Texas Roadhouse denied allegations of racism and food tampering that have spread on social media.
Barron Ludlum
Texas Roadhouse denied allegations of racism and food tampering that have spread on social media in recent days, and said an investigation commissioned by the company found no evidence to support them.
“It’s essentially a hoax,” Travis Doster, senior director of public relations for Texas Roadhouse, said to The News. “There’s no evidence to support any of this.”
The allegations began with a Facebook post saying that restaurant employees discriminate against Black customers and tamper with their food. The allegations spread over the weekend to TikTok and other platforms, where they quickly gained traction. On Sunday, Texas Roadhouse posted a statement on TikTok, saying it was investigating the “abhorrent behavior.”
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Doster said Texas Roadhouse hired an outside firm to investigate where the allegations originated. According to Doster, the investigation found what he described as suspicious activity involving the Facebook account where the allegations first appeared.
“The original Facebook account, as they determined, was very suspicious,” Doster said. “It changed names a couple of times, and then it simply deleted and disappeared.”
Texas Roadhouse’s investigation found that the post was later picked up by someone who uploaded a video to TikTok. According to Doster, that person later removed the post after determining that the allegations were not true, but by then the story had already begun circulating widely.
“Unfortunately, it was starting to take a life on its own,” he said.
One of the main allegations involved the purported existence of a Facebook group of restaurant servers where members allegedly shared or coordinated practices to discriminate against Black customers and tamper with their food.
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Doster said the investigation commissioned by Texas Roadhouse found no evidence that such a group exists.
“We found no evidence that that exists,” he said. “So this is just created out of nowhere and then perpetrated to, I’m guessing, damage our brand.”
Doster also rejected allegations that kitchen workers could deliberately tamper with food based on a customer’s race. He said employees preparing the food receive a ticket with the order but no information identifying the customer who placed it.
“When somebody orders food, it does not tell who they are, where they are, what they are,” Doster said. “There’s no name attached to it. There’s nothing attached to it. It’s just an order of food.”
Texas Roadhouse is considering taking action to determine who was behind the allegations. Doster declined to say whether the investigation has identified anyone or whether the company has any potential suspects.
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“We are going to look at any and every avenue we can to find out really why somebody would do this,” he said.
Doster said one of the company’s main concerns is the impact the allegations could have on its employees and restaurants, which are locally operated and involved in their communities.
“It’s hard when you have a lot of passion for a company and for what you do for somebody just to make something up to try to damage you,” he said. “It hurts all of our employees.”
For now, Doster said he hopes the controversy will not have a lasting impact on Texas Roadhouse and that customers will judge the chain based on their own experiences.
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“I hope people, our guests, realize who and what we are,” he said.
Texas Roadhouse is headquartered in Louisville, Ky., and has 81 restaurants in Texas. The company has 580 locations in 49 U.S. states and 22 international locations.