Business
Texas Roadhouse, Inc. Announces First Quarter 2020 Results and Provides Business Update in Response to COVID-19
Founder Writes Personal Letter LOUISVILLE, Ky., May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Texas Roadhouse, Inc. (NasdaqGS: TXRH), today provided a statement from Kent
About this update from Texas Roadhouse, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"Founder Writes Personal Letter\nLOUISVILLE, Ky., May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Texas Roadhouse, Inc. (NasdaqGS: TXRH), today provided a statement from Kent Taylor, Founder of Texas Roadhouse, announced financial results for the 13 week period ended March 31, 2020 and provided a business update in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.\n Founder Letter Hello Roadies, Shareholders, Loyal Guests, and Interested Folks, As everyone’s world has obviously changed, so has ours. I still remember the early days of Texas Roadhouse back in the mid-1990’s, when three of our first five stores failed. Survival mode was where I lived for quite a few years. Well, damn, if I didn’t find myself right back there again. Five restaurants have become 600 and 400 employees have become 75,000+. Back then in my mid-30’s, our Roadies were close to my age, and I thought of our company as a people company that happened to serve steaks. We were a family. Today, I still view us as a people company that serves steaks, however the stakes (no pun intended) and our family are obviously quite larger. Somehow my early struggles, along with my many years of operating restaurants (some fifteen years of running daily shifts), have helped provide me with a unique perspective. Perhaps a different perspective than that of a marketing or finance person that may be running a restaurant company (no offense, just sayin'). I try as much as possible to live in the mindset of our store Managing Partners. A few weeks into March, when the “you-know-what” hit the fan, we had two choices: (a) hunker down, lay people off, conserve cash, and wait it out; or (b) deal with the reality of each day, pivot, experiment, learn, and pivot again. We went with (b) and jumped in headfirst! We quickly learned from our individual operators, especially some of our crazy, out-of-the-box thinkers, like me, who were not afraid to push the boundaries and try new things. What normally would take six months, we were able to do in just a few days. We made the pivot quickly and safely from dine-in to traditional To-Go before pivoting again to To-Go/Curbside before adding family value packs (both hot and cold) and ready-to-grill steaks. Who knows what our operators will come up with next, but I’m sure it will be amazing and probably a little out-of-the-box. While many cautioned against some of these ideas, ...