On this episode of The Brand Herald, Landon sits down with Abbie Mitchell of Texas Roadhouse to unpack what happens when a brand is ready for a moment it didn’t plan. The Goodson team worked with Abbie in her Hyland Insurance days, she now helps lead social for Texas Roadhouse and its sister brands, Bubba’s 33 and Jaggers, and she had a front-row seat when a soccer fan in Japan turned a casual steak recommendation into a viral conversation.
We start with Abbie’s path: a University of Louisville communications grad who built a marketing seat from scratch at a family-owned insurance firm, then landed the digital job that allowed her to work on three brands. She walks through the journey of a growing in-house marketing department that somehow still feels family-owned and how long it really takes to learn the dynamics of a national restaurant brand.
The conversation turns practical fast. Abbie breaks down what “owning social” actually means when local stores run their own Facebook pages, why leadership buy-in changed the game more than any single campaign, and how bringing strategy in-house from an agency gave the team room to leave content flexible. Planned posts do fine. The content made in the moment is what performs. Tools like Meltwater and clearer attribution on gift cards helped leadership see social as strategy, not just something you have to do.
Then comes Mr. K: a Japan-based soccer account, a World Cup tweet about Texas Roadhouse’s “best cost performance steak,” and a social listening alert that snowballed into DMs, a leadership green light, a Dallas store visit, and custom merch turned around in days. Nearly a month later, the conversation was still going with roughly a billion impressions on X alone. Abbie’s closer lands harder than any metric: it’s okay not to know everything. Lean on the people who are better at the piece you’re not. That’s how a brand joins the conversation instead of watching it pass by.
Chapters:
00:00: Welcome Abbie Mitchell, Texas Roadhouse, and a viral steak tweet.
01:36: From UofL to Hyland: building a marketing role as a team of one.
04:17: Getting passed over twice before landing at Texas Roadhouse.
04:52: Bubba’s 33, Jaggers, and how the three brands show up differently.
06:25: Trading SMB life for a national brand that still feels family-owned.
08:42: Social, email, SMS, and content libraries for local store pages.
11:21: Leadership buy-in, bringing social in-house, and why spontaneous posts win.
16:42: Mr. K, Meltwater, and the “best cost performance steak” World Cup moment.
19:35: From a DM to Dallas — leadership trust, a store visit, and custom merch overnight.
27:44: Abbie’s advice: lean on your team and admit what you don’t know.
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