Chili’s managed same-store sales growth of nearly 24% during Brinker International’s fiscal fourth quarter, with traffic up 16%, according to an earnings release. Sales are up 39% compared to two years ago and 45% compared to three years ago.
This marks the 17th consecutive quarter of positive same-store sales, and the fifth in a row with double-digit growth. It is also the seventh straight quarter Chili’s has beat the industry average on traffic, Brinker’s CEO Kevin Hochman said Wednesday during an earnings call.
The brand is now three years into its turnaround strategy and saw average unit volumes grow from $3.1 million at the end of fiscal 2022 to $4.5 million at the end of fiscal 2025, Hochman said.
Chili’s comparable sales and traffic
Going forward, Chili’s will continue to focus on menu innovation and its value proposition as well as marketing, equipment, tech upgrades and remodels. The chain will eventually restart new unit growth in the U.S., executives said. Its turnaround strategy included investing $160 million more in labor than it did three years ago. Over the last three years, Chili’s spent an additional $100 million incrementally on repairs and maintenance to improve restaurant and equipment conditions and to keep up maintenance. The brand’s marketing budget also grew from $32 million in 2022 to $137 million in fiscal 2025.
“The investments we have made in the food operations and facilities have allowed our guest experience to match the quality of our world class marketing,” Hochman said. “As we say at Chili’s, marketing brings them in, but operations keep them coming back. This is why we continue to grow and sustain those gains.”
In the past three years, the chain cut 25% of its menu, leading to restaurants doing “fewer things a whole lot better,” Hochman said. In fiscal Q4, it eliminated 10 pantry SKUs and eight food and drink items. The chain’s focus on improving burgers, Crispers, fajitas, margaritas and the Triple Dipper helped improve food grade scores.
It also completed its rollout of TurboChef ovens that create less heat in kitchens, provide a more even cook and are more reliable and easier to clean than previous ovens, he said. The chain also upgraded its margarita program with new frozen margarita machines in the past fiscal year that have led to greater production capacity and better tasting drinks, Hochman said. Its improved frozen margarita lineup led to “reviews and sales … significantly exceeding expectations,” he said.
At the end of fiscal Q4, the chain relaunched its ribs platform, with ribs that are bigger and look and taste better, Hochman said. The chain is waiting for a full quarter to pass before it starts digital marketing for the menu platform in fiscal Q2 2026, but it expects ribs to be a traffic driver.
Going forward, the chain will invest in premium mayo, ranch, bacon bits and 50% thicker bacon to further improve food quality, Hochman said.
“When others may be pulling back on quality to offset inflationary headwinds, we view this as an opportunity to accelerate our food quality versus competition,” Hochman said.
Chili’s also will roll out a simplified application on the tablets that servers use to take orders. The ordering program on the devices will have a more intuitive design and will remove over 700 SKUs that are no longer sold, but still appear in the current application, Hochman said. It also will have an offline mode making the application accessible if the restaurant’s internet crashes.
“The results will be hundreds of millions of less taps for our servers, less scrolling and, more importantly, more accuracy and faster order taking,” Hochman said. “We also believe this initiative will help with server turnover as we’ve had some issues of new servers leaving after being frustrated by the current tablet system within thirty days of starting.”
Given the success of the past three years and ongoing sales growth, Hochman said he is confident that Chili’s will see another four quarters of growth in fiscal 2026.
“With a significantly streamlined menu, more labor deployed, a restaurant in better condition with better equipment and a brand and culture that people are excited about, Chili’s is well positioned to continue growing market share in the industry for years to come,” Hochman said.