September 16, 2024 • 41 mins
It’s a battle for restaurants to become top of mind with consumers, so generating cultural relevance is imperative, Chili’s Chief Marketing Officer George Felix tells Bloomberg Intelligence. In this episode of the Choppin’ It Up podcast, Felix sits down with BI’s senior restaurant and foodservice analyst Michael Halen to discuss how ad campaigns with Brian McKnight, Boyz II Men and Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey from The Office, as well as investments in TikTok and influencer marketing, are driving Chili’s same-store sales and traffic gains. He also comments on operational improvements, fajita enhancements, Ziosk tablets and the loyalty program revamp.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Welcome to Chopping It Up. I'm your host, Mike Hanlon,
the senior Restaurant and Food Service Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
Our research and that a bi's five hundred analysts around
the globe can be found exclusively on the Bloomberg terminal. Today,
we're joined by George Felix, chief marketing officer of Chili's
Grill and Bar. So in my research, I noticed you're
a Notre Dame guy. That was a tough loss last week, George.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, Mike, I wish we would have talked maybe a
week before. That was a far far better time for
the fighting Irish.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Yeah, it was. It was pretty rough.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
My family and I went to the text A and
M game. We were riding high and then obviously major
letdown last week. So we'll see if they can they
can rally the troops and uh and recover. But still
still can't believe it.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Well, the good thing about the extended playoff scenario is
that you know you're not finished after one loss, so
so they're still in it.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
That's right, Still still still some hope.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah. I'll be in South Bend next week for the
game against Miami of Ohio. It's going to be my
first time over there.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Oh nice, we'll have to we'll catch up offline on
on on all the spots you got to hit.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
I'm going to be there the week after for the
Louisville game.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Okay, awesome. Yeah, you read my mind about the spots,
all right, good stuff, So I'll definitely pick your brain.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
So for those of you that aren't familiar with George,
he's worked on some of the most iconic campaigns I
can remember Old Spices, Smell like a Man Man KFC's
Colonel campaign, you know. Jim Gaffikin was was phenomenal. He
was so funny. But the extra crispy Colonel I think
was my favorite. Oh yeah, so good at George Hamilton.
(02:03):
But do you do any of those hold a soft
spot in your heart?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
They all do, to be honest with you, like, I
learned a ton from from getting to be a part
of great brands. Uh, you know, the Old Spice work,
you know, definitely holds a special spot in my heart,
just because it's the It's literally the first thing I
worked on, you know, when I when I got into
marketing and at a business school and and so getting
to work with the people I did. We had a
(02:28):
great team at Old Spice, an amazing agency, Widen and Kennedy.
It was it was probably the best, the best way
to start a career. I was worried that like that
was going to be the only thing I ever I
ever did, But thankfully I've been able to work with
some great brands and some great people along the way.
But that thing happened. It was wild because like it
(02:49):
was not planned. It was all kind of in response
to a competitive launch in market, and it happened in
the matter of months. And so it taught me a
few things. One like, sometimes when you don't have as
much time you make, you can make better decisions because
you don't overthink things and you kind of go, you
go with your gut and uh, and we did that
(03:10):
a lot on that. And then the second part was, Uh,
creativity can really be a way to solve business problems.
And I think that's something that I've tried to carry
through through my career since then. So certainly that one
has a has a special place for me, just because
it was it was the first one and really kind
of got me hooked on on on brand, brand building
(03:32):
and and and trying to make breakthrough creative.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah, it was phenomenal. And Andre, are are you like
a parent and you're not allowed to admit it? Or
do you have a favorite kernel.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Let's see now that i'm you know, now that I'm
off KFC, I guess I could probably answer that. I mean,
they were there were so many great ones, so uh,
you know, there's there's something fun on each one, but
probably Norm MacDonald, I would say, And you know, rest
in peace, Norm, But he really kind of got that
thing moving for us, so that you know, that holds
(04:05):
a special place for me. But man, just getting to
you know, he was he was one of our longer
running kernels, so we had several several shoots with him,
and he was phenomenal to be with on set. He
had us just dying laughing, you know, offset and just
the stories and just such a such a nice guy.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
So I think I.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Think Norm Norm would probably be my number one. His
Twitter account, I don't know if you ever followed Norm
on Twitter, it was unbelievable. He just just randomly on
a Sunday afternoon, just live tweet like a really super
random golf tournament, like for no reason.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I mean, and it's amazing too, how how his like
old like late night TV clips are all over Instagram
and TikTok killed it forever.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Man. Oh yeah, he had this great he had this
great story.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
H He was telling us like he was like his
son came up to him and was like, oh, man, Dad,
have you seen Seth Myers on Weekend Update on SNL.
He's so funny. And Norm just looked at him and said,
do you even know how time works?
