Chili’s launched the latest incarnation of its $10.99 3 For Me deal on Tuesday, with the addition of its new Big Crispy and Spicy Big Crispy chicken sandwiches to the combo, which offers an entree, fries, unlimited chips and salsa, and an unlimited fountain drink.
The chain positioned the chicken sandwich combo as a direct price competitor to fast food chicken sandwich combos, which have helped fuel the booming chicken category over the last six years.
Chili’s is also serving four other variations of the Big Crispy sandwich, according to the press release.
Chili’s new chicken sandwiches will fit into the 3 For Me value price point, a medium price point and a super premium option to balance the margin impacts of the 3 For Me, Brinker International President and CEO Kevin Hochman told investors during a fiscal Q2 2026 earnings call.
Value as a sales, traffic driver
Chili’s 3 For Me deal, including versions with the Big Smasher and Big QP burgers, has helped the chain leverage operational improvements from its turnaround into massive sales leaps over the previous two years. With the chain set to lap several quarters of same-store sales growth over 20% in the near future, menu innovation and value pitches could help it avoid stagnation — or shrinkage — as consumers pull back on restaurant spending.
“The 3 For Me consumer tends to come more often,” Hochman said. “They actually spend more over the course of the year because they come more often versus higher-priced guests.”
Brinker CFO Mika Ware said the chain would support the chicken sandwich lineup with television advertising starting in late April.
The relentless emphasis on price-point competition with QSR has made Brinker’s flagship brand one of the restaurant industry’s standout winners of late. Part of its success depends on the service experience and perceived quality of casual dining relative to QSR.
Chili’s menu development strategy has tried to maintain that edge, even as QSRs shift toward more premium ingredients, like new buns and reformulated mayonnaise, across many of their core products.
The brand refined its chicken sandwich recipe over the last year or so, resulting in a simple product base.
”We basically have a brioche bun, a pickle, mayonnaise and a very large hand-breaded chicken breast that we think is incredibly abundant in the category,” Hochman said.
This basic sandwich build makes it easy for the brand to iterate on the item, adding sauces — like Buffalo or Honey Chipotle — and premium options like bacon, without significantly altering the core product.
The press release also framed the Big Crispy as a superior deal in terms of food volume — an important component of value perception. Chili’s said it carried out a test in one market that found “the average Big Crispy filet was over 80% bigger than the average McCrispy breaded filet.”
The Big Crispy platform was tested across 200 restaurants, with minimal advertising support. This still led to significant positive results, Hochman said on the earnings call.
Marketing the value play
Chili’s will emphasize its value proposition with a pop-up venue in New York City on Thursday, next to a major QSR, where consumers can compare the Big Crispy with fast food. This reprises the immersive pop-up strategy the brand employed last spring, when it mocked QSR competitors with a location that borrowed from payday loan and pawn shop aesthetics and offered to finance purchases of fast food combo meals.
If successful, Chili’s move could push competitors toward a value war in the chicken sandwich category.
That menu category, Hochman said in January, “is by far the biggest segment of all restaurant chicken servings,” with “over 80% of people buying [chicken sandwiches] at least once last year.”
At the same time, Chili’s is moving to protect its margins with more premium versions of the sandwiches.
“So the outcome when you do this is that you keep the $10.99 sales mix constant,” Hochman said. “You don't let it grow too much because that's when the margins can get out of whack.”
