Kent Taylor was a spectator at the 1971 NCAA cross-country championships:
I will never forget [Steve] Prefontaine powering through that tough hilly course, challenging anyone to catch him as he picked up the pace on each rise, daring all comers to endure pain only he was capable of enduring. Steve won the race, no problem, and wore about him afterward an aura of extreme confidence that captivated me. Still, to this day, I can remember that look, as if he wanted his challengers to bring on whatever they had, and he’d find a way to bring that much more.
Kent Taylor was a skinny kid who was kicked off the football team by a coach who told him he might die out there. He went into track and cross country and drove himself to become better. One summer he trained by running over a thousand miles. He got good enough that with some persistence and luck he got a partial scholarship to UNC. There he ran the steeplechase, obstacle running complete with a water hazard.
Kent Taylor had drive. After college he moved back to Louisville, managed some nightclubs in Cincinnati, managed a Bennigan’s in Dallas for a bit, worked for KFC. What he wanted to do was launch his own concept for a restaurant: Texas Roadhouse.
My initial thought regarding Texas Roadhouse was to combine a rough and somewhat rowdy live music joint with a reasonably priced restaurant featuring steaks and ribs. I wanted to have the same quality of beef that Outback and Longhorn featured at the time, but with price points more similar to Chili’s and Applebee’s. I wanted to target the blue-collar segment of America (my peeps) who would be comfortable with jukebox country music and a casual and lively atmosphere with energetic servers in jeans and T-shirts. In short: Baby, if you want to dress up, then visit somewhere else; but if you want to dress down, we would welcome you with open arms and a warm smile.
Two of his first investors were Dr. Amar Desai and Dr. Mahendra Patel. The concept sparked but there were bumps. Kent opened the second restaurant in Gainesville, Florida 700 miles away from the first one because he had good memories of Gainesville. Three of the first five restaurants failed. But Kent Taylor and the Roadhouse team started to figure it out:
Another idea was to offer free rolls. We played around with giving out popcorn, something for people to munch on immediately, but realized we wanted the smell of rolls to hit our guests when they walked in. If we were going to offer them, though, I wanted to get the recipe perfect. I set my assistant kitchen manager, Rod, to driving all over town to buy as many types of flour and yeast as he could find. We then experimented. Rod and I would try this type of flour with this type of yeast, adding so much water, so much oil, and a dash of sugar and a few other ingredients for good measure. Then we tried again. We also experimented with dozens of variations to proof and bake the rolls. Nothing tasted right. I wanted a fairly sweet roll, but sugar and yeast fight each other, so I needed a flour that would work with both. The process of discovering the best Roadhouse rolls consumed our waking days for three weeks. I’m pretty sure it also consumed Rod’s sleep. He probably dropped off at night counting bags of flour. I was tormenting the poor guy with my relentless pursuit of the perfect roll. Finally, we hit it when we mixed a certain flour with another flour. The mix came together in no time and we created the rolls we use to this day. Our honey cinnamon butter followed a similar process, eventually finding positive results.
Kent had a vision for restaurants that was something like Wagner’s for opera*. He wanted immersive, overpowering. The word Legendary, that’s key. Legendary food, legendary service, legendary margaritas. Texas Roadhouse is full of wood and tin: Kent wanted it loud. Big neon signs on the places are the only advertising. Texas Roadhouses don’t open for lunch** because Kent Taylor envisioned one big, energized shift, almost a performance
We had the chargrills visible to the guests, a meat display case to view our freshly butchered steaks, and you could smell the steaks cooking and the freshly baked bread coming out of the oven. The six senses would come alive for our guests—sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch. The sixth sense was a feeling of a warm and friendly vibe.
It worked. There are 741 Texas Roadhouse restaurants in 49 countries. The nearest one to LA would be either Rialto or Corona, CA. This makes sense: LA real estate is expensive and Texas Roadhouse knows to their customer every dollar matters. Being involved in the community is part of the business model and the Kent Taylor vision.
On a recent trip down the 10, we stopped at the Rialto location. It was just after opening time (3pm) and there was already a 20 minute wait. It was all there, just as Kent described. Friendly people, country music, wood and tin. The sweet rolls with the cinnamon honey butter are brought to your table as you sit down. Bag of peanuts waiting for you. No server has more than three stations so they’re on top of it. We signed up for the Texas Roadhouse VIP Club beforehand, which merits you a free appetizer: we got rattlesnake bites of course, delicious. Part of the popularity might be the $13.99 Early Dine Menu. You’re getting a steak dinner for under $14. Tried the Legendary Margarita, and it was a lot of fun. By the time we left every seat at the bar was occupied. There were big families, elderly couples, hard-work looking dudes having some cold ones.
Kent Taylor in this book comes through as such a boosterish, positive person that it’s hard to grapple with his end. From The Wall Street Journal, March 2021:
After coming down with a mild case of Covid-19, W. Kent Taylor found himself tormented by tinnitus, a ringing in the ears. It persisted and grew so distracting that the founder and chief executive of the restaurant chain Texas Roadhouse Inc. had trouble reading or concentrating.
Mr. Taylor told one friend he hadn’t been able to sleep more than two hours a night for months.
In early March, he met friends at his home in Naples, Fla., and led them on a yacht cruise in the Bahamas. Some of those friends thought he was finally getting better. Then his tinnitus “came screaming back in his head” last week, said Steve Ortiz, a longtime friend and former colleague.
On Thursday, March 18, Mr. Taylor died by suicide in his hometown of Louisville, KY.
Very sad. But his vision lives on. I predict Texas Roadhouse will continue to succeed as long as they remember the lessons of founder Kent Taylor. He’d seen what happens when you lose that:
The decline of Bennigan’s was another wake-up call to keep our standards sky-high and not slip into corporate-think. Thankfully, our company is run by people who have grown up in actual restaurant operations and many were eyewitnesses to either Chi-Chi’s or Bennigan’s’ demise.
* not that Kent would use this comparison. He preferred: Willie Nelson, Three Doors Down, Keith Urban, Kenny Chesney, Aerosmith, etc. Mentioning who played at which corporate celebrations is a big part of the book
** some of them do open for lunch one day a week, usually Friday or Saturday
Helytimes 