Chili’s sales success over the last few years — driven by value and operational investments — have transformed the chain’s unit economics, with a 71% five-year increase in same-store sales, executives said at Brinker International’s 2026 Investor Day presentation. But during that time, the chain’s unit count fell, from 1,131 company-operated U.S. stores in fiscal 2022 to 1,110 in fiscal 2026.
Over the last fiscal year, the brand managed to return to unit growth in its company-operated system, with net one unit opening. Now, Brinker CEO Kevin Hochman said, the chain is ready to speed up its growth.
Chili’s is targeting 2% to 3% new unit growth per year in the next few years, or about 20 to 30 restaurants per year, Hochman said. While some casual chains, like First Watch, have seen significant unit growth in recent years, others like Denny’s and Red Lobster have seen substantial closures while chains including O’Charley’s and On the Border have shuttered operations.
Sustained growth is a “completely new lever” for Chili’s, Hochman said, but the brand has significant whitespace for development.
CFO Mika Ware said individual new units tend to cost between $5 million and $6 million in total investments, but they have seen strong volumes, typically in excess of $5 million. This return on investment has given the chain the confidence to target a variety of markets for expansion while still increasing its store-level sales.
Chili’s will target markets across the U.S.
Chili’s development whitespace comes in four varieties, Ware said. First, the brand has underpenetrated markets, like Washington state, where it has just one streetside unit compared to 35 to 40 locations for its closest competitors.
The chain will also fill in around the edges of its strongest markets, like Texas, California and Florida. Many of the metro areas in those states are still growing, generating new opportunities in the markets, Ware said.
“California, Texas, Florida, have been really strong markets for us, and that's where we have the most Chili’s,” Ware said. “Just when we think we've already built as many Chili’s as we can build in Texas and Florida, it's just not true. We have eight in the pipeline right now.”
The third geographical category encompasses markets in the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia and the Washington, D.C., metro area. These markets generally have a lower density of restaurants than Texas and Florida, but similar economic dynamics.
“Those areas are really attractive for many of the same reasons that Texas and Florida are,” Ware said. “They have growing populations and plenty of development for us to be a part of.”
Finally, Chili’s is targeting the vast heartland, especially areas that were once the exclusive domain of its franchisees.
“Historically, in the middle of the United States, those have been more franchised areas,” Ware said. “We've bought a lot of those back. We do have the growth rights in all 50 states, but we're just underdeveloped in those areas.”
Hochman highlighted Ohio as an example of a market where Chili’s has a presence and can still grow aggressively.
“You look at our next two competitors, which have much lower market share than us. You add up their boxes; they have four times the number of restaurants that we do in Ohio,” Hochman said as an example of a market where Chili’s can undertake significant infill development and take share.
Within this broad geographical spread, Chili’s is looking to continue its longstanding strategy of targeting the major suburbs of large cities. But it is looking at other trade areas and real estate possibilities.
“We have now a small town strategy,” Ware said. “The team has identified many smaller markets where we don't have a Chili's, that we know can be successful.”
The brand is also considering conversions to help supplement its development, particularly in high-cost, high-density markets like the Northeast. Ware said the brand is considering both one-off conversions and potential opportunistic acquisitions of small chains with strong real estate. Thanks to this flexibility, Chili’s has identified as many as 300 potential sites, Ware said.
Remaking unit economics and operations
But getting to the point where Chili's can realistically pursue such a wide range of development strategies has taken major changes at the store-level, Hochman said.
In the early 2000s, Chili’s locations averaged about 5,200 guests per week, said Aaron White, chief people officer at Brinker. By fiscal 2023, that number had fallen to 3,400 according to slides presented by White. But thanks to the success of the chain’s efforts to compete with fast food, weekly store-level guest counts in fiscal 2026 hit 4,200, White said.
This surge in guests has helped push Chili’s average unit volumes from $3.3 million in 2023 to $5 million, Ware said.
But meeting that consumer demand has required significant changes to the operating model, White said, including ongoing efforts to streamline processes.
“We're continuing to figure out the bottlenecks that we see,” White said.
The brand eliminated a number of SKUs to reduce pressure on the kitchen, invested $180 million in front-of-house service and revived the busser position, White said. All this improved throughput in various parts of the restaurant.
Chili’s analyzes its restaurant operations through group conversations with managers and with hourly workers, asking both groups about particularly thorny issues in operations, White said. It uses the results of these conversations to identify and remedy problems.
White also cited the deployment of handheld ordering tablets as an example of a significant process change that sped up operations. Shifting to electronic order inputs cut down on server trips to the kitchen and eliminated other steps.
The brand’s new kitchen display system now has a more efficient presentation of information that makes it easier for workers to see how many particular items they should be preparing at their station.
“Instead of being a team member and having to look down 40 checks to tell me how many mozzarella [stick] orders do I have, it will tell them at the very top of the screen that they have seven orders of mozzarella [sticks],” White said.
Operational changes, backed by the brand’s strong value marketing, make it possible to meet consumer demand.
Hochman said that credit card data at Chili’s shows that the brand is drawing in a significant number of new guests, but that these guests rapidly come to exhibit similar frequency to existing guests.
“What you're seeing in our business is that frequency is staying flat,” Hochman said. “So every month we bring new guests in, and within nine to 12 months, when we track their behaviors, they look a lot like existing guests. … We're not just bringing guests in for that current quarter … we're setting ourselves up for reaping guests over time.”
