A regular customer caught Texas Roadhouse serving him the wrong steak three times.
Texas Roadhouse says it can only confirm one mix-up ever happened.
The question he asked the manager face to face never got answered.
A Year of Weekly Dinners Ends Over One Steak
Kenneth Card had eaten at the same Texas Roadhouse in Forsyth, Illinois, roughly once a week for more than a year.
He had a rapport with the staff there.
He always ordered the same thing: an eight ounce filet mignon, the chain's premium cut, running about thirty dollars at that location.
This time the plate that came out did not look right.
Card has years of experience cutting meat in restaurant and hotel kitchens, which is why he recognized the cut immediately.
He flagged it for his server, who took the plate back to the kitchen for a second opinion.
The kitchen came back and confirmed it: sirloin, not filet.
Card says this was not an isolated mistake.
The first time it happened, staff caught the error themselves and brought him a proper filet.
The second time, he let it go and ate the sirloin without saying a word.
The third time is the one he filmed.
The Manager Who Had No Answer When Card Asked Him Why
Card called over a manager and laid out the pattern.
"Look, this is the third time that y'all tried to sell me a sirloin or whatever else kind of steak it is besides a filet," he told him.
The manager insisted it was impossible, since a second manager signs off on every plate before it leaves the kitchen.
Card asked the obvious follow-up: then how did this plate get through.
The manager did not answer him.
Card took the steak to go, drove home, and posted the video instead of eating dinner.
A filet mignon comes from the tenderloin, the long muscle that sits against the spine and barely does any work, which is what keeps it tender.
Sirloin comes from the midsection, a larger, firmer cut with a different price point on the menu.
Card put the difference simply: a filet "melts in your mouth," while a sirloin is "a little grittier, a little chewier."
"I think I'm done going in there, I'll try somewhere else," he said.
Other Chains Have Already Failed This Same Test
A sirloin showing up wearing a filet's price tag is not new.
A 2024 investigation by WSB-TV in Atlanta sent professionally trained butcher Kevin Ouzts five filets ordered online from Carrabba's Italian Grill, two Outback Steakhouse locations, and two LongHorn Steakhouse locations.
Ouzts called the Carrabba's steak a top sirloin, not a filet, pointing to its odd shape and unusually long muscle fibers as the giveaway.
He flagged one of the two Outback orders the same way.
Bloomin' Brands, which owns both chains, insisted its steaks were "unquestionably filets" and said its inventory and sales records matched what it had ordered.
Ouzts' advice was simple: don't trust menu language that reads like a sales pitch, and send the plate back the moment something looks wrong.
The Ten Dollar Difference No Menu Admits To
A sirloin dinner at the Forsyth location runs about twenty dollars.
A filet mignon runs about thirty.
That ten dollar gap is exactly the kind of math a busy kitchen can quietly lean on, one plate at a time, with almost nobody noticing.
Texas Roadhouse says its staff double check every plate for quality and accuracy before it leaves the kitchen, and that the company has "not been able to track that this occurred on three occasions."
It confirmed one mix-up and says management "quickly made it right."
Texas Roadhouse tells customers who think they got the wrong steak to flag it with their server in the moment, not after it happens three times over a year.
Most regulars ordering a thirty dollar filet will not have years of professional kitchen experience like Card does.
Check your steak before you cut into it, because the next customer at that table might not get the chance to catch what the manager could not explain.
Sources:
- Deirdre Bardolf, "Man Says Texas Roadhouse Served Him $20 Steak Instead of Pricier Filet Multiple Times," FOX 11 Los Angeles, October 26, 2026.
- Charlotte Colombo, "Man Orders $30 Filet Mignon At Texas Roadhouse. He Can't Believe What They Bring Him Instead," BroBible, October 13, 2026.
- Sophia Choi, "Totally Duping the Public: Butcher's Blind Test Reveals Some Chain Restaurants Are Swapping Steaks," WSB-TV, July 18, 2024.
- Fox News Lifestyle (@FoxNewsLife), X post, October 26, 2026.
