Here's How Texas Roadhouse Keeps Steaks Cheap While Beef Prices Soar

These days, "an affordable steakhouse" sounds like a contradiction of terms — you may as well speak of a zebra without stripes or a Michelin-starred chef who can healthily regulate their emotions. Even in a booming economy, a steakhouse is supposed to be for splurging. These days, with skyrocketing beef prices thanks to Trump's tariff policy as well as a low cattle supply, it seems downright impossible to get a good deal. So how does Texas Roadhouse manage to keep its prices low? There are a few different ways, from buying in bulk to using consistent menus.

Texas Roadhouse, as you might expect from a chain restaurant, isn't exactly haggling with local butchers. Instead, it buys its beef in massive quantities from suppliers, which allows it to set low prices for a couple of different reasons. For one, purchasing large, consistent amounts of beef allows Texas Roadhouse to negotiate favorable deals. For another thing, it lets the chain avoid a potentially volatile market for longer. Or, in the words of Suga Free, "If you stay ready, you ain't got to get ready" (via YouTube).

There are a few other ways Texas Roadhouse can hawk some of its steaks for under $20. The restaurant doesn't muck around with its menu, which keeps prices low. You see, Texas Roadhouse doesn't offer too many new menu items. Whether you visit twice a year or twice a decade, the items on offer would likely be more or less unchanged. This allows the company to allocate resources strategically, without spreading itself thin on all the costs associated with menu changes, like testing, training, and advertising. There are other places you can go if you want to be a culinary explorer, like the Michelin-starred restaurant hidden in a New York grocery store, but if you're after steak at a reasonable price, you go to Texas Roadhouse.

Another factor that helps keep these Texas-sized slabs of beef cheap is in-house meat cutting. Instead of relying on outside butchers to cut the meat and send it to Texas Roadhouse, trained butchers on-site cut steaks and chops exactly as they are needed. That allows the restaurant chain both flexibility and affordability. After all, that's one less person that needs to be paid, right? Those are savings worth breaking out in a Texas Roadhouse line dance for.