How Chili’s Is Cooking Up a Hot Streak in a Cool Economy

 

In a casual dining landscape where many brands are still trying to find their footing, Chili’s is striding confidently—steak fajita platter in one hand, frozen margarita in the other. The Dallas-based chain has now posted five straight quarters of double-digit same-store sales growth, culminating in a 24% jump in Q4 fueled by 16% traffic growth. That’s on top of last year’s 15% gain—meaning a two-year growth of 39% that leaves competitors like Applebee’s and Red Robin playing catch-up.

What’s the secret sauce? Let’s break it down through the Tacoma, WA based Steven Johnson, Foodservice Solutions®, Grocerant Guru® lens: Price, Value, Service, and Social Equilibrium.

 

Price & Value

The engine driving this comeback is Chili’s $10.99 “3 for Me” value meal—an anchor offering that’s both inflation-proof and appetite-friendly. By pairing this core deal with strategically priced upsell items—like the Big QP Burger, ribs, and $10 frozen margaritas made with Patron—Chili’s manages to deliver perceived value without racing to the bottom on price. The numbers tell the story: even with broader economic pressure, guests are trading up, ordering nearly 5% more high-ticket items and tacking on apps or desserts.

 

Service & Operational Excellence

Value brings them in; service keeps them coming back. Since CEO Kevin Hochman’s turnaround began three years ago, Chili’s has:

·       Invested $160 million more in labor than in 2022.

·       Shrunk its menu by 25% to focus on core, well-executed items.

·       Reached record-high food quality scores and slashed “guests with a problem” to a mere 2.3%.

Add to that tech upgrades—like redesigned server tablets to reduce order-entry frustration—and operational best practices lifted from the brand’s top-performing locations, and you’ve got a service model that scales.

 

Social Equilibrium

Chili’s has hit a rare balance: it knows how to go viral without becoming a gimmick. The Triple Dipper appetizer found TikTok fame last year (hello, cheese pulls), but the brand didn’t stop at social buzz. It’s now anchoring national TV campaigns with that same product, turning fleeting trends into long-term menu momentum. The result? 15% of transactions now include a Triple Dipper—a staggering attachment rate for a casual-dining app.

 

Consumer Focus: Winning Back the Old, Welcoming the New

One of the most underestimated parts of Chili’s success story is how it’s bridging the gap between legacy loyalists and first-time visitors.

For longtime customers, Chili’s is reestablishing trust by bringing back the hits—ribs worthy of the old jingle, burgers built to rival fast-food icons, and ingredient upgrades that feel like a commitment to quality, not cost-cutting. These guests remember the “glory days” and are coming back to see that Chili’s has recaptured its stride.

For new customers, Chili’s is making itself relevant through value-driven entry points, social-media-fueled curiosity, and upgraded in-restaurant experiences. Gen Z and Millennials may not have grown up with the Baby Back Ribs ad, but they’re responding to Instagram-worthy plating, TikTok challenges, and the allure of a big-brand-quality burger in a casual dining setting.

The result is a multi-generational dining experience that blends nostalgia with novelty—a combination that’s rare in casual dining today.

 

The Nostalgia Play

In turbulent times, smart brands reach back to the familiar. Chili’s is leveraging legacy assets like its ’90s “Baby Back Ribs” jingle and classic menu anchors. Why does this work? Four reasons:

1.       Emotional Comfort – Familiar flavors and jingles trigger warm memories, reassuring consumers during uncertain periods.

2.       Brand Trust – Legacy menu items remind guests the brand has stood the test of time, building confidence in quality and consistency.

3.       Low Cognitive Load – When budgets are tight, customers gravitate to “safe bets” they already know they’ll enjoy.

4.       Multi-Generational Appeal – Parents who loved Chili’s in the ’90s now bring their kids, creating a cycle of repeat visits and cross-generational loyalty.

 

The Grocerant Guru’s Three Recommendations for Chili’s Moving Forward

1.       Seasonal Legacy Revivals – Introduce limited-time throwback menu items tied to past campaigns or flavor profiles (think: “1997-style Baby Back Rib Sauce” month) to tap nostalgia spikes without menu clutter.

2.       Grocerant Extension Play – Bring Chili’s signature items—like Triple Dipper sauces or Big QP Burger seasoning—into retail grocery channels for at-home trial, driving both revenue and brand salience.

3.       Social-to-Table Challenges – Create interactive campaigns where guests can post their Chili’s “food moment” for a chance to have it featured on menus or in-store signage, blending user-generated content with real-world dining incentives.

