The Best Texas Roadhouse Dinner Isn’t Served at the Restaurant

Sliding into a booth at a chain restaurant sets off a very specific burst of nostalgia for me. I celebrated my senior prom with a fancy fondue dinner at The Melting Pot, spent Friday nights with my high school best friends at Chili’s, and ate Red Lobster’s Biscuits on an early date with my now-husband. I wonder if my kids might have the same type of memories about Texas Roadhouse some day. The restaurant chain has recently overtaken Olive Garden to become America’s favorite casual restaurant chain. I know better than most how hard it is to resist the freshly baked rolls with honey cinnamon butter, bacon-studded green beans, hand-cut steaks and other scratch-made dishes they’re known for. 

So here’s some good news for like-minded fans: Texas Roadhouse offers a family-style dinner available for pickup, meaning you can enjoy your favorite dine-out dinner at home without the prep or cleanup. 

Order online: Texas Roadhouse Family Pack

Texas Roadhouse’s Family packs are, quite literally, a hidden gem. There is no mention of the meals on their website’s main menu. It is only when a specific restaurant location is chosen that the shareable family meal options appear. (Don’t worry! We’ll guide you through step-by-step instructions to uncover the hidden restaurant hack near you below.)

My local Tampa-area, Texas Roadhouse offers four family-size dinner options: Chicken Critters, BBQ chicken, beef tips, and sirloin steaks. Other locations may have additional options that include pork chops, grilled chicken, pulled pork, and more. The meals come with enough to serve about four people. In the beef tips meal you’ll receive 2 pounds of steak cooked with mushrooms and onions in a brown gravy, while in the sirloin meal you can expect two 8-ounce and two 6-ounce sirloin steaks. With your main, you can choose from a family-size order of the house or Caesar salad plus your choice of two sides: buttered corn, green beans, mashed potatoes, seasoned rice, and steak fries. One dozen yeast rolls and honey cinnamon butter are included in each order, too.

My go-to Texas Roadhouse family pack order starts with the sirloin steaks. The steaks are cooked to medium, and you may not be able to request a different doneness level. The sirloin steaks have always been tender, nicely seasoned, and cooked with a warm, pink center. Mashed potatoes and brown gravy are my daughter’s favorite side dish, so that always makes it into our pack. The potatoes have a few visible pieces of peel, but are smooth and creamy. Our second side is usually the restaurant’s famous green beans — tender and seasoned with bacon.

This meal feeds my family of four for one night, with enough left over for lunch the next day. The sirloin steak family pack costs $59.99, or $14.99 per person. Here’s the kicker: At the restaurant, this same meal would cost $85.95 or $22.49 per person! 

There are also weeks where I need a dinner jump start for several meals instead of a single hearty dinner. That’s when I try to think of these family packs as an alternative to mail-delivery meal kits. I separate out each element of the family pack and include it in dinners throughout the week. For example, I might top the Caesar salad with pulled rotisserie chicken one night and use sliced sirloin steak as a shortcut for beef lo mein another night. These family meal packs provide us flexibility on busy weeknights, when there isn’t enough time to spend in a restaurant or cooking in the kitchen.

1. Navigate to the “Order to-Go” tab on the Texas Roadhouse homepage.
2. Find your local restaurant via ZIP code or city name.
3. Select curbside or pickup, choose a pickup time.
4. Scroll to the bottom of the menu bar on the left side of the page until you see “Family Packs.”
5. Follow the prompts to select your main dish, sides, dipping sauces, and dressings.

This post originally appeared on The Kitchn. See it there: The Best Texas Roadhouse Dinner Isn’t Served at the Restaurant