Texas Roadhouse Could Be Losing Ground To This Rival Steakhouse Chain. Here's How

It's no secret that Texas Roadhouse is on a good run lately. After all, the eatery is absolutely everywhere: It's seen a recent boost in sales, as well as higher visibility thanks to a fresh series of store openings. However, the brand's reign as America's go-to steakhouse chain might come to an end thanks to one plucky competitor. Logan's Roadhouse has had a stellar 2025, with customers happier than ever and branches across the country thriving. This is all the more notable considering that Logan's Roadhouse once looked like it was done for. The chain filed for bankruptcy twice in four years before a purchase by SPB Hospitality in 2020 brought the eatery back from the brink. Just five years later, and it's become the steakhouse to beat.

How did Logan's Roadhouse pull off such an almighty turnaround? Well, through a combination of laser-focused plans for regeneration, and understanding exactly what customers want — plus what Texas Roadhouse can't give them. Logan's Roadhouse's lunch hours, take-home options, and value meals may not seem like much compared to the dominance of Texas Roadhouse, but minds are slowly changing about where to dine. Grab your meat and steak knife: It's time to dig into exactly how Logan's Roadhouse has made itself more attractive than ever.

It's safe to assume you'd go to a steakhouse to eat steak, right? Well ... yes and no. While beef is obviously the star of the show, there are plenty of reasons why you might want something else. Maybe you're looking for something a little bit lighter, or you're dragged there by a friend and crave an alternative option. This is an area where Logan's Roadhouse has the edge on Texas Roadhouse. While both restaurants offer options beyond steak, Logan's menu is more varied and offers a meal for every inclination. Diners can pick from pasta bowls, seafood options, chicken dishes, soups, salads, and sandwiches; as well as the chain's famous steaks.

Logan's Roadhouse also mixes things up with alternate menus such as Backyard BBQ, a limited-time selection during summer 2025. This menu featured new barbecue chicken dishes and salads, as well as platters designed to satisfy big appetites. All of these choices mark Logan's Roadhouse as a place where you can order almost anything you want, a valuable trait to large parties of customers with varied tastes. Texas Roadhouse has a lot of options as well, but the menu isn't quite as dynamic.

The more hours a restaurant is open, the more opportunities it has to make customers happy. If we had to guess, we'd say Logan's Roadhouse understands this concept well. Unlike Texas Roadhouse, Logan's operates during lunch hours and offers lighter options for patrons who might not want a heavy meal halfway through the day. Logan's Roadhouse will usually open at 11:00 a.m., whereas you'll have to wait until 3:00 p.m. on weekdays to get through the door at its competitor. Texas Roadhouse offers lunch on weekends, however.

Although lunchtime hours might seem like a small win for Logan's Roadhouse, the public image of this policy is more important than you might expect. Logan's Roadhouse establishes itself as somewhere diners can enjoy any time of day, which creates a more welcoming, lived-in atmosphere. Additionally, these hours allow Logan's to corner a market that eats out for lunch on weekdays, but not for dinner. This is a clientele Texas Roadhouse completely misses out on. Logan's may not make the bulk of their money during lunch, but the goodwill garnered for staying open is worth the tradeoff.

Every marketer knows that one of the biggest wins for brands is working them into the home and everyday family life. Logan's Roadhouse seems to understand this concept, which is perhaps why the chain doesn't restrict food to the restaurant experience. The brand offers classic meals such as meatloaf or pork chops as take-home options, as well as many other famous dishes in Take & Bake or Hot & Ready form. You'll need to order a day in advance, but plan ahead and you'll have a full meal ready to go.

It's worth remembering that Logan's Roadhouse doesn't extend take-home to individual meals: Instead, Take & Bake and Hot & Ready dishes are designed for six to eight people. However, if you're feeding a family or a crowd, these are a great way to get food on the table. For Logan's, it's an excellent choice to offer food in different ways and to maintain loyalty even without getting people through the door. Texas Roadhouse, on the other hand, offers takeout but not an option to cook meals at home.

There's one thing restaurant customers care more about than anything else in 2025: Value for money. Diners want to know they're getting a good deal for what they've paid, and the vast majority of people don't want to pay much for a solid meal. Logan's Roadhouse understands this perhaps better than any other chain out there, and definitely more than other steakhouses. The eatery's Real Deal Meal is proof: Launched in March 2025, this special promises a full-service, three-course meal starting at just $11.99.

The amount of food for the price is incredible. The deal includes a drink, appetizer, salad, entrée, and an infinite number of Logan's Roadhouse rolls. The deal can be upgraded for a couple dollars here and there, rolling in alcoholic drinks or a fancier entrée for example. Even at this price point, the meals are still incredibly reasonable. At Texas Roadhouse, meanwhile, an entrée alone may cost $11.99 or more. No wonder people are heading to Logan's: Steals like this can't be ignored.

Texas Roadhouse is absolutely everywhere and is the most profitable steakhouse in America. The restaurant boasts over 700 locations not only across the United States and one U.S. territory, but in 10 other countries as well. While this means you won't have a hard time finding one, it also results in a large, slightly anonymous brand.

