Chili's, a Dallas Chain with Over 1,500 Locations in 36 Countries - Owned by Brinker International

[JLK]

Don asked where we at this week. Sadly, my Wednesday consisted of driving from Santa Monica to Claremont (1 hour plus with traffic) to have lunch with a client...at Chili's. I'm posting this here because although it was in the LA area, it could have been anywhere. But client requested Chili's so I drove an hour plus to eat at Chili's.

Coworker and I noshed on queso fundido, Chili's version of which featured random bits of ground beef. The dish went back to the kitchen very clean. Client skipped the queso and had bbq wings, followed by Margarita Chicken (that's a lotta bird). I also had said Margarita Chicken. Hard to mess up? Should be. But the bird was thin and tough and sad. I congratulated myself on offsetting the calories of queso with the bland sadness of the chicken as I got in my car to drive to my next client meeting, more than an hour south, in Huntington Beach.

Doing my part to advance global warming,

J "huge carbon footprint. huge." K

[FunnyJohn]

The Chilis in my hood (corner of Annandale and Arlington Blvd.) has been nothing but a blackened, burned out shell for over a year now. Such a loss...

[beezy]

So sad. You could have eaten at Walter's and had the Afghan fries.

(Pomona alum)

[JLK]

Most of my clients (athletes) live and die by chains. I travel to great cities (San Francisco! New York! Memphis!) and they suggest restaurants like Chili's, Applebee's, The Olive Garden and Cheesecake Factory.

[mnnchas]

I thought Outback was home of the bloomin' onion. I believe Chili's is known for (ha) baby back ribs...barbecue sauce.

[JLK]

My bad. Chili's claim to shame fame is the Awesome Blossom (with apologies to Ms. Mayim Bialik).

[brettashley01]

I am morally opposed to Chili's, as well as Uno's, because there are about 3 things on the entire menu that can be consumed without fear of allergy induced anaphylaxis. (Uno's has, well, nothing that I can consume. Same goes for Cosi.)

The reason I say morally opposed is because of the blatant misrepresentation of their menu items and ingredients. I should be able to eat the plain chicken or steamed vegetables. Scan the actual ingredients and nutritional statements for these items at most chain restuarants, and you'll find that things are seldom what they seem....

[jasonc]

It sounds like your client was Michael Scott from The Office.

[Barbara]

Had the most overcooked, awful tuna at a Chili's in El Paso. A pox on ALL their houses.

[TinDC]

I used to like to eat at Chili's when I was in high school. Can't say I have been since.

[DonRocks]

I'm proud to say it has been over *nine years* since our last Chili's post, but Pool Boy made me laugh this morning when he referred to me resurrecting these old posts, saying he enjoys "Dumpster Diving."  (Quite frankly, I enjoy it, too, as I view this website as an important, knowledge based archive of restaurant information, rather than simply a community.)

When this thread was last active, the title said "Over 1,000 Locations in 20 Countries," so you can see how much the restaurant chain has grown in the past nine years.

As of 2015, 839 locations were company-owned, and 741 are franchised.

Their parent company, Brinker International, also owns Maggiano's Little Italy. If you go to their Wikipedia entry, you'll note that they also used to own eight other restaurants, but no longer do.

Welp, that's about all the Dumpster Diving I can do, since I haven't eaten at a Chili's since long before this website was founded in 2005.