 

The Road Ahead

With new nachos, a chicken sandwich relaunch, ingredient upgrades (50% thicker bacon—amen), and a plan to remodel stores by 2027, Chili’s is signaling it’s not coasting on this momentum. The chain expects mid-single-digit same-store sales growth in fiscal 2026—slower than the current fireworks, but still outpacing the industry.

For the casual dining world, Chili’s is proving a simple truth: price and value open the door, service and social connection keep the table full, and nostalgia done right can turn yesterday’s jingle into today’s cash register chime.

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Chili’s Grill & Bar Rewards Members want a Song

 

Restaurant brands that vertically integrate meals, menus, and products into a cohesive offering are rewarded with a higher check average, happy customers, top-line sales, and bottom-line profits. Companies that defer, to a simple store as an option miss understand the ‘halo’ benefit that grocerant niche consumers derive from an integrate platform.

That said, the team at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® broke out in song upon hearing that Chili’s Grill & Bar will sell limited quantities of shirts, hats, socks and more to celebrate its 47th birthday. Now how many of you know just what song they were singing?  That’s right “I want my Baby Back Ribs”. Now regular readers of this blog know that success does leave clues.  Here is one clue no company should ever over look, give customers what they want.  Now you can do that even in a new formant.

So, Chili’s Grill & Bar wants customers to celebrate its birthday in style this year. How with its first online store, WelcometoChilis.com, where it will sell Chili’s-branded merchandise including shirts, hats, socks, drinkware, pins and stickers while supplies last.

Now, the launch coincides with Chili’s 47th anniversary and is intended to help build the brand and engage with guests, said SVP of Marketing Michael Breed. Its 10 million rewards members will get first dibs on the swag via an email blast Sunday morning.

While, Chili’s has been producing limited runs of merch since 2018 for use in giveaways on social media or around the holidays. It has learned that guests love the stuff, which has included a Chili’s sweatsuit, a Skillet Queso bomber jacket and Chili’s-scented candles, according to Johnson that as well was a feeble attempt at full brand integration.

In a Battle for Share of Stomach

Are you Playing for Fun 

Or Are you Playing to Win

Some of the items have been just as much of a hit with current and former Chili’s employees, known as Chiliheads, as they have with fans.

“Anytime we would put anything out there for a giveaway or a social giveaway … people would see it and just say, ‘How do I get that, I want one of those,’” Breed said.

That enthusiasm led the chain to make branded gear available for purchase for the first time. Breed said the merch aligns with Chili’s position as a fun brand that consumers recognize and love.

“It has a steady spot in the culture, and it has for years,” he said.

Items will include T-shirts that say “Hi, welcome to Chili’s” in ’70s-inspired lettering, a button-down emblazoned with the Chili’s logo, and fanny packs that resemble the limes from the chain’s signature margaritas. The products range in price from $10 to $60.

“It’s going to be fun to see what really resonates the most,” Breed said. “There’s a couple T-shirts in particular that I want to go get before they’re sold out.”  Here is our point, its not fun its business and focusing on consumer touchpoints at the point of all branded transactions is key of engagement.

The gear is available in limited quantities, but Breed said it won’t be long until the store is restocked with a new drop. The company plans to unveil lines for Mother’s and Father’s Day, for instance, and will do others tied to holidays or other special days for Chili’s.

Breed said the trend is an evolution of the days when casual-dining restaurants would sell T-shirts at the host stand. These days, merch drops are more tied into social media, where they generate engagement and allow brands to connect with fans outside of the restaurant.

“[Social media] is just a place that we’ve found such an engaged audience that you kind of take that idea from back in the day of a T-shirt display, and now you can really have a lot of fun with it,” Breed said. Let’s ask one more time.  What is more social that SONG?  Elevating consumer touchpoints dives interactions, top-line sales and bottom-line profits.

Success does leave clues. One clue that time and time again continues to resurface is “the consumer is dynamic not static”.  Regular readers of this blog know that is the common refrain of Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  Our Grocerant Guru® can help your company edify your brand with relevance.  Call 253-759-7869 for more information. 

At Brinker International Focused Food Marketing Drives Virtual Restaurants Sales

Success does leave clues.  At Brinker they have collected curated brand marketing clues and it’s those clues that are driving the success of It’s Just Wings Brinker’s new virtual brand restaurants that is collocated within existing units according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  

Brinker has long understood driving top line sales and bottom-line profits required clear, focused, branded messaging that was continually evolving consumer touchpoints with relevance.

