Where did the first Texas Roadhouse location open?

The best way to explain Texas Roadhouse is that it's essentially an outback steakhouse, except it says Texas instead of Australia. The logo features the state of Texas with a cowboy hat happily perched on the panhandle. It serves hearty cuts of beef and smoky ribs, combining the state's twin passions of steak and barbecue. Its mascot is an armadillo named Andy, who grins through clenched teeth and looks like he's from Attack on Titan. And every now and then the wait staff gets together and does line dances just to make sure the topic is really getting to the point.

If a steakhouse were so focused on another part of the world, that would be a clear indication that it was founded by someone not from there. But well, this Is Texas. It is famous for many things, but modesty and reserve are not among them. Why wouldn't Does a chain restaurant that is so aggressively Texas originate in Texas?

You wouldn't think a chain like Texas Roadhouse would be born in Indiana. This is a state known for corn, race cars and college basketball – not steak. You also wouldn't think that Texas Roadhouse was born in Kentucky, known for bourbon, racehorses and… college basketball too. But the point is, it's not known for steaks either.

And yet, in 1993, the world's first Texas Roadhouse was located at the Green Tree Mall in Clarksville, Indiana. It was the idea of ​​W. Kent Taylor, a businessman who was a KFC manager in Louisville, Kentucky (just across the Ohio River from Clarksville). After being rejected over 80 times by potential investors, he convinced three doctors from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, to join in by sketching the restaurant's design on a cocktail napkin. Although the first five locations failed more than they succeeded, Taylor soon expanded Texas Roadhouse into a chain with over 600 locations in ten countries.

However, before there was Texas Roadhouse, there was Buckhead Mountain Grill. Taylor had lived in Colorado for some time before returning to Louisville, and he had an abiding love for the Rocky Mountains and their majestic ski slopes. In 1991, after meeting with John Y. Brown Jr., the former governor of Kentucky and the businessman who turned KFC into a fast-food juggernaut, Taylor got the money he needed and opened Buckhead Hickory Grill, a Colorado-style steakhouse in Louisville, which soon became Colorado-style steakhouse Buckhead Mountain Grill. However, the partnership between Taylor and Brown was short-lived: a dispute over profit sharing caused Brown to exit and forced Taylor to settle on another brand if he wanted to expand.

Taylor eventually sold his shares in Buckhead Mountain Grill to focus on Texas Roadhouse, and the Louisville location closed in 2020 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there is still a location in Bellevue – another city across the Ohio River from a major metropolis, this time Cincinnati.