Contra
Not every steak operator is in distress: Bloomin’ Brands, the owner of Outback Steakhouse, beat earnings estimates on May 6 with adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.67 versus a $0.58 estimate on revenue of $1.0597 billion, sending shares up 40% in one day. Texas Roadhouse posted 12.8% revenue growth past $1.6 billion on 7.1% same-store sales and 4.5% traffic growth, with chief financial officer Michael Bailen saying that consumers have been shifting to cheaper value menu items including pork, chicken and lower-cost beef cuts—a strategy higher-end restaurants aren’t able to easily replicate.
Read more 1 Dead And 9 Missing After Chemical Implosion At Washington Paper Mill
Beef Price Hikes And Increased Demand Cause A Squeeze
While beef prices continue to rise, popular protein-heavy diets—even backed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s revised federal dietary guidelines centering red meat—are pushing consumption up, creating a supply-demand mismatch. Texas Monthly barbecue editor Daniel Vaughn told the Washington Post that brisket joints kept prices “artificially low” for years but can no longer hide rising labor costs—along with inflation hikes affecting packaging and side-dishes—making $40 per pound brisket “now not a crazy number to see on a menu.”
Trump’s Efforts To Lower Beef Prices On Pause
The Trump administration has tried to engineer relief on the supply side, with limited traction. The White House paused two executive orders Trump was expected to sign aimed at bringing down record beef prices and rebuilding the U.S. cattle herd earlier this month—the latest stumble in the administration’s effort to blunt grocery inflation ahead of November’s midterms. One order would temporarily suspend the tariff-rate quota across all beef-exporting nations, allowing more beef in at low rates, according to The Wall Street Journal. Another would expand rancher loans and roll back endangered wolf protections and cattle ear tag rules. Trump began fixating on beef prices last fall, proposing in October 2025 to increase Argentine beef imports, drawing pushback from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and Republican senators from cattle states. In February, he signed the “Ensuring Affordable Beef for the American Consumer” proclamation, temporarily quadrupling tariff-free Argentine beef. The delayed orders would have expanded that to all beef-exporting nations.
Read more Ken Paxton Beats Sen. John Cornyn In Texas GOP Primary After Trump’s Last-Minute Endorsement
Tangent
In addition to the other Texas barbecue closings this year, even Texas Monthly’s No. 1 barbecue joint, Ernest Servantes’ Burnt Bean Co. in Seguin is in “survival mode,” according to the Post. “There’s always been price increases, but there’s always been relief and it’s gone down,” Servantes, 47, told the Post. “Now we don’t see any end in sight, and it’s going to get scary here.”
Read more ‘Obsession’ Becomes This Summer’s Breakout Box Office Hit