Here's The Most Affordable Steak You Can Order At Texas Roadhouse

With food prices still high, many of us are looking for ways to tighten our belts. Restaurants are a luxury, but everyone has to eat. One way to compromise is to get smart about your spending by choosing menu items that are easier on your wallet and, thus, more financially sustainable.

Texas Roadhouse is a popular restaurant chain across the country, and it just so happens that its most affordable steak is also its most popular steak. That's right, we're talking about sirloin. Sirloin steak may not have the same brand name appeal as some of its more expensive beef counterparts but, when it's properly prepared, you can still get a tasty cut of meat that leaves you full and satisfied.

You can order sirloin at Texas Roadhouse in different sizes: 6, 8, 11, and 16 ounces. Obviously, the larger the cut of steak, the more expensive the meal is going to be; so the 6-ounce sirloin is the cheapest at a typical cost of $14.49, which comes with two sides. Prices may vary by location, but this seems to be relatively consistent across the country. When you compare that to the cost of fast food today, which has been outpacing inflation like it's an Olympic sprint, the price tag looks even better. For just a few dollars more, you can upgrade from a greasy, processed burger to a bona fide cut of pure beef. It's no wonder fast food chains are struggling to attract customers in that light.

Texas Roadhouse is well-known (at least in the business world, where these things are studied) as being the affordable alternative to similar chains like Outback Steakhouse or Longhorn Steakhouse. The difference isn't gigantic, but that's not really the point. Customers have undoubtedly taken notice and have rewarded that business practice with relatively high sales for the industry, which materialized last year in the fact that Texas Roadhouse beat out all of its competitors except for Olive Garden.

It's a difficult environment for businesses to navigate right now, to be sure, but affordability is clearly a driving force of customer traffic. This has led some restaurants to go all-in on value, but there are limits to what can be feasibly achieved. Red Lobster learned that lesson the hard way when its Ultimate Endless Shrimp program came back to bite it on the tail. So business leaders in the industry need to provide more value per dollar while also maintaining a viable budgetary plan. Seems like Econ 101, but the inflationary economy does make it tricky.

But we're getting deep in the weeds here. For most of us, the business practices don't matter so much. What matters is that we're getting a good deal. Everybody knows that restaurants are getting more expensive, and most people understand why it's happening; but that doesn't mean you have to break the bank every time you go grab a bite.