Hi, Welcome to Chili’s!

I come from a Chicken Crispers family. Are they basically chicken tenders? Yes. Even so I prefer Chili’s Honey Chipotle Crispers to the other menu offerings, as does my mother. My brother prefers the plain Crispers, one of the only things he likes to order other than a grilled cheese. Over the years I have tried to branch out with a burger or their chicken bacon ranch quesadillas, but all roads lead to Chili’s and for me, all Chili’s lead to the Chipotle Honey Crispers.

Chili’s Grill & Bar has always been a go-to place for my family. Our Chili’s is near the AMC Theater where my family could go for entertainment that would hold all of our attention. In the strip mall there were plenty of options, including the Buffalo Wild Wings my dad and I seem to always choose when it’s just us going to the movies. However, whenever we emerged from the dimly lit lobby out into the blinding sunlight reflecting off the parking garage we’d hop in the car and drive to the adjoining parking lot to the restaurant with the huge red chili pepper above its door.

Entering those doors to the often loud, sometimes sticky atmosphere is like receiving a warm fajita smelling hug. You are greeted with the promise of a toothpick after the meal (something I always scan for) and a question: booth or table? For accessibility reasons, my family always chose tables, so booths became a special experience reserved for outings with friends. Regardless of the seating choice, no matter where I’ve been to Chili’s (Illinois, Ohio, or South Carolina) the sights and sounds are the same. If you’ve been to any Chili’s location, you probably have a good picture of what any other location looks like. In Virgina Moench’s review of The Restaurants Book: Ethnographies of Where We Eat she describes how, “restaurants evoke a sense of locality or home.”¹ “Hi, welcome to Chili’s!” a server greets you the sounds of chatter, sizzling plates, a mediocre soundtrack, and a sports game on the TV engulfs you.² There are about 1,500 locations across many countries, but the flavors and atmosphere stay consistent with purpose. Norman Brinker, known as the founder of casual dining, acquired the chain in 1983.³ Brinker explained Chili’s business philosophy when they expanded to the Philippines in the late 90s, “they do not make any kind of adjustments both in flavor and in service such that what they offer in the US is the same Chili’s food you get in any of the stores found in a total of 15 different countries.”⁴ No matter how far from home you are, you are almost guaranteed to get a taste of something familiar when you find a Chili’s.

Before this project, I had experienced two notable Chili’s meals with friends. Once I went with a group of college friends on a mission to go to one chain family sit down restaurant of a similar nature a month (we made it to two with the other being my first time to a Texas Roadhouse). The atmosphere has mainly stayed the same with TVs sporting a random choice of entertainment, often a sports game or a disturbing episode of 60 minutes. One notable change was when table side screens were added for children to play games and patrons to pay for their meal. Maybe I’m old fashioned or the screens don’t work well, but I’d rather just chat with the waiter while paying. Even though there have been slight changes to the environment, Chili’s has remained a familiar gathering space for me.

The environment, menu, and hospitality are some of the reasons why my family and friends choose Chili’s as a place for casual dining and celebration amidst the choices of other chains or fancy places. It is a place to go after a movie, but also after a big game, award, or breakup. Chilli’s is a place of comfort and sauce (are they not one and the same?). That comfort is in part because no matter where you are, all Chili’s are designed to be the same, a familiar grill and bar. When my friends and I enter a Chili’s in Ohio it’s like I’m back in Illinois, a 15 minute drive from my childhood home. I’m home, even if I’m hours away, and I’m always with people I love. In Moench’s review of Where We Eat she notes that “Derek Pardue discusses Central Illinois chain restaurants that use decor, music, and menus to make diners feel at home.”⁵ The sizzle of fajitas and conversation is a sensory blanket that blocks out the stress of how you played in that softball game or the essay you have due at midnight.

One such time of comfort was the night my best friend was blindsided by being dumped. This trip to Chili’s was initially planned as a way to celebrate something I have since forgotten. It turned into a dinner of tears underscored by chips and multiple dipping sauces and rounds of lemonades in frosty glasses. Her quesadillas went untouched and when the waitress asked if there was something wrong with the food, my friend was honest. “I just got dumped.” she admitted while laughing a little. The waitress shot her a sympathetic look and said something like, “Oh honey, it will be okay.” I don’t actually remember what she said, but it didn’t matter. In the booth of the Chili’s we needed someone outside of our sympathetic party to see us and see her. In his review of Karla Erikson’s Hungry Cowboy, he highlights a moment where she writes, “it was hard for me to ignore the ‘extras’ of service work: the events, conversations and occurrences that blur the lines of power and temporarily even out the divisions in the Hungry Cowboy family” (p 133).”⁶ In our interactions with her it seemed as though the roles of customer and server were blurred and we were all just humans having a human moment. Eventually the laughs turned genuine and we drove home a little lighter, if just for one night.

On a 14-hour spring break road trip, we made another visit to Chili’s. After we had been seated in a booth and ordered, I made a classic restaurant blunder, I dropped my fork on the ground. Two employees had brought us our plates and when I asked for another fork one employee quickly confirmed that I just needed a single utensil and got to work. He completed his mission in what felt like record time, when he reached over the wall behind my booth to hand me my fork. I barely had to turn over my shoulder to be met with a smile and the utensil of my desires. I felt both cared for, prioritized, and encouraged to enjoy my meal. Mr. Brinker boasts about the service at his establishments claiming, “At my restaurant, the food is good but the service is spectacular – always! The staff really cares about you and makes sure that you have everything you need and more. The atmosphere is very relaxed, pleasant and comfortable.”⁷ Dripping my fork could have been stressful. We had come in from the rain and I was so tired and hungry that a small mistake could’ve turned into a disaster. However, that employee wasted no time helping me and offered me a sympathetic smile relieving any embarrassment bubbling up.

