Texas Roadhouse is a major American steakhouse chain founded by W. Kent Taylor in 1993 in Clarksville, Indiana, and is now headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, operating roughly 800 U.S. locations and 70 international ones as of August 2025. Taylor initially struggled to find backers but received a crucial $80,000 investment from former Kentucky Governor John Y. Brown Jr., and later convinced Dr. John Rhodes and two colleagues to invest $100,000 each, leading to the first restaurant's opening on February 17, 1993. The chain expanded rapidly, went public on Nasdaq in 2004 (raising $159.3 million), and launched its international expansion with a location in Dubai in 2011. Taylor donated his entire salary and bonus (over $800,000) to employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, but tragically died by suicide in March 2021 due to severe tinnitus, with his memoir Made From Scratch published posthumously. In a major milestone, Texas Roadhouse became the largest casual-dining restaurant chain in the U.S. in April 2025, surpassing Olive Garden, while posting a 10% year-over-year revenue increase in Q1 2025.