When you’re young and working a service job, dinner is more of a suggestion. A creative prompt. An opportunity to make choices not approved by any major medical association but approved by the chaos of the night. I worked at an ice cream shop from high school through college; many of my meals came in scooped form.
So, Texas Roadhouse workers, meet girl dinner.
TikTok creator Nia Noel (@knee.uhhhh) recently went viral with a video poll of her co-workers, asking what they ate for dinner. She captioned the video, “the roadhouse crew vs. their girl dinners,” spinning off the popular girl dinner meme, in which people share the odd assortment of snacks that they convinced themselves for a nighttime meal.
The video has almost 60,000 views and 3,000 likes.
@knee.uhhhh the roadhouse crew vs. their girl dinners #fyp #foryou #texasroadhouse #roadhouse #girldinner #viral #trending #fypシ ♬ original sound – nia noel
The Texas Roadhouse crew contained some folks who ate actual food designed to be eaten by a human being. One guy ate Firehouse Subs for dinner, and a woman ate a Caesar salad. Just normal dinners.
But most of the responses were as concerning as they were funny. A few of the most memorable of the workers’ girl dinners:
- “I had the chocolate chip mini muffins and an adult Lunchable.”
- “White cheddar popcorn.”
- “At 3 a.m., I made mac and cheese with bologna.”
- “A 12-pack of Modelo and two shots of Jager.”
- “A hot fudge shake from Sonic.”
- “Melted Girl Scout cookies and a side of nicotine.”
- “A Kit Kat and some Takis.”
- “I had a little snack cake muffin and a pack of Gushers.”
- “I don’t remember eating dinner.”
- “Takis and pistachios.”
Viewers in the comments were living for the wild culinary abandon.
“Okay but white cheddar popcorn is GAS,” one person commented.
“The 12 pack and 2 shots is REAL,” another commenter wrote. Several commenters hyped up the worker who gave that answer, who was named Tim. “I relate to Tim in a whole other level,” one person wrote, and another offered, “12 pack and 2 shots…my kinda dinner.”
A former Texas Roadhouse worker wrote “back when I worked at TR it would usually be just f*cking slim jim, pork rinds, and PBR. God bless y’all.”
“Ain’t get at least free rolls?” a concerned bystander commented—a good question since one creator recently posted a TikTok about their own girl dinner being a full box of the restaurant’s famous dinner rolls.
Update 11:08am CT, Sept. 19: Nia Noel told the Daily Dot via TikTok direct message, “I think it’s important for people to realize and take from that video is that it’s funny and humorous, but also that servers and people in the food industry really do work hard & do not have much time in their shift to sit down and enjoy a break or food.”
By the time servers are done with work, she said, “we’re usually pretty tired & just go home to get ready for the next day. I love my job, I just think it’s important to appreciate people in the restaurant industry and the time they put in.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Texas Roadhouse via email.
