I like steak and peanuts as much as the next guy, but I also have what some have called an odd fixation on food safety. Needless to say, steakhouses that encourage patrons to throw peanut shells on the floor don’t exactly scream “hygiene” to me, but the rest of America seems to love them.

Texas Roadhouse (NSDQ: TXRH) is a chain of mid-priced, full-service, casual dining restaurants with about 350 company-owned locations and 75 franchise restaurants across the US. Apparently Americans are not the only ones who love these sorts of places either, as there are a handful of locations in Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

While the restaurants are known for having a huge barrel of peanuts in their lobbies – and customers simply throwing the shells on the floor — one of the biggest draws is prices. Most locations offer at least 10 entrée items for under $10, including 6 oz. sirloins, pork chops and salads, but even its largest steak, a 23 oz. porterhouse T-bone, is typically priced around $25.

Its affordability has made the chain hugely popular with mid-market and cost-conscious dinners, a fact clearly demonstrated by its solid growth. Revenue growth has averaged 17.4% over the past decade, with 13.3% net income growth and 14.8% growth in earnings per share. Keep in mind that during that period, we experienced the worst recession in living memory.

Perhaps even more impressive then the company’s growth is its margins. While operating margin has fallen from better than 10% a decade ago, hitting a low of 7% in 2008, it has hovered around 8.5% since 2011. Margins at Bloomin Brands (NSDQ: BLMN), which operates Outback Steakhouse, Barrabba’s Italian Grill, Flemings Prime Steakhouse and a few others, hover closer to 5.5%. Its profit margin also hangs around 5.5%, slightly higher than its peers in an industry with margins that can run as low as 3%. Texas Roadhouse has clearly done an excellent job of controlling costs and adapting to the business environment for margins to be so consistent.

Its balance sheet is also rock solid, holding about $95 million in cash and a debt-to-equity ratio of just 0.08 as compared to 1.2 for the industry as a whole. While many other restaurants have been leveraging up to drive earnings, the company has actually been deleveraging as its debt-to-equity ratio has sharply declined from just over 0.3 four years ago.

Texas Roadhouse is also attractive from a valuation perspective. It’s currently trading at just 22.8 times trailing earnings, versus 28.1 times for the industry as a whole. Its forward price-to-earnings ratio has also fallen from 24.6 times at the beginning of the year to 21.6 times today.

That fall is largely tied to investor worries that the sluggish economy will dent growth at the restaurant chain, but those fears seem misplaced. In the second quarter revenue rose 12% year-over-year to $393.4 million, while sales were up 11% to $792.5 million on a year-to-date basis. Net income for the quarter hit $23.1 million, a 16% increase over the same period last year, while earnings per share rose 17% to 33 cents.

Going forward, the company expects sales growth in the mid-single digits while it will spend about $100 million to open 25 new locations here in the US. Two more locations are expected to open in the Middle East by the end of the year and its first Asian location, in Taipei, Taiwan, is also slated to open for business.

Analysts are clearly excited by that growth, forecasting that earnings should grow by about 10% annually over the next five years. They expect full-year earnings to hit $1.26 this year and grow 15.9% next year to reach $1.46.

That assumed growth seems perfectly reasonable and it wouldn’t be unusual for Texas Roadhouse to beat it. Consumer confidence recently hit a 14-month high according to the University of Michigan, hitting 84.6 in September and the government says that gross domestic product grew by 4.6% in the second quarter, its fastest pace in more than two years.

Finally, the company has also paid a steadily growing dividend for the past three years, currently 15 cents per quarter of a yield of 2.2%. While that’s not a huge yield, there is plenty of room for growth as the company’s payout ratio is currently about 40% with steady earnings growth.

A great growth and income play that should only gain ground as consumer confidence improves, Texas Roadhouse is a buy under $33.