Step inside any Texas Roadhouse, and it’s easy to spot the numerous references to the Lone Star State. Menu items include Texas Red Chili and a Fort Worth Ribeye; there’s a whole corner dedicated to Texas icon Willie Nelson; and it’s quite possible a waiter will boot-scoot over to someone’s table at any given moment.
What you won’t see, though, are many mentions of Clarksville, Indiana.
The first Texas Roadhouse
Despite its “Texas” moniker, the first-ever Texas Roadhouse opened at a mall in Clarksville, Indiana, in 1993, just over the Ohio river from founder Kent Taylor’s hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. So where exactly did Taylor get the idea to go all-in on Texas? According to a spokesperson for the restaurant chain, Taylor had wanted to recreate the roadhouse-style eateries that he observed during previous visits to Texas.
“He wanted to create a value-based restaurant with food he could be proud of, featuring steak, ribs, and made-from-scratch sides and sauces. A spot with a jukebox full of country tunes (originally this was a live band) and an energetic atmosphere,” a spokesperson for the company wrote in a statement shared with Nexstar.
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The founder’s earlier ideas
Opening up a Texas-style roadhouse, however, wasn’t Taylor’s first idea. Before settling on a Texas-themed restaurant, Taylor tried opening a seafood restaurant and a “Florida salad company,” he told the Louisville Business Journal. But one of his first major entrepreneurial successes came after he launched a Colorado-themed restaurant called Buckhead Hickory Grill (later the Buckhead Mountain Grill), having developed a love for Colorado — and skiing — while managing nightclubs and restaurants in the state, he once said in a 2009 interview.
Taylor launched the concept in Kentucky, thanks in part to finally finding an investor in former Kentucky Governor John Y. Brown, he explained in “Made From Scratch,” a memoir published after his death in 2021. He had also pitched Brown his idea for a Texas-themed steakhouse, but couldn’t come to a deal on financing. So he secured his own funding (after being turned down by dozens of other potential investors) to open the first Texas Roadhouse in 1993, and he sold his stake in the Buckhead Mountain Grill a year later, the Louisville Business Journal reported.
Within years, the Texas Roadhouse expanded to include dozens of locations. And in 1998, just about five years after its founding, a Texas Roadhouse finally opened in Texas.
Other (non-Texas-themed) restaurant ventures
Taylor didn’t exactly give up on his dream of a Colorado-themed restaurant, though. He opened the first Aspen Creek Grill in 2009, aiming to offer a wider range of menu items in “a more upscale atmosphere,” he once told Nation’s Restaurant News. (Texas Roadhouse later sold its Aspen Creek concept to a company called Ultra Steak in 2013.)
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In the decade that followed, Taylor oversaw the opening of additional restaurant chains, including his Bubba’s 33 sports bars, as well as a burger chain called Jaggers. And if he were alive today, it’s not unthinkable that he’d be developing additional restaurant concepts — perhaps even a few inspired by his time in Indiana or Kentucky.
“I have this creative problem,” he told the Louisville Business Journal in 2020. “Every few years I have to create something. … I think I might have to go to therapy someday.”
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