What Grade Of Beef Does Texas Roadhouse Serve?

Like endless shrimp at Red Lobster and Olive Garden's soup, salad, and breadsticks, Texas Roadhouse is the casual chain serving up a parade of beef cuts. With a menu that also features Texas Roadhouse's beloved bread rolls with cinnamon butter, Chicken Critter salads, and fried catfish, you might wonder where the quality of the steak lands.

Texas Roadhouse lets customers hand-pick steaks from a clear display case that greets them right as they enter the restaurant. And, according to the chain's website, customers will find fresh, USDA Choice steaks that are hand-cut by in-house butchers. Every cut of beef on Texas Roadhouse's menu, from sirloin to ribeye to a hefty porterhouse T-bone, carries this USDA Choice label. In fact, steaks make up 43% of the chain's menu, and its six-ounce sirloin is its best-seller.

The restaurant chain boasts that its beef is always freshly cut, never frozen, and strictly sourced from suppliers in the United States and Canada. Texas Roadhouse's steaks are mouthwateringly good, but what does the USDA Choice label have to do with that?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture uses three labels to grade the quality of beef cuts. There's Select, Choice, and Prime, with Prime being the highest quality beef within this labeling system.

USDA Select beef is described as being leaner than Prime or Choice and not as juicy or flavorful because it has the least amount of fat. This cut is considered best when marinated or braised. The USDA Choice beef used by Texas Roadhouse is noted as being of high quality, though lesser than the Prime label. At the same time, loin and rib cuts that carry the Choice label are juicy, tender, flavorful, and are best enjoyed broiled, roasted, or grilled.

USDA Prime beef is of the highest quality with light to moderate fat marbling throughout the cut. Texas Roadhouse may not be selling Prime cuts, but the chain offers the respectable "Choice" in serving up high quality beef at its more than 700 restaurants nationwide.