“At my restaurant, the food is good but the service is spectacular – always! The staff really cares about you and makes sure that you have everything you need and more. The atmosphere is very relaxed, pleasant and comfortable.”

Norman Brinker

From the welcome at the front doors, the attentiveness throughout the meal, and the energetic advertising, Chili’s wants so desperately for you to have a good time. One research team observing the dining experience of chain restaurant patrons found that, “Data analysis indicates that brand attitude and hedonic value bear a positive impact on patrons’ well-being perception.”⁸ Chili’s wants you to want their Baby Back Ribs and the Margarita of the Month. Chili’s wants you to feel like you are indulging in the cheesy, meaty, spicy fare they have to offer because when you indulge you are more likely to enjoy it. 

It would be naive to say that Chili’s Grill & Bar was all about hedonic comfort and saucy food, because at the end of the day it’s also about the money. sociologist Ray Oldenburg wrote about the importance of people having a third place that is not work or home to gather informally. Chili’s may have some functions of a third place that Oldenburg describes like a playful mood, but it stands in contrast to others. Conversation is not the main activity, purchasing and buying food is.⁹ Chili’s wants you to indulge and enjoy and which can be fun. Often when ordering appetizers my friends and I will look at cheesy, saucey goodness and say, “Let’s be bad!” before ordering with eyes bigger than our stomachs. It also means that you are spending more on food and alcohol, which is the point of the business part of a restaurant. No matter how much restaurants focus on the atmosphere they have to think about the profit, especially a chain like Chili’s. They didn’t just open up locations all over the world because of their passion for Tex-Mex food, they opened over a thousand locations around the world to make more money. A Chili’s can provide comfort and a warm meal, but you still have to pay for it.

Our road trip meals received mixed reviews. My Chipotle Honey Chicken Crispers reigned supreme and consistent, but my partner tried the new Nashville Hot Chicken Crispers and found them to be too salty. Our friend ordered the steak fajitas, and found the beef to be a little too chewy. I sat there disappointed that they didn’t have the same experience as me. It seems that the consistency Chili’s strives for isn’t always achieved. However, some important context is that we were finally in the state of our road trip destination with a few hours left of what ended up being a nearly 13 hour journey. Perhaps not being a driver on our trip allowed me to enter the Rock Hill Chili’s with a more open mind, ready to feel God in that Chili’s on that night.¹⁰ I can’t say I felt God, but I was satisfied.

When I talked with my best friend from home about this project over the phone she immediately recalled a recent tale from her younger sister Erin, who is a sophomore at a college in Central New York. Most of her new friends had admitted to never having visited a Chili’s when they went around and talked about their usual haunts from home. “So you just eat there casually, on a normal day?” her friends asked. “No, we go there to celebrate!” she enthusiastically replied to their uneven laughter and lack of understanding. Their class privilege meant that they looked at Chili’s like watching a 3D movie without the glasses, they were missing the magic.This sentiment is echoed in Moench’s review of Where We Eat in which many contributors emphasized that the experience was as much a part of the service as the food. She says that restaurants, “are the stage on which we play out family dramas, meet new people, and build friendships, places where we can feel at home or as though we have traveled to a distant land.”¹¹ This conversation conjures up an image of Erin in her sweatshirt, skinny jeans, and Converse surrounded by young adults in tiaras and feathered hats looking down from a balcony on the commoners who frequent Chili’s, never to fully understand the joy of the baby back ribs.

My road trip experience and Erin’s conversation made me wonder if Chili’s was more of a, “you had to be there” restaurant. Did you have to already have a built in history with the sit-down chain restaurant to understand its magic? In her article Food, Service, and Play in Restaurant Culture, Jennifer Burns Levin explains, “As a place where we dine intimately and can choose our own meals from an offering that is both public and private, individualized and generalized, the restaurant has always generated conflicting expectations for the consumer.”¹² Everyone visits Chili’s with different expectations. Some go for the food, some for the conversation, some for the margs, some for the communal viewing of a sports game, some for a meal where their picky kids will have options, some to meet up with friends. No matter what one’s motivations are, the interior decoration, service, and atmosphere stays similar, leaving the possibilities endless in both a good and bad direction. Maybe Chili’s feels like a piece of home to me in a way some of my friends won’t feel, in the same way that Texas Roadhouse means a lot to another one of my friends. Moench posits, “Perhaps we should change the old adage of  ‘We are what we eat’ to ‘We are where we eat.’”¹³ If restaurants are truly a third place, then patrons are intrinsically tied to them. Private and public lives merge at Chili’s due to the human nature of the place. Humans want connection, like to indulge, and enjoy being entertained. Patrons of Chili’s can go there without specific occasion of course, but they can also go to celebrate birthdays, promotions, or whatever else in their life calls for a venue outside of the home. A Chili’s, every Chili’s, is a blank slate ripe with opportunity for those in the mood to take a bite.

Al Herrera OC’24 (They/Them) is a fourth year Creative Writing major at Oberlin College who is looking forward to eating at a Chili’s this summer.

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