Irene Jiang / Business Insider
It was a big steakhouse showdown.
- $4, $4 and $4 are the leading steak-centric $4 in America.
- I went to the Outback Steakhouse in Manhattan, the LongHorn Steakhouse in Queens, and the Texas Roadhouse in Teterboro, New Jersey, to see how the dining experiences compared.
- I ordered the same meal at each restaurant: a house salad, the chain's most popular appetizer, a house margarita, and a bone-in ribeye $4 with a loaded baked potato and a side of vegetables.
- While Outback had great service and LongHorn's food had its strong points, Texas Roadhouse distinguished itself with its memorable hospitality and honest, hearty food. Its steak was also by and far the best.
- $4.
A good steak is a rare and precious thing, like a newborn child or a cool day in August.
That's why going to a steakhouse is such a risk. There are many ways to cook a good steak, but even more ways to cook a bad one. And if you're going to shell out for steak, you don't want to shell out for a bad one.
Outback Steakhouse, LongHorn Steakhouse, and Texas Roadhouse are the three biggest steakhouse chains in America, according to a 2019 $4. But when it comes to restaurant chains, size doesn't matter.
Steak does.
Like the woman in $4, I had a mission: to find the beef. And not just any beef. I embarked on a search for the best beef in steak-chain-restaurant America. It was to be a long and arduous journey through mountains of deep-fried appetizers, forests of steamed broccoli, and rivers of house margarita. My destination: bone-in ribeye steak, medium-rare.
I went to the Outback Steakhouse in Manhattan, the LongHorn Steakhouse in Queens, and the Texas Roadhouse in Teterboro, New Jersey, to see how the dining experiences compared at each one.
I ordered the same meal at each place: the chain's most popular fried appetizer, a house margarita, a side salad, and a bone-in ribeye steak medium-rare with a side of vegetables and a loaded baked potato.
Here's what it was like: