ONTARIO — Mike and Judy McNamara sat down in a Texas Roadhouse booth in Ontario like many other couples on Wednesday.
Judy blew a straw wrapper at her husband after they both ordered sweet teas.
“You got me,” Mike laughed.
Wednesday was far from a normal dinner for the husband and wife, as they were celebrating a visit to their 400th Texas Roadhouse.
The McNamaras knew they wanted to travel in retirement, and Mike came up with an idea after looking at their credit card statements.
“From 2003 until 2017, we had been to 30-some Texas Roadhouses,” he said. “We thought it would be fun to see how many we could go to, so we started really traveling them in 2018.”
On Jan. 3, that mission brought the Virginia couple to Ontario’s Lexington-Springmill Road location.
Mike said if they’re going to a national park, museum or an antique mall, they try to incorporate a Texas Roadhouse visit. The couple strategically aligned Ontario’s visit with their 400th visit total.
“We thought it would be fun to match up our 400th restaurant with store number 400,” he said.
Judy McNamara keeps track of the restaurants, their locations and the date they visited in a spreadsheet. The couple visited 79 in 2023.
“The food is like home cooking to us,” she said. “We don’t like fancy cuisine or fine dining. Texas Roadhouse fits the bill of good, country home-cooking and is family oriented.”
The Ontario team took photos with Andy the Armadillo and presented the McNamaras with a plaque commemorating the occasion.
Texas Roadhouse CEO Jerry Morgan also surprised Mike and Judy on Wednesday.
“You might be beating my number,” he laughed. “It’s so neat that you guys are doing this, and I’ve really enjoyed watching the journey.”
The Texas Roadhouse team invited Mike and Judy to their Founder’s Day celebration in 2022 to present them with an engraved Louisville Slugger bat and other gifts.
“We’ve been able to show them around our support center and museum,” Morgan said. “When you’ve got raving fans like this, you’ve got to keep them up to date on everything that’s happening.”
Couple only has Alaska left to visit
Judy said the couple doesn’t always announce when they will make a stop, but they keep in touch with the Texas Roadhouse press team to let local media know of the milestone visits.
The couple has known each other since elementary school and started dating in high school. They have been married for 52 years and both retired from the Union Camp paper mill in Franklin, Virginia.
Their dog, Andy, is a pug and beagle mix, named after the Texas Roadhouse mascot.
“He likes to share our leftovers when we bring them home,” Judy said.
The McNamaras have family members living across the U.S., so they’ve treated them to dinner if there’s a roadhouse nearby.
“It feels like a family when we visit, which is why we like coming back,” Judy said.
The couple have visited at least one roadhouse in each continental state. There are two roadhouses in Anchorage, Alaska and none in Hawaii.
Mike said they have visited most of the first 100 operating stores built in the nation. The largest store is in Lubbock, Texas, which the couple plans to visit next year.
Judy and Mike’s favorite meals are the six-ounce sirloin, chicken critters, herb chicken, pulled pork, pork chops and ribs. Their favorite sides are salads and baked sweet potatoes.
“It’s not just the food, it’s also the people,” Mike said. “Some servers have recognized us years down the line, or have been promoted to managing partner since the last time we’ve seen them.
“When we visited a restaurant close to Egg Harbor Township in New Jersey, the manager Cody brought us out two T-shirts. We realized they were the wrong size, so I joked, ‘I’ll just take yours.’
“A few minutes later, Cody handed us the blue Egg Harbor Township polo he’d been wearing — he literally gave us the shirt off his back.”