Texas Roadhouse runs 714 of its 816 restaurants itself. Only 102 are franchised, domestic applications are closed, and 36 can be bought back.
Quick answer Barely. Texas Roadhouse ended fiscal 2025 with 816 restaurants, of which 714 were company-owned and 102 franchised. Only 41 of the franchised restaurants are domestic. The company is not accepting new domestic franchise applications and holds contractual rights to acquire 36 of those 41 at pre-set formulas.
The fiscal 2025 10-K discloses that Texas Roadhouse holds contractual rights to acquire 36 of its 41 domestic franchise restaurants at pre-set formulas. Read that from a buyer’s chair rather than an investor’s. The company has already negotiated the price at which it can take those restaurants back, on 88% of its domestic franchised base, and it has that language sitting in a public filing.
So the honest answer runs in two parts. Yes, franchised Texas Roadhouse restaurants exist. No, you cannot buy one, and the trend line points the other direction.
As of the period ended December 30, 2025, the system counted 816 restaurants. 714 of them are company-owned. 102 are franchised. The company is not accepting new domestic franchise applications, which is the part most search results skip past on the way to inventing a franchise fee.
| Segment | Restaurants |
|---|---|
| Company-owned | 714 |
| Domestic franchised Texas Roadhouse | 36 |
| Domestic franchised Jagger’s | 5 |
| International franchised Texas Roadhouse | 60 |
| International franchised Jagger’s | 1 |
| Total | 816 |
Two of the 60 international Texas Roadhouse restaurants sit in a US territory, which is a distinction that matters if you are trying to work out what a domestic operator holds. Strip the international column out and the domestic franchised count is 41 restaurants against 714 company-owned ones. Franchisees run 5% of the domestic system.
Compare that to a brand people actually associate with franchising. Roughly 95% of McDonald’s locations worldwide are franchisee-operated. Texas Roadhouse sits at the opposite pole, and the gap is a business model decision rather than a stage of growth.
There is one exception worth knowing about. Texas Roadhouse does sell franchises, just not for the steakhouse. Its fast-casual brand Jagger’s is franchised through a wholly owned subsidiary, Jaggers Development Corporation, and six of the system’s franchised restaurants carry that name.
Walk into a Texas Roadhouse and the operator you meet behaves like an owner. They are on the floor, they know the regulars, they have money riding on the outcome. The company calls them Managing Partners, and the word partner does most of the work in creating the confusion that sends people to Google.
A Managing Partner runs one company-owned restaurant under a contract and holds an economic stake in how that restaurant performs. It is a pay structure attached to a job. The restaurant stays on the corporate balance sheet, the lease stays in the corporate name, and the operator has an employment agreement rather than a franchise agreement.
That distinction has teeth. A franchise sale triggers the FTC Franchise Rule, which forces the seller to hand you a disclosure document at least 14 days before you sign anything. Item 5 shows what you pay up front. Item 7 shows the full build cost. Item 19 either shows unit-level revenue or explicitly declines to. An employment contract carries none of that machinery, and no regulator is standing behind the numbers you get told in the interview.
The other structural difference is what you own at the end. A franchisee builds a transferable asset and can sell it, subject to franchisor approval. A Managing Partner has a contract that ends when the employment ends. Neither arrangement is inherently worse, but only one of them is the thing people mean when they ask about buying a franchise.
Texas Roadhouse is not unusual here. Most large casual-dining chains keep their dining rooms on the corporate books. The reasons are operational rather than philosophical.
A full-service restaurant with a bar carries more labor per dollar of revenue than any quick-service format, and labor is where franchisee behavior diverges fastest from brand standards. Liquor licensing adds a regulatory layer that varies by state and does not transfer cleanly with a franchise agreement. Scratch kitchens with hand-cut steaks and in-house butchers require a level of process compliance that is expensive to police across independent owners. And the capital per restaurant is high enough that a company generating strong operating cash flow can fund its own growth without renting a franchisee’s balance sheet.
The franchisor’s calculus is straightforward. Franchising trades margin for growth speed and capital efficiency. If you already have the capital and your unit economics are strong, franchising means selling the best part of your economics to someone else. Our breakdown of what franchise owners actually earn walks through the same math from the other side of the table.
