Texas Roadhouse Set to Open in Poughkeepsie

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY — The newest addition to the dining scene in the Mid-Hudson Valley is Texas Roadhouse, located at 2323 South Rd.

The restaurant, which is opposite Casperkill Golf Course on Route 9, will officially open to the public at 4 p.m. Monday, Oct. 31, according to spokesman Travis Doster.

He said the restaurant is primarily a place for dinner, from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday, but it is open for lunch on Saturday and Sunday.

Doster said Texas Roadhouse is not a chain, though it has locations throughout the country.

“We are a collection of independently owned restaurants,” he said, with managing partners paying Texas Roadhouse $25,000, and they then get a base salary plus 10 percent of the profits.

The managing partners live in the community, work in the community and have a lot of leeway for which charities the restaurant chooses to support, Doster said.

Local charities and doing good works in the community are a big part of Texas Roadhouse mission.

“One cool thing the Roadhouse does on Veterans Day,” Doster said, “is we open up for veterans and they get a free lunch.”

“Our stores average about four local fundraisers a month, helping local children’s hospitals, raising money for breast cancer,” he said, as examples.

Two local charities—the Children’s Home of Poughkeepsie and Grace Smith House—will play a role in and benefit from Texas Roadhouse’s soft opening.

Doster said on the Saturday and Sunday prior to opening to the public Texas Roadhouse will host invitation-only dinners in which people come to the restaurant, eat for free and provide the charities with a donation.

He said it was a way to help the community and give the restaurant staff a shake-down cruise, to hopefully iron out any front- or back-of-the-house problems prior to opening to the public.

The Poughkeepsie restaurant itself seats 300 customers and is about 7,000 square feet. There have been 180 employees hired to work at the new location.

Fifty percent of the menu is steak, with ribs also being particularly popular.

Doster said all the food is prepared from scratch in-house, from the croutons in the salad to the hand-butchered meats to all the sides.

That is one of the reasons the restaurant isn't open for lunch every day.

There is a lot of preparation involved on a daily basis, “so we’d rather have one great shift,” Doster said.

“We are known for our free bread and free peanuts,” Doster said. “As soon as you are seated, you get a basket of fresh baked bread and peanuts.”

He said Texas Roadhouse is also known for its attentive wait staff.

“Our servers only have three tables at one time,” Doster said, adding that the industry average is five.

Texas Roadhouse was singled out by a food-service industry publication earlier this month for being an outstanding bar.

Restaurant Business said the chain was one of 10 “watering holes” in the United States it considered having found the right mix of personnel, entertainment and beverages—making it a special place to imbibe.

Other Texas Roadhouse restaurants in the Hudson Valley are located in Kingston in Ulster County, Middletown in Orange County and New Rochelle in Westchester County.

Doster noted that the New Rochelle location is unique in that it is not a stand-alone building. It situated in the Trump Plaza apartment building in downtown New Rochelle.

For more information, go to the Texas Roadhouse website.

Photo credits: Michael Woyton/Patch.