What's The Difference Between The Ft. Worth Ribeye And Bone-In Ribeye At Texas Roadhouse

With its rustic wood furnishings and friendly service, there's a casual coziness to dining at Texas Roadhouse. Yet dive into all the secrets of their steak offerings, and it's clear the restaurant's serious about its meats. There are seven standalone steaks found on the menu, spanning varying textures, tastes, and portion sizes. And among the options are not one, but two ribeyes — letting you sample America's most popular steak in different renditions.

Texas Roadhouse serves an extra hefty 20-ounce bone-in ribeye, as well as a boneless Fort Worth ribeye, which comes in three sizes. Consequently, the two cuts' key distinctions are immediate: the contrasting weight and inclusion of the bone. Both come with abundant beef marbling, which results in tender meat. And since they're derived from the same area of the cow, you can expect the same dose of beefy flavor, meaning you won't go wrong ordering either option. Yet, the steaks do offer a few more nuanced differences, namely in their texture. So note the details to know exactly what kind of dining experience to expect.

The two steaks offer slight textural differences, along with overall nutritional content

Dig into a restaurant-worthy ribeye steak and you can expect some dependable qualities: a delectably tender texture, upheld with moist and flavorful bites. Thankfully, both Texas Roadhouse steaks achieve such criteria, just with a slightly different spin. And most principally, the differences arise due to the bone's impact on texture.

Across varying ribeye preparations, a bone leads to a slightly more juicy consistency. The dense structure functions as an insulator, elongating the cook time and curtailing moisture loss. As a result, steaks with a bone can come out more tender (despite common myth, the bone doesn't add extra flavor to the beef). That tenderness and juiciness are noticeable with Texas Roadhouse's offerings, hence why the bone-in ribeye is among the most favored dishes at the steakhouse.

Yet, that doesn't outright make the Fort Worth ribeye an inferior option. It's available in more digestible sizes — you can get it in as small as 12 ounces — so you'll consume fewer calories and less fat overall with it than the sizable bone-in version, if that's of interest to you. Although still incredibly tender, it'll require less knife work at the table; you can simply slice into a bite, with no bone to worry about. Such qualities make this cut among Chowhound's best-ranked Texas Roadhouse steaks — the steak is a great introduction to the restaurant. And whichever tasty option you go for, you'll get two accompanying sides, and the optional smothering to complete the Texas Roadhouse experience.

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