MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
To news now of how a 50-year-old American restaurant chain has staged a remarkable comeback. The somewhat Tex-Mex restaurant is known for its fajitas, its burgers and, of course, its jingle.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Singing) I want my baby back, baby back...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Singing) Chili's baby back ribs.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Singing) I want my baby back...
KELLY: Chili's has posted double-digit increases in sales in the past five quarters, and it's done it as its casual dining competitors are flailing to survive. Dan Kois of Slate investigated what is driving the chain's turnaround. Hi, Dan.
DAN KOIS: Hello.
KELLY: So I'll note you're not entirely neutral and objective here. You have a long history. You like Chili's, but you admit you had not set foot in one in decades. Why?
KOIS: At some point, I just determined that there are better restaurants out there. I think it seemed like something that came with adulthood. You could go to a restaurant that wasn't a corporate chain and that didn't cook all their food from frozen and that didn't have a jingle.
KELLY: (Laughter) Although it's already stuck in my head again...
KOIS: Sure.
KELLY: ...And has been more or less since the 1990s. Let's get into why. You interviewed Chili's CEO. This is a new CEO, as of three years ago, for the parent company of Chili's. What did he tell you was his vision for how to reinvent the company?
KOIS: He brought in a whole team with him, and they all came together. They were the same team that recently reengineered KFC and Old Spice. Both of those reengineerings had a lot to do with tapping into people's sort of nostalgic love of that brand. And then while they were doing that, while they were trying to tap into this nostalgia - for example, having Boyz II Men rerecord the Baby Back Ribs jingle - they also were trying to institute a bunch of very strategic systems improvements that were designed to make it a better place to work. And a lot of these were, like, almost comically small-bore techniques or transitions in the kitchen.
KELLY: Yeah, tell me about the salt shakers.
KOIS: Yeah, so for example, it used to take cooks in the french fry department - it used to take them 30 shakes to get the right amount of salt and seasoning on an order of fries because the holes in the top of the shaker were very, very small. And so they made the holes in the salt shaker bigger, so now it just takes five shakes, which, you know, of course, to me, is, like, duh. But also, no one had done that before, and it's saving everyone who makes fries three or four seconds every time they do it.
KELLY: They also - setting aside the salt shaker holes - they've simplified. They've tried to streamline the whole menu. I will note, for example, I read with horror in your piece, you can no longer get chili at Chili's.
KOIS: But when was the last time you ordered chili at Chili's? I think that was...
KELLY: No, I was a nachos girl.
KOIS: That was the argument in favor of this change. Yeah, they've cut about 25% of the menu. And every time they do that, some customers complain, but they're sort of taking the gamble that the customer complaints will cause much less damage than the benefits given by streamlining the whole kitchen and making sure that all the food that actually does come out is both popular and good. They're sort of betting on the big, mainstream American middle as their target audience.
KELLY: One thing Chili's is not blazing the trail on - healthy options. Frying is king. There's very few low-cal offerings on the menu. How are they squaring that with a moment when it seems like everybody and their brother are taking a Ozempic?
KOIS: They're not squaring it at all. It should not be a surprise that, like, the viral moment that has helped kick off this Chili's revival had to do not with - whatever - poached chicken breasts or something but had to do with their mozzarella planks and these incredible TikTok videos of young people biting into a mozzarella plank and then doing a cheese pull, stretching the cheese, you know, the length of your arm. Clearly not a menu item designed around healthiness. Instead, it's a menu item designed around indulgence, almost decadence.
KELLY: Dan Kois. His piece in Slate is titled - actually, I'm going to let you say it. Or maybe sing it.
KOIS: "How America Got Its Baby Back, Baby Back, Baby Back."
KELLY: Thank you, Dan.
KOIS: Thanks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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