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It’s a Friday night in 1987and you’re wearing your best acid washed jeans with your Frankie Says Relax shirt. Your date’s hair has reached full Aqua Net structural integrity and you just slid into a red vinyl booth at Chi-Chi’s with a basket of free chips and a cold, syrupy margarita the size of a birdbath. Chi-Chi’s wasn’t just a restaurant. It was where Midwest families went to feel spicy.
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It's a Friday night in 1987, and you're wearing your best acid-washed jeans with your Frankie Says Relax shirt
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Your date's hair has reached full Aquanet structural integrity. Snap out of it
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And you just slid into a red vinyl booth at Chi-Chi's, with a basket of free chips and a cold, syrupy margarita the size of a birdbath
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Chi-Chi's wasn't just a restaurant. It was where Midwest families went to feel spicy
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It was prom night, family night, big night out energy. All wrapped in a fried tortilla and served with a scoop of guac for your salsification
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But how did this Tex-Mex temple go from 200 plus locations to one sad jar of salsa in your grocery aisle
0:42
And is it ever coming back? Today, we're biting into the tortilla wrapped rise and green onion fueled fall of Chi-Chi's
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If you tell them it's your birthday, maybe they'll give you a fried ice cream for free
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It all started with a dream, specifically a dream and a Green Bay Packer
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In 1975, former wide receiver Max McGee teamed up with restaurateur Marno McDermott
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to open a Mexican restaurant in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the city best known for snow, prints, and an aggressive devotion to hot dish
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The restaurant was named after Marno's wife, whose nickname was Chi-Chi, which is sweet until you realize Chi-Chi's is also Spanish slang for something else
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So depending on your worldview, this was either a heartfelt tribute or America's biggest branding accident
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Either way, they were off to the races. The first location opened its doors in 1975 and leaned heavily into Sonoran-style food
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Milder seasoning, fewer tears, more cheese. Since the Midwest had very few real Mexican restaurants, the founders saw an opening
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They'd bring the flavors, the flair, the faux authenticity, and of course, the fried ice cream
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It worked, and people showed up. Chi-Chi's wasn't just a restaurant. It was an experience
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You walked in and were immediately hit with that very specific 1980s Mexican-adjacent decor
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Bright stucco walls, hanging sombreros, multicolored string lights, potted plants pretending to be agave
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and the ever-present scent of refried beans and margarita mix. It was a perfect mix of chaos and kish and we weren the only ones to think that Chi Chi first year sales hit 2 million dollars That 1975 money so today that would be closer to almost million
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Because of it being such a big hit, you get another brilliant idea. It didn't take long before a stockbroker approached McDermott about franchising
2:42
and soon after, the Chi-Chi's brand exploded across the Midwest. By 1986, they had over 200
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locations. Chi-Chi's became a household name. Then in came former KFC executive Shelley Frank
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The man who made Colonel Sanders an improbable icon was now in charge of Chi-Chi's expansion
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He moved the headquarters to his hometown of Louisville and poured Tex-Mex rocket fuel on the
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brand. Under his watch, Chi-Chi's became the definitive casual dining Mexican chain of the 80s
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staking its claim with some legendary signature dishes. First off was the chimichanga. And while
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Chi-Chi's didn't invent it, they sure made it famous. A deep-fried burrito stuffed with meat
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and cheese, topped with sauce, sour cream, and sodium-induced euphoria helped put the place on
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the map so much that they put Home of the Chimichanga on their matchbooks. People could walk in and say
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give me a chimmy. No further explanation was needed. Chajitas, or fajitas with a CH
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because of clever branding, piled chicken or steak sizzling on a cast-iron platter with all
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the fixings. Tortillas, guac, lettuce, sour cream, and a sense of performative danger. They even
3:50
trademarked Chahita's Mexican Cafe. You can practically hear the sizzle through the TV
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commercials. If you wanted some surf with your turf, you could order up some seafood nachos
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king crab, shrimp, black olives, and a creamy sherry sauce. It was either high-end fusion or
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unhinged 80s decadence. Either way, it was served with melted cheese. Then there was the twice
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grilled barbecue burrito because grilling things once wasn't enough at Chi-Chi's. Grilled meat
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grilled tortilla, and Tex-Mex barbecue sauce. It was overkill, but in the best possible way
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One former employee called it their favorite, even though no one ever ordered it. No one had
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the courage. If you wanted something light, there was taco salad, the cool Mexican meal
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A giant fried tortilla bowl stuffed with lettuce, tomatoes, olives, shredded cheese
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and either beef, grilled chicken, or seafood, with chili con queso or house dressing