Back in the day when chain restaurant takeout sales were averaging 2.5% to 3.25% of sales it was Brinker that was the first casual dining restaurant to invest $30,000 per store to add takeout windows all based on data insights from within the chain and CyberMeals online ordering research of which our Grocerant Guru® played a big role. Today, the    

Brinker International, Inc’s CEO Wyman Roberts stated, “Sales at Brinker's It's Just Wings virtual brand are "highly incremental,".  So, get this, the concept is delivery-only. The sales at It’s Just Wings are posting $3 million in average weekly sales since debuting the last week of June, according to Wyman.

Brinker expects It’s Just Wings, the virtual delivery brand introduced by the Chili’s Grill & Bar parent in the last week of June, can grow into a $150-million-a-year business in its first year, according to Wyman. Let’s look back again, they were first to develop takeout windows for pick-up and carryout. 

Brinker has for years had some of the very best food marketing professionals on staff driving the growth of the brand, units, top line sales and bottom-line profits according to Johnson. Virtual brands driving by a consistent brand message with relevance consumer touchpoints will drive multiple concept types and food delivery formants according to Johnson.

Brinker knows this space well.  Here are some clues that will help you know some of what Brinker knows:

1.       60% of U.S. consumers order delivery or takeout once a week.

2.       31% say they use these third-party delivery services at least twice a week.

3.       34% of consumers spend at least $50 per order when ordering food online.

4.       20% of consumers say they spend more on off-premise orders compared to a regular dine-in experience.

5.       Digital ordering and delivery have grown 300% faster than dine-in traffic since 2014.

6.       70% of consumers say they’d rather order directly from a restaurant, preferring that their money goes straight to the restaurant and not a third party.

7.       57% of millennials say that they have restaurant food delivered so they can watch movies and TV shows at home.

8.       59% of restaurant orders from millennials are takeout or delivery.

9.       33% of consumers say they would be willing to pay a higher fee for faster delivery service.

10.   87% of Americans who use third-party food delivery services agree that it makes their lives easier.

11.   45% of consumers say that offering mobile ordering or loyalty programs would encourage them to use online ordering services more often.

12.   63% of consumers agree that it is more convenient to get delivery than dining out with a family.

13.   Americans who have not used a third-party restaurant delivery service say fast delivery (31%), restaurant selection (28%), low order minimums (27%) and first-use coupons (26%) would motivate them to try it.

14.   60% of restaurant operators say that offering delivery has generated incremental sales.

15.   Orders placed via smartphone and mobile apps will become a $38 billion industry by 2020.

16.   Pizza chains reported an 18% increase in customer spend from online/mobile orders vs. phone orders.

17.   Working with a third party delivery service has been found to raise restaurant sales volume by 10 to 20%.

18.   Delivery sales could rise an annual average of more than 20% to $365 billion worldwide by 2030, from $35 billion.

19.   43% of restaurant professionals said they believe third-party apps—many of which withhold data—interfere with the direct relationship between a restaurant/bar/pub and its customers.

20.   Customers who place an online order with a restaurant will visit that restaurant 67% more frequently than those who don’t. 

21.   It’s estimated that mobile orders will make up close to 11% of all QSR sales by 2020.

22.   Visits to U.S. restaurants where guests paid by mobile app increased by 50% from 2017-18.

Do your food marketing tactics look more like yesterday that tomorrow?  Visit GrocerantGuru.com for more information or contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us Remember success does leave clues and we just may have the clue you need to propel your continued success.

Chili’s Friendly Fresh Food Freebie’s

No one ever went wrong catering to their best customers according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® This week when Chili’s Grill & Bar announced that it was strengthening its reward program by giving you a Free Beverage or Chips and Salsa every time you visit they strengthen the brand relationship with their best customers.

Here is how it works every customer who belongs to My Chili’s Rewards will be given the choice during a visit of getting free chips and salsa or a complimentary nonalcoholic beverage. In tests, customers were about equally divided in what they chose, according to Chili’s.

Steve Provost, the casual chain’s chief marketing and innovation officer stated that “The offer is intended to give customers a break from having to calculate what rewards they’ve earned with their frequency credits. ..We heard the feedback loud and clear that loyalty programs feel too complicated, so what would keep them coming back is to make things simple,”

Provost continued “The reality is a loyalty program is a way of saying 'Thank you' to our guests for being one of their top dining options, and we weren't doing a good job of that until now,".

Positive reinforcement every time you enter the restaurant is exactly what Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant ScoreCards indicate both Gen Z and Millennials relate to best.  Chili’s is building a long term relationship with customer today and for tomorrow?  How are you edifying your base customer?

Are you trapped doing what you have always done and doing it the same way?  Interested in learning how www.FoodserviceSolutions.us can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization?  Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or visit:  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information