Chili's

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Chili's Grill & Bar (stylized as chili's) is an American casual dining restaurant chain<ref name="chilisindia.com">Template:Cite web</ref> founded by Larry Lavine in Texas in 1975 and is currently owned and operated by Brinker International.

History

Chili's first location, a converted postal station on Greenville Avenue in the Vickery Meadows area of Dallas, Texas, opened in 1975. The original Chili's on Greenville Avenue moved to a new building on the same site in 1981; it relocated again in 2007.<ref name=brinker>Template:Cite web</ref>

Lavine's concept was to create an informal, full-service dining restaurant with a menu featuring different types of hamburgers offered at an affordable price. The brand grew larger, and by the early 1980s, there were 28 Chili's locations in the region, all featuring similar Southwest decor.<ref name=answers>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1983, Lavine sold the brand to restaurant executive Norman E. Brinker, formerly of the Pillsbury restaurant group that owned Bennigan's.<ref name=answers/>

Menu

Chili's serves American food, Tex-Mex cuisine and dishes influenced by Mexican cuisine,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> such as shrimp tacos, quesadillas, and fajitas.

In addition to their regular menu, the company offers a nutritional menu, allergen menu, and vegetarian menu.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Advertising

"Chili's (Welcome to Chili's!)" is an advertising jingle used in Chili's Restaurant commercials to advertise the restaurant's line of baby back ribs. The song was written by Guy Bommarito and produced by Tom Faulkner Productions for GSD&M Advertising of Austin, Texas. Faulkner sings both "I want my baby back, baby back, baby back ribs..." (Which is similar to the Tommy James song "Draggin' the Line"), as well as the melodic theme. The deep "Bar-B-Q sauce" line was sung by famed New York bass vocalist Willie McCoy. A 1996 rendition of the jingle features a doo-wop quartet, Take 6, singing a cappella. Advertising Age magazine named the song first on its list of "10 songs most likely to get stuck in your head" in 2004.<ref name=stuck>Template:Cite news</ref> In October 2017, the jingle was revived to advertise Chili's new menu, where it was re-conceptualized as "Oh Baby, Chili's is Back (Baby, Back, Baby, Back)."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2008, the chain aired parody ads for "P. J. Bland's," a fictional restaurant chain with cardboard foods.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2012, Chili's used Wendy Rene's Stax single, "Bar-B-Q," in their TV commercial.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In September 2017, Chili's dropped about 40 percent of its menu items to focus on burgers, ribs, and fajitas.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In February 2020 Chili's announced a new marketing campaign encouraging people to "laugh so hard you pee a little."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In September 2024 Chili's announced, that its advertisement campaign is working, while other food chains in the USA still struggle to entice diners into their stores. Store sales increased 14.8 percent in the fiscal fourth quarter of Chili's.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2024, the Chili's restaurant chain obtained the license for BurgerTime to create a browser-based game called Chili’s Big Smasher BurgerTime. In this version of the game, players control the franchise mascot Joe ChiliHead in a quest to create Big Smasher Burgers across six levels of gameplay. Players who participated also had the chance to win prizes such as free burgers for life.<ref name="BurgerTime">Template:Cite press release</ref>

Locations

Chili's operates in the follow countries and territories:

• Asia/Oceania: China,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Guam,<ref name="chilisindia.com" /> India,<ref name="chilisindia.com" /> Indonesia,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Japan (only in U.S military bases), Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Taiwan

• North America/Caribbean: United States, Canada, Mexico, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico

• South America/Central America: Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, and Peru

• Middle East: Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates
• Europe: Germany (only in U.S military bases)

• Africa: Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia

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Legal problems

In October 2008, a Chili's Australia franchise was prosecuted and fined Template:A$ by the NSW Office of Industrial Relations for underpaying staff, pressuring employees to sign an Australian workplace agreement, and failing to pay Template:A$ in owed wages by a deadline set by the Office of Industrial Relations. In the same year, Chili's announced the permanent closure of all its Australian locations due to poor sales, unprofitability, and non-compliance with the Fair Work Act 2009.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In July 2024, American rap rock group the Beastie Boys filed a lawsuit against Chili's parent company Brinker International for copyright infringement, claiming that the group's 1994 song "Sabotage" has been illegally used to promote Chili's in advertisements on social media starting around November 2022.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Controversies

• 2008: On June 5, a woman from Washington named Anne Paskett filed a class-action suit against Brinker International. Paskett and the rest of the plaintiffs claimed that the restaurant chain's so-called healthier offerings, like the Chili's "Guiltless Black Bean Burger" have nutritional values much different than the ones listed on the menu. Independent laboratory tests were conducted, discovering that the fat content of the items are sometimes double, or even triple, the amount shown on these menus.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• 2009: Brinker International fired a Chili's employee for the claim of sexual harassment, only to employ her again after the public outrage. They claimed that her termination was a computer error.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• 2018: Brinker International disclosed that its data network had been breached between March and April 2018, exposing the personally identifiable information of its customers. Subsequently, several customers of Chili's filed suit against the company, alleging that its failure to comply with industry standards for information security and implement adequate data security measures to protect its data networks from the potential danger of a data breach had caused them to incur fraudulent charges on their payment cards.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• 2019: Chili's Restaurant was fined after an employee fell into a vat of scalding water.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• 2020: Brinker International and its Chili's subsidiary paid Template:US$ to settle sexual harassment allegations from five female employees.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In popular culture

• Chili's was a key location in The Office season 2 episode 7 "The Client." The episode shows Michael and Jan meeting a client at a local Chili's restaurant after Michael had changed the location of the meeting from Radisson citing Chili's as "the new golf course." It was also featured in another season 2 episode, "The Dundies".
• On April 7, 2025, the chain opened "The Scranton Branch", an Office themed Chili’s based on the one featured in the show. The Scranton restaurant is the only one in the chain to feature the Awesome Blossom, which was removed from the full menu in 2008.
• The Chili's jingle was also used in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me where Fat Bastard meets Dr. Evil with the mojo belonging to Austin Powers. When he sees Mini-Me walk out with the money, startling him, he tries to eat him, thinking he is a baby. After attempting to eat Mini-Me, Fat Bastard suggests that Dr. Evil keeps the mojo, and he gets the baby, and then sings the Chili's Babyback Ribs song.
• In Season one of "That '90s Show", the recurring character, Fez, mentions Chili's is the location where he and his current lover had met, also making a reference to the Babyback Ribs jingle.Template:Citation needed
• Chili's was mentioned several times in the 2010 road comedy film Due Date, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis.<ref name="Due Date">Template:Cite web</ref>
• On April 5, 2024, in Austin, Texas, the date was declared Chili's at 45th & Lamar Day.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• On July 22, 2025, Austin, Texas-based Tecovas announced a collaboration with Chili's wherein Tecovas will sold boots out of "genuine Chili’s Booths". The boots retailed for $345.<ref>https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/collab-we-didnt-know-we-needed-why-the-internet-is-buzzing-over-tecovas-chilis-booth-boots/</ref>

External links

• Template:Official website