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It was essentially a giant nacho so it wasn actually any less indulgent than a chimichanga Chi also had an all weekday lunch buffet featuring over 40 items
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We're talking tacos, enchiladas, nachos, desserts, a taco bar, a salad bar
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and a lingering food coma for under $7. Then came the sweet corn cake, a golden scoop of soft, slightly sweet corn magic
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It was allegedly a side dish, but ate like a dessert. You could get extra scoops for 99 cents a piece, and people did
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If you really wanted dessert, look no further than the Mexican fried ice cream
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Ice cream rolled in cinnamon and cornflakes, flash fried, topped with honey and whipped cream
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and served in what can only be described as a champagne glass for dairy addicts
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with an ad jingle that sang, It was the dish that doomed many unsuspecting parents into repeat visits
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With all that food, you of course need something to wash it down. So it's time for a drink, and Chi-Chi's wasn't playing around
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This was the 80s, so naturally every drink came in a glass bigger than your head
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They had margaritas, obviously, sangria, for those feeling fancy, strawberry daiquiris, piña or pepe coladas
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the Chi-Chi, which was vodka and pineapple juice and coconut cream, and the Las Brias, which was rum plus orange juice plus coconut cream
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Every drink could be ordered nada or alcohol-free, because even though it was a family restaurant
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they wanted to make sure the kids of the 80s were ready to be drinkers of the 90s
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Mission accomplished. Chi-Chi's didn't collapse overnight. Like any good disaster, it came in slow, arguably preventable waves
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By the late 80s, Chi-Chi's had simply grown too big. Some locations were over 12,000 square feet
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Huge, expensive, hard to fill, unless you were hosting a Tex-Mex wedding
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And they made the fatal error of expanding into places like Texas, California, and New Mexico
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In those areas, Chi-Chi's inventive spins on classic dishes just came off as weird and inauthentic
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Maybe closer to Mexican cosplay than cuisine. Combine that with high management turnover, overspending, and a wave of new competitors like Olive Garden and Texas Roadhouse
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And the celebration was clearly winding down. In 2002, Chi-Chi's filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but the final crack in the pañata came in October of 2003
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Chi was already on the ropes when a location in Manaca Pennsylvania became the epicenter of the largest hepatitis A outbreak in U history Over 660 people were infected and four people died
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The culprits were the green onions and the free chips and salsa, the thing everyone eats before they even order
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The green onions were traced back to farms in Mexico with poor sanitation and contaminated water
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and had been served raw or barely heated in the mild salsa and chili con queso
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94% of the people who got sick had eaten the salsa. The CDC issued warnings
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Immunoglobulin shots were administered to over 9,000 people in the area. Lawsuits flew in
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One man received a $6.25 million settlement after needing a liver transplant
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Chi-Chi's tried to settle the lawsuits quietly and even removed green onions from the menu
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But the damage was done. You can't serve deadly salsa and expect a second date
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By the time the lawsuits were settled in July 2004, Chi-Chi's had only 65 locations left
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In September, Outback Steakhouse swooped in and bought off the real estate for $42.5 million
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Not the name, the operations, or the recipes, just the real estate
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That same weekend, Chi-Chi's closed every remaining U.S. location. Only one location remained, and that was in Vienna, Austria, almost as far as you can get from Mexico geographically
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That location finally closed in 2024. Outback turned the buildings into Bonefish Grill and Cheeseburger in Paradise locations
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And just like that, Chi-Chi's had fried its last chimmy. Regardless of whether you loved it, hated it, or never even heard of it
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Chi-Chi's was undeniably a celebration. And a great party is hard to forget
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Hormel Foods bought the rights to the Chi-Chi's brand for packaged foods back in 1987
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so you can recreate a trip to Chi-Chi's by heading to the grocery store
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Today, under the MegaMex Foods umbrella, they sell salsa, tortilla chips, taco shells, dips
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taco seasoning, margarita mix, and the beloved sweet corn cake mix. They even had a TikTok ambassador for Cinco de Mayo in 2021
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And in a spicy plot twist, Chi-Chi's will return to the U.S. in 2025
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The revival is being led by Michael McDermott, McDermott previously served as the CEO of Kona Grill
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and plans to bring back Chichi the same great taste and Mexican flavor
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No menu or location details have been