Irene Jiang / Business Insider
I ate at Texas Roadhouse and Outback Steakhouse, and one was clearly better than the other.
- Outback Steakhouse and Texas Roadhouse are similarly branded restaurants, but Texas Roadhouse vastly outpaces Outback in customer loyalty.
- I went to the Outback Steakhouse in Manhattan and the Texas Roadhouse in Teterboro, NJ to see how the dining experiences compared.
- I ordered the same meal at each restaurant: a house salad, the chain's most popular appetizer, a house margarita, and a bone-in ribeye steak with a loaded baked potato and a side of vegetables.
- While both restaurants had their strong points including service, the quality of Texas Roadhouse's food and the overall cohesiveness of its dining experience made it the clear winner of this comparison.
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Texas Roadhouse and Outback Steakhouse are similar at first glance: they're both American chain restaurants that serve steak and they were both founded thousands of miles from their namesakes. The Texas-themed Roadhouse was founded in Indiana. The Australian Outback-themed Steakhouse? Florida.
So as someone who prefers to cook my steaks at home with a cast-iron pan, I wasn't really sure how the two were different. However, in a recent Market Force consumer survey ranking America's favorite restaurants, Texas Roadhouse achieved an ascendant #2 while Outback trailed behind at #14.
Naturally, this difference piqued my curiosity - and my hunger.
With an open mind and an empty stomach, I journeyed to these two meccas of meat: the Outback Steakhouse in Manhattan and the Texas Roadhouse in Teterboro, New Jersey.
I ordered the same meal at each restaurant: a house salad, the chain's most popular appetizer, a house margarita, and a bone-in ribeye steak, medium rare, with a loaded baked potato and a side of vegetables. I did not include prices in this comparison because I felt it would be unfair to compare New York prices against non-New York prices.
Here's the chowdown breakdown: