Texas Roadhouse to open restaurant in north Spokane

Kentucky-based Texas Roadhouse is expanding its fast-casual restaurant brand to Spokane with a new location opening later this month.

The restaurant at 7611 N. Division St., near home goods retailer At Home , is opening Jan. 20 with 200 employees.

“A lot of work and planning went into finding the site to make sure it was perfect for our guests,” said Mike Murphy, regional market partner for Texas Roadhouse. “At our restaurant in Coeur d’Alene, it seemed like three times a week we had somebody saying, ‘You should be in Spokane.’ So, we were more or less listening to our guests when we chose Spokane.”

Texas Roadhouse made a decision to build the 7,000-square-foot restaurant near At Home, a former Costco store location, based on available parking and traffic flow in the area. Spokane’s population growth was another driving factor in building a new restaurant, Murphy said.

“We’re excited. This is eight to nine years in the making. We shopped this area for a very long time,” Murphy said. “It’s been a long process and to see it finally happening is pretty surreal and exciting for the community.”

Texas Roadhouse is one of three tenants at the Costco redevelopment. Plano, Texas-based At Home opened its 87,000-square-foot store in April . The remaining 47,000 square feet of the building is occupied by Cirrus Self-Storage.

Costco relocated to a larger building at 12020 N. Newport Highway last year.

W. Kent Taylor founded Texas Roadhouse in 1993 in Clarksville, Indiana. The Louisville-headquartered company operates more than 580 locations nationwide.