A “Standard” 2026 Texas Roadhouse

The Russellville Texas Roadhouse is taking shape, and the more you compare the local plans with the company’s current prototype, the clearer the picture gets.

The Russellville restaurant is planned for 1420 East Main Street, on about 2.39 acres, with a 7,927-square-foot building and 180 parking spaces.

Those numbers are almost exactly what you would expect from a new Texas Roadhouse being built in 2026.

The company’s current prototype is roughly 8,000 square feet, generally seats about 270 to 325 guests, and typically provides around 180 parking spaces. Recent new Texas Roadhouse projects elsewhere have been filed at about 7,926 square feet, making Russellville’s 7,927-square-foot building essentially a dead match for the current design.

So this does not appear to be a downsized or unusual version of Texas Roadhouse. Russellville is getting what looks like a full-size, current-generation restaurant.

The site itself also fits the normal pattern. Texas Roadhouse has historically used roughly 1.5 to 2.5 acres for freestanding restaurants. Russellville’s approximately 2.39-acre site falls near the upper end of that range, giving room not only for the restaurant but also for the large parking field, drive aisles, fire lanes, utilities, landscaping, and stormwater facilities.

And this is no longer something that exists only on an engineer’s drawing.

Grading and excavation are underway now.

Anyone passing the site can see dirt being moved as the property is prepared for development. That work matches the civil plans, which include detailed grading, sewer, water, storm drainage, paving, and utility design.

There were still technical details being worked through when the July engineering plans were reviewed. For example, one reviewer questioned the proposed slope for an 8-inch sanitary sewer line and suggested a 10-inch line might be needed instead. Those kinds of comments are part of the normal engineering and utility review process.

The plans themselves were still marked “Not for Construction” at that stage, so they should not be treated as final building plans. But the activity on the ground tells us something the paperwork alone cannot:

The project has moved into actual site development.

I haven’t seen a confirmed opening date, and I would be cautious about guessing one this early.

But we can say considerably more than we could a few months ago.

Russellville is not just getting a Texas Roadhouse in name. Based on the site plan and building dimensions, it appears to be getting a standard, full-size modern Texas Roadhouse of roughly 8,000 square feet, around 300 seats, and 180 parking spaces.

And now the dirt is moving.

In the very early 1930s, before the Great Depression deepened, Arkansas farmers and their families were already suffering… and some had been for years.

Lewis Wikes Hines photographed this girl in black & white in 1930 or 31 in Lonoke County, Arkansas.

Hines was in Arkansas documenting, through photographs, people in parts of the state and the drought relief they received from the Red Cross, including this schoolgirl.

I don’t normally colorize old photos. This one piqued my interest.  With her freckles, she likely had red hair.