset wage and other labor inflation of 5% and commodity inflation of 0.3%, the company reported.
As the industry became more value-focused throughout 2024, Texas Roadhouse instead doubled down on its local store marketing efforts. However, the company is starting to “scream louder” about some of its promotional approaches, including early dining, with about a dozen items discounted during early hours, and Wild West Wednesdays, an 8-ounce sirloin steak and two sides for a promotional price. The company also implemented $5 drink specials last year.
Even with these specials, chief financial officer Chris Monroe said the company is not seeing any change in behavior.
“There is not any matriculation more into the value part of the menu,” he said. “Everything has been proceeding as it has been historically for the past couple of years."
One interesting anecdote the company shared is that it’s seeing positive trends for mocktails while overall alcohol trends remain negative. Mocktails have been a positive contributor, but they are in early stages, so they’re “a small piece" of the mix, executives shared.
Development
On the development side, Texas Roadhouse hit its 750-unit milestone in 2024 and is now targeting 900 locations.
“We'll continue to evaluate that over time. But we feel very comfortable with that number, which, we upped it from 700 to 800 a couple of years ago. And we are excited to have the number 800 within the whole portfolio, including Texas Roadhouse, Bubba's, Jaggers and international,” Morgan said.
Morgan said the goal is to open 20-25 restaurants a year and about 30 per year adding Bubba’s and Jaggers openings into the mix.
“We like being in that 30-ish number. I believe … that’s the right number for us to open quality restaurants at the volumes we’re at,” Morgan said. “We only get one time to make a first impression, and we put time and effort into those openings. We can be very good at opening 25-30 restaurants on a normal basis.”
February slowdown
Despite strong Q4 numbers and a strong start to 2025, Texas Roadhouse executives shared that February numbers have slowed down and are flat, which is a rarity for the company.
“These last three weeks have been breathtaking in terms of all things coming against the business,” Monroe said. “We’ve had about a dozen named winter storms and across geographies, so it’s been broader than what we’ve seen in the last several years. There’s been the flu, COVID, RSV, schools have been closing across the country. When we talk about external factors, those are just a few. And we’re still flat, so we still feel pretty good about that and the progress this year.”
With all those factors as a backdrop, Texas Roadhouse has experienced an even bigger uptick during first seven weeks of 2025 for its to-go business, Monroe added.
“We’re not trying to measure cold weather or other factors. Some of those are just out of our control,” Bailen said. “Our underlying regional trends are good. We look at the west as an example of normalized numbers. Our highest volume stores are still growing at a nice rate. I don’t believe any of this is a slowdown in guests’ desire to come to Texas Roadhouse. We just believe we’re in a little bit of an environment right now where the consumer is acting a little bit different.”
That said, the Valentine’s Day occasion opened floodgates for the brand, with stores averaging $183,000 during the week, which is over $20,000 higher than average.
Texas Roadhouse Q4 by the numbers
Same-store increased 7.7% at company restaurants and increased 6.3% at domestic franchise restaurants
Average weekly sales at company restaurants were $153,867 of which $20,067 were to-go sales as compared to average weekly sales of $141,653 of which $17,793 were to-go sales in the prior year
Restaurant margin dollars increased 37.3% to $242.6 million from $176.7 million in the prior year primarily due to higher sales. Restaurant margin, as a percentage of restaurant and other sales, increased to 17.0% from 15.3% in the prior year driven primarily by higher sales
Nine company restaurants and five franchise restaurants were opened
Full-year 2024
Same-store sales increased 8.5% at company restaurants and increased 7.4% at domestic franchise restaurants;
Average weekly sales at company restaurants were $155,285 of which $19,940 were to-go sales as compared to average weekly sales of $143,837 of which $18,088 were to-go sales in the prior year;
Restaurant margin dollars increased 29.4% to $915.8 million from $708.0 million in the prior year primarily due to higher sales. Restaurant margin, as a percentage of restaurant and other sales, increased to 17.1% from 15.4% in the prior year driven primarily by higher sales
31 company restaurants and 14 franchise restaurants were opened
Contact Alicia Kelso at [email protected]
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