The biggest narrative from the Texas Roadhouse earnings call was traffic. Texas Roadhouse continues to generate positive traffic, despite many of its peers reporting negative trends. In Q4, traffic was up 1.1% for the chain, including a relatively “soft” December, according to executives on the call. That softness turned around swiftly to open 2023: The company’s first seven weeks of the year thus far are averaging weekly sales of $146,000, with comp sales up 15.8% compared to 2022. Some of those sales are coming from pricing and timing (lapping the Omicron variant), but as investor relations director Michael Bailen noted on the call, “we do not want to downplay our current results, our restaurants averaged more guests over the past seven weeks than in any period in our history.”
