Texas Roadhouse doesn’t really need to offer delivery. It’s one of the hottest restaurant chains in the industry, currently riding a streak of positive same-store sales that dates back to 2010, excluding the pandemic. And it has shown no signs of slowing down: Its 7.1% same-store sales growth in the first quarter was its best mark since 2024.
That’s exactly why now is the perfect time for the steakhouse giant to give delivery a shot.
The famously anti-delivery brand confirmed last week that it is doing just that in a few locations. It described the test as a “fact-finding mission to get better educated on delivery” and said it has no plans to expand it.
Some observers like my colleagues Jonathan Maze and Lisa Jennings argue that this is a mistake. Texas Roadhouse’s no-delivery stance shows its commitment to its food quality and dining experience. It has worked extremely well for the chain for nearly two decades. Delivery risks damaging that reputation. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
But Texas Roadhouse has a few very good reasons to at least take a look at delivery, and soon.
The first is that consumers just love delivery. You only need to look at sales results for DoorDash and Uber Eats to see that. Despite a tough economy in which many consumers are cutting back on their restaurant spending, they continue to order delivery at an astounding clip.
If Texas Roadhouse wants to keep up its habit of growing year after year, it’s ultimately going to need to serve more customers, and it has only so much capacity in its restaurants. Delivery could allow it to expand its business.
There would likely be plenty of demand for it. The chain’s takeout business has been growing faster than dine-in for some time now. From Q1 2023 to Q1 2026, average weekly to-go sales grew 33%, compared to 17% for average weekly sales overall. To-go accounted for 14.6% of average weekly sales last quarter, up about 2 points since 2023.
Notably, the chain has said to-go orders are margin-neutral to slightly positive, and incremental.
And the chain is prepared to do more to-go. Many of its restaurants have dedicated pickup windows, and it recently finished rolling out a digital kitchen system designed in part to help it handle more off-premise volume. That should make delivery easier to adopt if and when it decides to do so.
Of course, delivery has its downsides. It can be less profitable because of commissions of 15% to 30% and smaller tickets. Customers are less likely to add a drink, for instance, and alcohol is a no-go. And it puts an outside party in between the restaurant and the customer, which can hurt the experience.
But Texas Roadhouse’s long run of success means it can do delivery on its own terms. It will be able to negotiate a better rate from its delivery provider, who will no doubt jump at the chance to work with the largest casual-dining chain in the country. And it will allow the chain to let delivery grow organically rather than throwing a bunch of marketing at it.
Unfortunately, many restaurant brands added delivery in a moment of desperation during the pandemic. It was a lifeline that became too big to shut off. Today, some restaurants feel they have no other choice but to keep investing in delivery because they don’t want to lose the revenue, even though it’s less profitable.
That’s why Texas Roadhouse is smart to start small and be deliberate. It is currently testing only first-party delivery, meaning orders are placed through its website and fulfilled by a third-party service. This is generally more favorable for restaurants because it costs less than third-party delivery and they get to keep the order data. (The tradeoff is they don’t get the exposure of being listed on a delivery app.) According to a report from Deutsche Bank, Texas Roadhouse is passing along at least some of the cost with a $5.50 delivery fee for customers. This should help protect the chain’s delivery margins and give it as much control as possible over those orders.
It’s similar to how Olive Garden approached delivery after ending its own holdout two years ago. Its program is also first-party, with Uber as the exclusive delivery provider. It’s designed to have the same margin profile as pickup orders. And so far, it has been a success. Delivery now accounts for nearly 5% of Olive Garden’s sales, about 50% of which are incremental.
Olive Garden parent Darden Restaurants has been gradually expanding delivery to some of its other brands, including Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen. Darden also owns LongHorn Steakhouse, Texas Roadhouse’s chief rival in the steak category. That’s another reason why testing delivery is not such a bad idea for Roadhouse: It could help the brand maintain its edge if Darden ever decides to bring delivery to LongHorn.
Ultimately, I trust Texas Roadhouse to make the right call on whether to move forward with delivery at some point. Who am I to question the wisdom of a company with 61 straight quarters of same-store sales growth?
The important thing is that the chain is testing it now, when it’s doing well, rather than later, when it might have fewer options.