EMERGING BRANDS
LOOK OUT FOR BUBBA’S 33, TEXAS ROADHOUSE’S FAST-GROWING, FREE- WHEELING SIBLING The 52-unit sports bar chain is applying the Roadhouse playbook to burgers and pizza. It has ambitions to become a major player in casual dining.
T exas Roadhouse had a fantastic 2024. The steakhouse chain’s U.S. sales grew nearly 15%, to more than $5.4 billion, and it became the largest casual-dining chain in the country, bumping Olive Garden out of the top spot. It was a landmark year by almost every measure for the 664-unit chain. And yet Texas Roadhouse was not even the fast- est-growing brand in its own portfolio. That would be Bubba’s 33, the 52-unit sports-bar chain the company created in 2014 as a pizza and burgers-focused complement to its main concept. Bubba’s systemwide sales leapt by 20.4% last year, to almost $298 million, according to Technomic Top 500 Chain Restau- rant data. In an otherwise slow year for casual dining, it was the fastest-growing sports bar chain in the country by sales, and the ninth fastest-growing casual chain overall. Bubba’s was the brainchild of the late Kent Taylor, Texas Roadhouse’s larger-than-life founder and former CEO. He started thinking about a second concept in the mid-2010s, when Texas Roadhouse was hitting its stride selling steaks, potatoes and beer in its high-energy, country-themed restaurants. Taylor thought the brand’s success could be replicated under a slightly different model, something closer to the sports bars like Hooters and Ben- nigan’s where he got his start in the industry. “I think he saw an opportunity in an additional casual-dining segment of burgers and pizzas and sports and rock-and-roll kind of energy,” said Texas Roadhouse CEO Jerry Morgan in an inter - view. The company named the concept after Bubba, Taylor’s af- ter-hours alter ego. “There was Kent Taylor, and then late at night, there was Bubba,” Morgan said. “And Bubba liked him a burger and pizza after midnight. So we thought it was kind of a great thing to call a restaurant chain.” The 33 is a nod to 1933, the year prohibition ended in the
JOE GUSZKOWSKI
JOSEPH.GUSZKOWSKI@INFORMA.COM
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RESTAURANT BUSINESS JULY 2025
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