Over the past several years, Chili’s has become the comeback king of the casual-dining sector. To the casual consumer, Chili’s seemed to re-enter the cultural zeitgeist with the viral “cheese pull stretched around the world” in 2024, or even later that same year when the brand started going after McDonald’s and other quick-service restaurants with targeted advertising and its own version of classic fast-food items.
But after 21 straight quarters of positive same-store sales, it’s clear that Chili’s success story was in the making long before the brand launched its own quarter-pound burger.
Brinker International CEO Kevin Hochman began the company’s Q4 earnings call on Wednesday by saying “The Chili’s turnaround is real.”
While clever ads that take advantage of QSR traffic struggles and a viral social media trend create marketing wins in the moment, long-term success is built on the back of operational basics — not just a fleeting TikTok trend.
This could be why Hochman took so much time during Brinker’s quarterly earnings call to discuss wait-time management changes and scheduling upgrades. The company has created a North of Six team made of leaders from Brinker’s highest-volume restaurants, and from there, sourced and executed store-level operational ideas.
“These North of Six restaurants have dramatically higher margins than the balance of the system,” Hochman said. “So as long as we continue to invest in the business and grow those AUVs and delight the guests, good things will happen with margin.”
Although the brand is on a winning streak, currently, Chili’s is only at 80% capacity of historical guest counts, so leaning on leaders at the highest performing stores will improve AUVs in the long run, and the company can use them to “stress-test” operational ideas before a systemwide rollout.
One idea that the company recently implemented is the upgrade of HotSchedules so that managers can more easily schedule shifts. Chili’s also recently simplified its shift line checks—the mandatory tasks managers perform before each shift to ensure readiness — from eight pages down to one, freeing up 30 minutes each day.
“We know the number one thing that can set up a shift for success is properly written labor schedules, and anything that makes the task easier to do correctly is a big win for our managers and improves our ability to take on more and more traffic,” he said on Wednesday.
In addition to labor-facing tweaks, the company has also introduced new initiatives to speed up restaurant cycle times as a traffic improvement strategy. The first of these initiatives is a loyalty rewards integration with the Ziosk tableside tablets. Customers can enter the phone number associated with their loyalty account and applicable rewards will be automatically added to their total, like free chips and salsa.
The quicker that tables turn over — especially on busy Friday and Saturday nights — the better the traffic gains. The company is specifically attacking friction points to shave minutes and seconds off turn-table times. One example is the bottleneck created by too many servers trying to fill up free soda refills at the same time. To avoid this bottleneck, the North of Six leaders suggested installing additional soda machines, which the company is now working on.
“Chili's long-term growth year after year is a result of a deliberate set of choices we make to deploy resource and capital to improve the guest and team member experience while driving same-store sales now and over time,” Hochman said.
While installing extra soda machines or upgrading employee scheduling software might not be as headline-grabbing as a viral cheese pull, these are the basics that put Chili’s long-term momentum on the map.
Contact Joanna at joanna.fantozzi@informa.com
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