Editor’s note: This story was written before details of Kent Taylor’s death were revealed. Taylor took his own life after struggling with the effects of COVID. If you or someone you love needs help, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK or www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org.
Even with his death, Kent Taylor has prompted plenty of head scratching. Kentucky State Police say they're investigating the passing of Texas Roadhouse's irascible founder and longtime CEO, but said they suspect no foul play. Rather, they're trying to determine the cause of death, noting that Taylor died without any witnesses. The authorities pegged his age at 65--something his brainchild and charge for the last 28 years did not disclose in announcing Taylor's passing. It's also remained mum on the cause of death.
The announcement Thursday evening was met with jaw-dropping surprise by the industry at large. The question is, how about the reaction within Roadhouse’s Louisville, Ky., headquarters?
Taylor’s successor as CEO, Jerry Morgan, was named to the post just hours after the board announced the death of its longtime leader. The company referenced a plan of succession that Taylor himself had been key in hammering out, a possible indication of ill health. Or was it just the prudent step of a public company looking to protect its future?
Morgan’s newness to the corporate office also took on new significance. He was named president just three months ago after serving several decades as a hands-on operator in the field. Like Taylor, Morgan is steeped in operations, and in the processes and procedures of Roadhouse in particular. He had spent 24 years overseeing restaurants in which he held a stake.
What’s more, Morgan was appointed to a position that Taylor had eliminated as a standalone job just 18 months earlier, assuming the title himself from longtime lieutenant Scott Colosi. The latter decided in June to retire the next day—at age 53.
The 17-year veteran of Roadhouse was then retained by the brand to serve as an advisor for nine months at a fee of $1.9 million, or almost double his compensation for all of 2018.
The contract specified that Colosi would work with Roadhouse CFO Tonya Robinson, not Taylor. Was it just a personal conflict, or did Taylor want a different sort of individual to inherit his operation? Colosi had come up through finance, not ops.
Taylor-ologists also have plenty of grist to analyze in the reason that was given for the re-creation of the president’s post. Roadhouse said at the time that shearing Taylor of the title would permit the chain’s founder to focus on new enterprises, including the rollout of a new drive-thru chicken sandwich concept, Jaggers. Was that the real reason, or did Taylor want to pull back on the day-to-day grind of running Roadhouse?
The lack of transparency for the outside world was typical of Taylor, an entrepreneur who seemed to regard convention as an option, not an executive’s default path.
When Roadhouse was looking to go public in 2004, Taylor vexed his underwriters by balking at their recommendation that he wear a suit during dog-and-pony presentations to potential institutional investors. Taylor lapsed back into jeans and his signature cowboy hat.
Along the way, he stopped in the TGI Friday’s where he had thought up the Roadhouse concept while tending bar. Taylor made sure to tell the person mixing drinks at the time of the drop-in about how he’d made something much bigger of himself. In a video shown by Taylor during a rare industry appearance, the founder appeared to be taunting the bartender rather than providing encouragement.
More recently, Taylor painted casual-dining competitors as foolhardy for embracing delivery. He encouraged them to charge into that burgeoning field so consumers would associate their brands with cold food and unreliable service. Roadhouse, he declared, would not take that route.
He held to that position even after the pandemic shut down dining rooms—a period he summed up in a letter to Roadhouse shareholders as when “the ‘you-know-what’ had hit the fan.” In the analysts’ call that followed his communication, Taylor purposely mispronounced CFO Robinson’s name, a dash of school-boy mischief that's seldom heard on an investment call.
Taylor opened the first Texas Roadhouse in February 1993 in Clarksville, Ind. By then, he had served as a KFC manager as well as a bartender. He’d earlier formed a partnership with John Y. Brown, the one-time governor of Kentucky.
Roadhouse competed against what were a number of cowboy-themed, value-priced steak concepts, including LongHorn Steakhouse, now owned by Darden Restaurants, and Lone Star Steakhouses, founded by Pizza Hut franchisee Jamie Coulter.
Taylor was never big on industry involvement, but gave back freely to Roadhouse employees. After the pandemic hit, he donated his entire salary to a fund earmarked for employees in need. He then deepened that pool of resources by donating another $5 million of his own money.
Every year, the chain would celebrate the meat-cutting acumen of its in-house butchers by holding a steak-carving competition. Finalists were gathered at a desirable location where they would prove their stuff, all the while being pampered by their parent brand.
Taylor’s personal details, including his survivors, were not revealed by Roadhouse.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a Restaurant Business member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.