Line dancing at the drop of a hat, saddling up on your birthday and covering everything with cheese
and bacon. Here are some of the really weird rules Texas Roadhouse employees have to follow.
If you have two left feet, working at Texas Roadhouse may not be the best choice for
you. That's because line dancing will likely be a requirement of your job. Fortunately,
according to Indeed, line dancing isn't a standard Texas Roadhouse employee rule in every location.
Users on Reddit have commented that new hires will get to take line-dancing classes, and,
that if line dancing is a part of the requirement at your location,
you can expect to have to dance at least once an hour.
"We have a certain song that comes on, kind of lets them know we're getting ready to do
a line dance and they'll go up front and do a quick little line dance for three minutes."
However, if you try to avoid the line dance,
you can expect to be written up for not making the effort. One Redditor said their
best friend was even forced to come in to work to line dance on her day off because
they needed a certain number of dancers. Since she was a newbie, she got drafted.
Restaurant lunch menus tend to offer smaller, more reasonable portions for less money.
So, eating off the lunch menu can be good for both your pocketbook and your
waistline. However, Texas Roadhouse doesn't serve lunch during the week,
and when they're open during lunch hours on the weekends, there's no lunch menu.
Texas Roadhouse says that this helps their managers not to have
to work as many hours and also saves on real estate costs since they don't
have to be located in high traffic areas to lure in the business crowd.
With lower real estate prices, Texas Roadhouse doesn't really have to worry
about being open all the time. Plus, Texas Roadhouse has over 5,000 guests each week,
which is more than most restaurants. With everyone buying more expensive dinner menu
items any time the doors are open, Texas Roadhouse is able to make more money.
One big Texas Roadhouse employee rule is that it requires its hosts to act with H.E.A.R.T.,
an acronym standing for, quote, "howdy, engage, arrive, respond, and thank you". That is,
they must use a friendly and energetic initial greeting, engage guests in friendly conversation,
tell the guests what they need to know about the restaurant on the way to the
table while acting with every courtesy, and thank them for visiting when they leave.
Not only do servers have to hit certain talking points at your table, but they have very specific
words that they have to use. This employee rule is part psychology and part branding.
As a user revealed on Reddit, pay attention and you'll realize that food and drinks at Texas
Roadhouse come with specific adjectives. For example, beers, margaritas and steaks become,
quote, "ice cold beers, legendary margaritas and hand cut steaks"
The script and specific buzzwords are all a part of Texas Roadhouse's mission
to provide legendary food and legendary service. In fact, 100% of Texas Roadhouse
employee respondents on Comparably said that this mission statement is a motivating factor for them,
and 17% said that it's the main reason they continue to work for the company.
Within two minutes of being seated, Texas Roadhouse servers should start suggesting
drinks and appetizers. They must recommend at least one alcoholic and one non-alcoholic
beverage. They're also required to suggest at least two desserts. Being suggestive isn't
abnormal in the restaurant business, but Roadhouse employees are pushed to up-sell.
A Redditor explained that the idea behind the Texas Roadhouse employee
rule of up-selling is to use psychology and sales techniques to get customers to buy
bigger items or items at premium prices. If a customer asks for fries or a baked potato,
the server will ask if they'd like to add ingredients like cheese, bacon, or butter.
"Our potatoes are as loaded as the folks at a Willie Nelson concert."
It's the same case for entrees, except that it's mushrooms and onions as the
add-ons. Unfortunately, according to Reddit, some up-sells can be a
little misleading since employees aren't automatically telling their customers
that the extra ingredients don't come with the dish and cost extra.
Texas Roadhouse has several rules about what you can and can't wear to work. It's a casual
Texas steakhouse-style environment, so jeans are actually part of the uniform. You just have to
be sure they don't have any rips and tears, and Texas Roadhouse will provide you with branded
t-shirts during your training. However, according to Indeed, if you're thinking of working at Texas
Roadhouse, you'll want to know that it's necessary to keep your shirt tucked into your jeans at
all times – unless management is feeling a little lax. Plus, you have to wear a belt.
A 2015 Fruit of the Loom survey determined that men of all ages
who tuck in their shirts make more money than non-shirt-tuckers and Today reports
that shirt tuckers also tend to have more job happiness and optimism for the future.
It also makes it easier to keep your shirt clean while waiting tables. So there is a good chance
that having servers with a more polished look helps make more money for the restaurant and helps
maintain happier employees. Thus this weird Texas Roadhouse employee rule is likely here to stay.
If you hate being humiliated, don't let your friends and family convince you to
go to Texas Roadhouse for your birthday. Otherwise, the server will drag out a
portable saddle for you to mount, announce your birthday to the entire restaurant,
and will ask everyone within hearing distance to give you a big, quote, "yeehaw."
"Ready - 1, 2, 3 - YEEHAW!"
Some servers do ask elderly people if they're up for the saddle in case mounting it may prove too
difficult physically. Nevertheless, they still get a big ol' Texas-style "yeehaw."
Redditors with Roadhouse experience revealed that servers don't necessarily enjoy the birthday
saddle process. It can sometimes be difficult to gather enough servers for the festivities and find
someone who wants to make the loud birthday announcement in an already-loud restaurant.
