Chili’s Recipe for a Rebound

No doubt about it: Chili’s Grill & Bar is hot. The restaurant chain’s stock is up more than 500% since June 2022, when longtime Yum! Brands executive Kevin Hochman took the reins as CEO.

That kind of performance recently caused two major business publications – Fast Company and The Wall Street Journal – to probe what’s underlying the turnaround by the chain of 1600 Tex-Mex restaurants (including about 1000 in the U.S.).

First to run was Fast Company’s story, in which reporter Mark Wilson “drinks the lemon drop ‘margarita,’ discovers the 100 small fixes that brought Chili’s back and goes inside the chain’s new retro redesign.”

The latter point involves a shift back to the Coppell, Texas-based brand’s maximalist origins, Wilson writes: “Instead of the cold, industrial interiors that have dominated Chili’s design in recent years, [the company’s more than 1,200 North American restaurants will get a new look over the next decade] filled with an exuberant mix of color and texture, including a toile wallpaper, which was designed in France.”

The Wall Street Journal piece, meantime, is a tech-focused look in the paper’s CIO Journal section bearing the headline, “Why Chili’s Isn’t Going ‘All In’ on AI.”

“Chris Caldwell, chief information officer of Chili’s-owner Brinker Intl., said his senior leadership team agrees the restaurant chain is ‘not all in,” on AI,’ theJournal notes. “Instead, he’s spent his budget over the last two years revamping foundational in-restaurant tech, including newer Wi-Fi access points, payment systems, and devices for staff to fix what he said had become a broken experience for customers and workers.”

But it’s not just tech: Other factors at work in the chain’s turnaround include increasing the portion size of its beloved baby back ribs and leaning into viral menu items like the now TikTok-famous Triple Dipper, the Journal notes.

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