Texas Roadhouse — Restaurant in Fort Collins

Been here a handful of times. I worked in restaurants for five years when I was younger in fast food, fast casual, and fine dining settings in both front and back of house. Texas Roadhouse is a chain that clearly takes quality seriously, has good recipe development, strong execution on almost every dish I’ve tried, and can maintain consistency—which is quite hard to do for any high-volume kitchen. The steaks in the case up front are even clearly hand-cut, a fact I verified when I saw that they hire in-house meat cutters. This cannot be said of the majority of steakhouses, local or chain.

I’m usually not a fan of chains and prefer to support local businesses, but I can’t deny that TH is pretty much the standard by which I compare all steakhouses. My favorite menu item is the steak kabobs, which ironically are not served on kabob skewers. It’s steak cubes seasoned in a tangy, well-spiced marinade and served over a buttery, pilaf-style rice. An underrated dish with a surprising amount of complexity.

I also want to note that the reason why I’m writing a review now despite how many times I’ve been here…is because my server tonight, Manny, provided fan-freaking-tastic service! She was considerate and attentive.

My points of feedback are:

• I wish TH used compostable packaging rather than styrofoam, but this is most likely corporate decision.

• As a former food industry worker myself, I try to check Indeed and Glassdoor to see what pay and working conditions are like for any given eatery. I prefer to support businesses that treat workers well and compensate fairly. From TH’s Indeed listings, they pay hosts $10/hour, which means servers are probably paid around $12/hour, with tips making up the rest. Back-of-house workers seem to start at $15/hour.

The fact of the matter is that MIT’s living wage calculator indicates Fort Collins’ living wage calculator for a single, child-free/child-less individual is $18/hour.

Even with tips in a high-volume restaurant, with the amount of employees on staff, it can be hard to make ends’ meet when your base pay is so low. Not to mention, living off of tips means you don’t know what your paycheck may look like from week-to-week.

I like TH quite a bit, I just wish that they paid their employees more fairly. Serving customers, busing tables, washing dishes, and grilling steaks in the blistering heat and on the slick floors of a professional kitchen for hundreds to thousands of customers per night is not easy. I genuinely wish the company paid the workers what they deserve. A fair wage of $18/hour is a mere $36k/year if you work full-time and I don’t think that’s too much to ask for such hard work.

4/5 for the food, 5/5 for service, but 2.5/5 for...

I don’t like making reviews, but normally Texas Roadhouse hits every time.

My husband and I ordered a Texas blossom that was absolutely delicious. When it came to our meals, my husband ordered the chicken fried steak which was hot and delicious with a side of mashed potatoes fully loaded and a caesar salad. I myself ordered a steak with loaded mashed potatoes and seasoned rice. The seasoned rice is always a hit and I never have a complaint with it. I should’ve kept my normal order of just double seasoned rice.

When we tried our loaded mashed potatoes which my husband normally orders every time, they were cold. The bowl on the outside warm, but everything in it was cold, it was about the same temperature that you would feed a young child not warm, but not cold. Cold enough that it would not even melt the cheese. When the manager came over to see how our meal was, I told him that the potatoes are cold. He asked us if we would like a new one or for him to microwave those ones. In my mind, I wondered why he’s even asking if I want them microwaved? I asked them for two new loaded mashed potatoes in attempt of getting good ones this time. Unfortunately another fail these ones actually came out colder than the ones we actually got. The bowls were still warm, but everything inside of it was cold.

We hate leaving food on the table and normally take a to go box with us, but I was not going to touch these sides unfortunately. We were giving them the benefit of the doubt of possibly it was too early before dinner rush or they had some thing going on with their warming table, but after two attempts, unfortunately we left them.

I just wish the waiter or manager would have tried to make it right, but even after replacing them, they became very cold to us. The manager never came back to check on things (maybe 25 people in the restaurant.) We have gotten bad food from different restaurants and normally I never say anything but these were an edible. The waiter only came back to ask us if we wanted a box and tell us our bill was available on the tablet.

Please do better Texas Roadhouse you are one of my favorite restaurants and now it’s going to be a battle to get my husband...

Here with family on May 21, 2023, At 5pm for dinner. Sunday. Sam-i-am was our server. She was wonderful. It was very busy. I think we left around 7:30 pm.

My spouse and I ate dinner there on September 14, a Wednesday, but still busy and very crowded.

We ordered the potato skins as an appetizer and had water to drink.

My husband ordered the 2 pork chop meal, and I ordered the most tender steak, don't remember the name. I also got sides of a salad and steak fries.

The steak and the pork chops were very good even though they burnt the outside of both. The steak fries were boring with pepper again. Also the salad had egg on it. One of my pet peeves is no one tells you there's egg on your salad-- I do not like egg on my salad. My husband's two sides were the broccoli and potato. We also both had mushrooms for the top.

While I was there I thought back to when we were young with just 2 kids never able to go out to eat because it was too expensive-- well if 4 people, 2 parents and 2 kids ordered the 2 pork chop meal, and then ordered the salad and the steak fries for sides, in addition to the rolls-- you could split everything and get out of here for between $20-30. Depending on the tip. Here's a couple more tips though,-- don't order the potato skins, my husband found a bone in them. And it wasn't my favorite. You don't need the mushrooms, they tasted rubbery. And many of the other sides are in a really small bowl-- like the broccoli, applesauce, and macaroni and cheese.

We went back on Friday, January 20th with family. We tried to get on the wait list online but it didn't work. I ordered a rib eye that was the thinnest rib eye I have ever seen. My husband got the same thing but had added mushrooms and onions. We both ordered the house salad, mine w/o egg, and the potato. I also had a peach lemonade. It was really yummy. Someone else in our party ordered a porterhouse-- it's a really thick steak. The porterhouse was done perfectly. The porterhouse tasted Great. My steak was burnt and at least half was fatty. So very yucky steak. My husband's tasted dry to me, but he said it was fine. The rolls can't be beat. And the service of Conner...