Texas Roadhouse regularly sends in secret shoppers to ensure that servers are doing
everything they're supposed to do. According to one Reddit user with inside knowledge,
the mystery shopper will look like a regular customer, so every table
the waitstaff serves between 4:00 p.m. and an hour before closing is suspect.
The Redditor explained that the secret shopper is required to stay at the restaurant for a
minimum of 60 minutes to have plenty of time to observe any missteps the server
might make. They will have already reviewed information from the previous mystery shopper,
so they likely have something specific that they're observing.
And they're always watching to see who is and who isn't line dancing.
According to a different Reddit user, if a server doesn't pass their test,
they can be demoted to being a host or fired, revealing -
"As long as you hit certain talking points, greet them at the 45-second mark,
and make sure their food comes out okay you should be good."
According to past and present Roadhouse employees on Reddit,
there's an expectation for servers to sell gift cards. The potential for people to buy
gift cards and never use them is always a bonus for a restaurant. It's money in the
bank for a restaurant without necessarily having to perform a service or sell food.
Total Touch says that 8 out of 10 people will purchase more than one gift card at a time,
which can be a real money maker. Another interesting statistic is that 44% of consumers
have visited a new restaurant or store because they've gotten a gift card. So it can be a way
to get people in the door who have never had the Texas Roadhouse experience before.
Unfortunately, one Redditor says that the Texas Roadhouse employee rule to sell
gift cards can sometimes backfire. They've experienced customers who,
offended by the hard sell, decided not to leave a tip.
It turns out that Texas Roadhouse keeps track of all those up-sells and gift card sales. According
to one Redditor, at night's end a server can expect the management to announce everyone's
percentages from the shift, and that nightly contests are common to see who can get the best
percentages. Prizes can range from not having to do certain duties or getting a free meal.
According to Restaurant News, the point of employee competition is to increase
how much the restaurant sells and increase morale among servers. Competition and the
possibility of getting a reward encourage many servers to be on point, which is why
many managers host nightly competitions. According to responses on Glassdoor,
while some employees have found the contests to be fun because of the competition aspect,
others seem to resent the idea of working harder for a free salad.
Rather than having bread baked and steaks cut off-site and shipped to the restaurant
ready to serve, Texas Roadhouse employs bakers and meat cutters. The bakers bake fresh yeast
rolls every day and bake fresh bread every five minutes to serve with homemade cinnamon butter.
"It's a staple for Texas Roadhouse."
"This is gonna be the cheesiest thing I've ever said, but I swear we make 'em with love."
While the bakers are staying warm and toasty in the kitchen, though,
the meat cutters work in coolers with a temperature of 34 degrees Fahrenheit.
According to the Kansas Department of Agriculture Meat and Poultry Inspection,
processing and cutting meat should always take place in an environment that is not
above 50 degrees Fahrenheit to prevent bacteria and mold from growing on the meat. With kitchen
restaurants being a warm environment, this means that cutting work has to be done in a
separate cool room. However, it's usually more convenient to do the cutting work in
the cooler, which is what meat cutters at Texas Roadhouse are required to do.
Despite the sometimes-frigid work environment, about 65% of Texas Roadhouse meat cutters on
Indeed rated the job four to five stars. One said it was his first job and he spent eight years
doing it. Unfortunately, meat cutters never make as much as servers have the potential to make.
There are plenty of restaurants that require their long-haired waitstaff to pull their
hair back in a ponytail. After all, no customer wants someone else's hair in their food. However,
Texas Roadhouse has a more unusual employee hair policy, with the restaurant forbidding
employees' hair from touching their shoulders. In addition to this rule, posts from Indeed
reveal that both male and female employees are required to keep their hair a natural hair color.
Of course, in the kitchen, food safety policies dictate that staff must wear hats, hair coverings,
hair and beard restraints, or clothing that covers up any excess body hair. Otherwise,
Citizen Times reports that they're in danger of being written up during health inspections.
One thing you need to know about general managers at Texas Roadhouse is that they're
literally invested in how well their restaurant runs, so they want to ensure that every customer
who walks through the door leaves happy. When a member of the Texas Roadhouse staff
gets promoted to General Manager, they are required to make a $25,000 investment in the
company. If you're wondering how that would be possible for someone working on waitress wages,
it's because the company will actually loan the money to the manager to be paid back in
installments. And if the General Manager sticks around for five years, they can get the whole
loan forgiven. Thus, according to Harvard Business School, the Texas Roadhouse employee
rule to invest in the company as a manager is not as extreme as it initially sounds.
Harvard Business School also says that a Texas Roadhouse manager tends to make around
$100,000 a year. Since competing restaurants only offer their General Managers around
$65,000-$80,000 per year, there's definitely an incentive to stay on for five years or even
longer. Plus, Texas Roadhouse says that the Managing Partner gets 10% of the profits,
which drives them to have the staff follow all the scripts, use all the buzzwords,
and up-sell. All of these weird rules that Texas Roadhouse employees follow
are ultimately about putting more money in the pocket of the management and the company.