Texas Roadhouse plans to raise prices again later this year, while admitting in a call with analysts this week that bumping menu prices twice in four months is “a huge number for us to take.”
A 1.5% price increase is planned for the second quarter of 2019, following a 1.7% price jump in November of last year.
The increases are necessary, the company said, to offset labor inflation and rising commodity costs.
“I will tell you, on the traffic side, we really haven’t been able to draw a definite correlation between our pricing actions and traffic changes,” Texas Roadhouse President Scott Colosi said during the call. “I think for us to take 3.2% worth of pricing in four months is a huge number for us to take.”
Colosi did not rule out plans to further raise prices, possibly early next year, especially as more states implement $15-an-hour minimum wage legislation.
Texas Roadhouse reported same-store sales growth of 5.6% at company-owned units and 4.8% at franchised locations for the quarter ended Dec. 25, 2018. Traffic grew 3.2% for the period. Total revenue grew 11.2% year over year.
It was the chain’s 36th-straight quarter of same-store sales increases.
The company operates 464 Texas Roadhouse locations and 25 Bubba’s 33 units. Franchisees run 69 Texas Roadhouse stores.
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