On the other hand, Logan's Roadhouse features more of a cozy, local vibe. The chain is far from small, but it's smaller than Texas Roadhouse and keeps operations solely to the U.S.. This allows the company to retain a tight focus on customer experience. Additionally, Logan's Roadhouse works hard to create a culture of supporting community initiatives and charities, spearheaded by SPB Hospitality. It works closely with the GiftAMeal program, allowing guests to generate donations for local food banks by taking pictures of their meals — a project resulting in over 20,000 meals given away. The goodwill and feeling of community generated by these initiatives has no doubt brought customers closer to the brand, keeping them coming back for more.

You can tell a chain is doing well when customers are vocally happy — and Logan's Roadhouse diners aren't holding back. 2025 was the year the brand skyrocketed in terms of customer satisfaction, with Market Force Information's 2025 Casual Dining Industry Study ranking Logan's Roadhouse as the restaurant to beat. Diners named the eatery as top of the pack for friendliness, atmosphere, value, and personal satisfaction when dining. The previous year, Logan's placed ninth on the list.

This massive leap in satisfaction is a clear testament to how seriously Logan's takes the customer experience. The chain doesn't just want to be good: It wants to be the best option available. Meanwhile Texas Roadhouse ranked third overall, slightly above fellow competitor LongHorn Steakhouse. However, consumers pay attention to reviews, and it's clear Logan's is edging ahead of these other massive chains. This dark horse could emerge victorious in the long run.

When Logan's was in the throes of financial troubles and struggling to get people through the door a decade ago, it's safe to say the chain wouldn't have been most people's go-to steakhouse. However, that was before SPB Hospitality took over. Logan's Roadhouse's parent company was formed in May 2020, shortly after the restaurant went bankrupt for the second time. Previous SPB Hospitality CEO Josh Kern understood Logan's needed to revitalize its image — and its table offerings.

Kern invested heavily in improving Logan's Roadhouse's ingredients, while simultaneously seeking to create more value for customers. Everything from steaks to scratch-made rolls were interrogated, while new menu innovations rolled in to jazz up the restaurant's repertoire. At the same time, Kern prevented Logan's prices from spiraling out of control. Cut to 2025, and customers clearly noticed that this chain has made massive changes to allow huge value for money. No wonder diners are lining up.

A restaurant is nothing without staff, and Logan's Roadhouse is clearly aware of this. Like any chain restaurant, the eatery invests heavily in making sure staff are well-trained and happy. In recent years, it's worked even harder to ensure the people who keep wheels moving feel valued. Logan's training emphasizes not just teaching people to do the right thing, but also the rewards of setting up employees to understand and perform their roles. The Logan's ethos is that when staff receives proper training, they're more likely to feel empowered, happy, confident in a job they want to keep.

Logan's also introduced certification programs for employees, granting them crucial career progression opportunities. The Grill Master Certification Program allows chefs to become "Master of the Flame" (how cool does that sound?) through a training course, further enhancing their cooking skills and abilities. These programs  immerse employees in the heart of the business and allow for a better experience at work — customers, in turn, take notice and praise the quality of service.

Both Logan's Roadhouse and Texas Roadhouse are franchises, but one of them has significantly outpaced the other. In this case, Texas Roadhouse operates hundreds more restaurants than Logan's. On the surface this seems like a good thing, but may cause people to turn away in the long run. Why? It's because franchisees may not be able to afford the steakhouse's expansions. The initial franchise fee to open a Texas Roadhouse costs $40,000, but the total investment is far higher than comparable businesses. This may well put off potential partners — in fact, Texas's franchise partner number is fairly low compared to total unit number, and the company doesn't have wide-reaching plans to seek more.

By contrast Logan's Roadhouse's total investment is far lower than Texas Roadhouse's, making the smaller chain a more attractive option for partners. That said, the restaurant hasn't expanded in recent years and has instead contracted, losing some of its units. However, this moderate approach to expansion has allowed the brand to focus on core operations, and the medium-range potential investment required could see Logan's explode once it's ready. By contrast, Texas Roadhouse's bubble may burst.

No one wants to walk into a chain restaurant and feel as though it's stagnated for decades, right? The point of these eateries is feeling modern, fresh, and clean. That's an idea Logan's Roadhouse has considered a lot in the last few years, and why the brand spent a great deal of time and money revamping its restaurants for both current and future customers. Importantly however, former CEO Josh Kern didn't want to change things up too much. "You want to have a destination where people are having a good time. Food is a little bit of that. Certainly remodeling," Kern said in an interview with FSR Magazine. "But not a full changing of what it is. Focusing on the bar, shining it up, making sure our signage packages are all accurate and are turned on and we've got landscaping. Just the basic things."

This remodeling began in 2021 in Houston and captured the brand's Texas heritage. Stores now feature statement artwork, splashes of neon, and homages to the Lone Star State. This rejuvenation of the restaurant's vibe has made it feel almost new, and makes its storefronts places that customers want to experience — not just eat in.