See what a franchised restaurant brand discloses in its FDD
The practical loss for a buyer looking at Texas Roadhouse is not the brand. It is the disclosure. Here is what shows up when a comparable food brand does franchise and files an FDD.
| Texas Roadhouse | Freddy’s | |
|---|---|---|
| Franchised units | 102 of 816 | 542 of 580 |
| Domestic franchise sales | closed | open |
| Franchise fee | none published | $35,000 |
| Initial investment | none published | $854,834 to $2,802,000 |
| Royalty | not applicable | 5% of gross receipts |
| Marketing fund | not applicable | capped at 3% |
| Item 19 | none | $1,820,745 median, 477 franchised restaurants |
Freddy’s 2026 FDD prices three formats, and the spread is the useful part. An in-line restaurant without a drive-thru runs $854,834 to $1,302,000. An end-cap with a drive-thru runs $1,026,334 to $2,361,000. A standalone with a drive-thru runs $1,586,334 to $2,802,000. Its Item 19 reports annual gross receipts for the 477 franchised restaurants open the entire fiscal year ending December 31, 2025, with a $1,820,745 median, a $1,859,481 average, and a range running from $644,497 to $4,164,361.
That range is the number to sit with. The gap between the weakest and strongest franchised restaurant in a single mature system is more than six to one, and it exists inside a brand with 542 franchised units and consistent standards. Any brand-level average hides that spread, and gross receipts are revenue rather than profit, so the royalty, the marketing fund, and the rent all come out of it before you do.
If a build in that range is above your budget, the food franchises under $250K list covers the smaller-footprint end of the category, and the $500K to $1M investment tier sits closer to where a Freddy’s in-line format lands.
The pattern that answers “is this brand a franchise” is short. Find out whether an FDD exists and whether it is being offered to new candidates, because those are two different questions. A brand can have a registered document on file and still be closed to applications, and a brand can run hundreds of franchised units that were all sold a decade ago.
For a public company, the 10-K does most of the work. It splits company-operated from franchised units, describes the franchise agreement terms if any exist, and discloses acquisition rights over franchisees. That last disclosure is the one worth hunting for. A franchisor buying its system back is telling you where it thinks the value sits, and a pre-set acquisition formula on 88% of the domestic franchised base is about as clear a statement as a filing gets.
For a private brand, the tell is the state franchise registries. No registration means nothing is being sold, whatever a development page implies.
VetMyFranchise reads the actual FDD rather than the pitch page, so Items 5, 7, and 19 come back as numbers you can underwrite instead of adjectives. Compare franchised restaurant brands with real disclosure data.
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About this analysis The franchise data in this article is drawn from VetMyFranchise's structured analysis of 2,300+ Franchise Disclosure Documents filed with U.S. state regulators. See our data & methodology.
No, not as a new domestic buyer. Texas Roadhouse is not accepting new domestic franchise applications, which means there is no franchise disclosure document circulating for individual candidates and no published fee, investment range, or Item 19. The 41 domestic franchise restaurants that exist are held by long-standing operators, and the company has contractual rights to acquire 36 of them at pre-set formulas.
102 of 816, per the fiscal 2025 10-K for the period ended December 30, 2025. The split inside that 102 is 36 domestic Texas Roadhouse restaurants, 5 domestic Jagger's, 60 international Texas Roadhouse restaurants including two in a US territory, and 1 international Jagger's. Company-owned restaurants account for the other 714.
It is an employment arrangement, not a franchise. A Managing Partner runs a single company-owned restaurant under a contract with the company and carries an economic stake in that restaurant's results. Because no franchise is being sold, none of it falls under the FTC Franchise Rule, so there is no Item 5 fee schedule, no Item 7 investment table, and no Item 19 earnings disclosure to read before you commit.
It has already secured the option. The fiscal 2025 10-K discloses contractual rights to acquire 36 of the 41 domestic franchise restaurants at pre-set formulas. A franchisor that intends to expand through franchisees does not pre-negotiate the reacquisition price on 88% of its domestic franchised base.
Franchised full-service dining is a thin category, so most buyers end up comparing fast-casual and quick-service brands that publish real numbers. Freddy's is one: its 2026 FDD sets a $35,000 license fee, an $854,834 to $2,802,000 initial investment depending on format, a 5% royalty, and an Item 19 reporting a $1,820,745 median across 477 franchised restaurants. That is the level of disclosure Texas Roadhouse will never owe you.
This page is part of VetMyFranchise. View all pages: llms.txt · llms-full.txt