Chili’s to Upgrade Servers’ Tablets as Business Turnaround Continues

Casual dining restaurant owner Brinker International said Wednesday (Aug. 13) that advertising brought more diners into its Chili’s restaurants during the quarter ended June 25, while operational improvements kept them coming back.

Brinker International, which owns Chili’s and Maggiano’s, saw year-over-year comparable sales for the quarter at Chili’s increase by 23.7%, while those at Maggiano’s declined by 0.4%, according to a Wednesday earnings release.

Brinker International President and CEO Kevin Hochman said during a Wednesday earnings call that he attributed Chili’s gains to growth in traffic, which in turn was delivered by advertising and operational improvements that were part of the business’s 3-year-old turnaround plan.

Among the Chili’s marketing efforts, Hochman highlighted a pop-up experience called Fast Food Financing. Held in New York City in April, this experience took a poke at the high price of fast food by inviting guests to go through the process of applying for a loan for a fast-food meal and then being offered a Chili’s meal that demonstrated how the restaurant provides a better value alternative to fast food, according to an April 15 press release.

“This event not only created incredible buzz all throughout the country, it reinforced Chili’s as a restaurant value leader,” Hochman said during the call.

Chili’s latest operational improvements include the installation of new kitchen equipment that cooks more evenly, quickly and reliably, and a paring down of the number of pantry and menu items that simplified the ordering process for customers and the inventory and cooking for the business, he said.

“We say at Chili’s, ‘Marketing brings them in, but operation keeps them coming back,’” Hochman said.

Chili’s plans for 2026 include a “dramatic simplification” of the iPad application servers use to take orders, he said. This upgrade will remove items that are no longer sold but still show up in the app, and will add a more intuitive user experience, an easier split-check capability and an offline mode that allows it to keep working even if the internet connection goes down.

“The results will be hundreds of millions of less tabs for our servers, less scrolling and, more importantly, more accuracy and faster order-taking,” Hochman said during the call. “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 30 days of starting.”

At Maggiono’s, Hochman said during the call that the business is making a leadership change and that it will adopt more of the improvements that Chili’s has made during its turnaround. Hochman will oversee Maggiano’s as interim president.

“We will also commit to spending more time listening to the restaurant teams’ ideas, like we’ve done on Chili’s, to drive the ideation that will accelerate Maggiano’s turnaround,” Hochman said.