Speaker 1 (05:06):
I did that.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I was way better than him, like twenty years before.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
That's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Man.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yeah, So I didn't realize that you work for Kevin
Hawkman CEO Kevin Hackman at P and G as well
as Young Brand. So he must be a great boss.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
He sure is.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yeah, yeah, he He and I have been together since
I guess two thousand and eight. The summer of two
thousand and eight, I was in a business school intern
at Procter and Gamble working on the Old Spice brand,
and he was the marketing director there, and so I
worked for James Morehead was our brand manager, and James
worked for Kevin, and those two guys really, you know,
(05:48):
really responsible for me getting into marketing, and they taught
me a ton and so Yeah, Kevin. Kevin hired me
there and we worked together at P and G and
then I follow him to a few more stops. So
I think this is our our fourth brand that we've
worked on together.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Very cool. So what is it about the CpG marketing
guys tend to do pretty well in restaurants?
Speaker 3 (06:12):
What is it that's That's a good question.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I don't know if I totally have the answer, but
you know, I think CpG is Personally, I think it's uh,
there isn't a better place to learn about brand building
and marketing than the CpG and certainly Procter and Gamble.
You know, for me, it was it was almost like
getting another MBA, to be honest, like the training you
get I still reference to this day so many of
(06:36):
the things that I learned there in my first few
years there. And so I think, I think there's just
a really strong foundation. So I don't know if it's
just in the food industry, to be honest, I'm guessing
CpG marketers probably do well in a in a host
of industries. And then you know, I think I think
the big change for a CpG marketer moving into food
(06:57):
is the is the pace And that was the biggest change.
And Kevin told me that when when when I joined
him at Young and uh, you know, I don't know
if that's for everybody, but you know, I think CpG
has a very slow pace, right, like just by nature
of the product development life cycle and selling it into
the retailers and and all that. Whereas you know, food,
(07:19):
you know, you get results every single day, right, you
get a sales report every morning, and and and you're
you're being judged on a much different timeframe. And so
I think some people, you know, take that that base
foundation they learn and CpG on how to build a brand,
and then really are able to apply that into a
retail business that that you can move move quickly on.
(07:39):
And I think that that tends to be a pretty
good combination.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Great all right, So other than than Kevin, what attracted
you to Chili's.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Well, it's, uh, it's a great brand, uh, you know,
there's it's one of those places where when I when
I tell when I tell people I work at Chili's,
like generally speaking, they all a smile kind of comes
to their face. And and it's a brand that that
people have fond memories of, whether it's you know, a
family with friends, maybe first dates, you know, after baseball games,
(08:06):
whatever the case may be. And uh, it's a brand
that people kind of root for, I would say, like,
which is not always the case with brands. And so
you know, for me, you know, I've I've worked on
several kind of turnaround brand brands that we've talked about, right,
Old Spice, KFC, Pizza Hut kind of all all similar
and and you know, I've put Chili's in that same
(08:27):
in that same group in terms of a brand that
that had a had a heyday and and now maybe
you know, had lost some of that momentum. And so
when I'm looking at a brand, you know, I'm looking
for a brand that has great bones, something to work
with as as a marketer. And I felt, I felt
Chilis kind of checked the check that box and then
the other piece that you know, you can't really know
(08:49):
until you until you get here. But in talking to
the people going through the process before joining the culture
here at Brinker and at Chili seemed really unique. And
I've now you know, been having been here two years,
I can say it's you know, it's the best culture
I've worked in, and it is it is something special,
right like every other you know, seemingly every other person
(09:11):
that I work with here in a meeting, it's like, oh,
I've been here fifteen years, I've been your twenty years,
I've been your twenty five years. And you don't see
that very often. And you know, we've got three three
members of our of our leadership team and our c suite,
Our chief operating officer, chief people officer, and chief financial
officer all started as hourly team members working in restaurants
and are now.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
You know, running the company.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
And I don't know how many companies that's like even
possible at anymore these days. So those are those are
kind of the big things that that kind of drew me,
drew me in obviously, in addition to to Kevin being here.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Yeah, very cool. Yeah, it's interesting because I felt like
for a while, Chile's kind of lost its way. It
was kind of differentiated, and then it became very similar
to the to a lot of other casual dining brands.
A CFO that I used to work with, Larry Hyatt,
he was excellent. He worked for a Cracker Barrel and
this was you know, maybe ten years ago. He's you know,
(10:06):
he used to call them, TGI, Chillibees. You know, everybody's
got the same menu, serving the same things.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
All right.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
You mentioned two years at Chile's. You know, the turnaround
has been impressive. I'd really like to dig into maybe
your first six months, you know, right Sizing the amount
of transactions on deal, simplifying the menu, and identifying sales
opportunities were all kind of points of emphasis on the
team's very first earnings call. How did you id and
(10:33):
prioritize the lowest hanging fruit?
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Yeah, you know, when we came in, you know, you're
doing that.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Kind of you're assessing the landscape to see what's going
on in the business, and you know, a couple of
things we noticed right away. One the brand had not
been you know, from a marketer standpoint, the brand had
not been advertising for three plus years at that point.
And you know, part of that was COVID and a
lot of brands you know, made that decision. But it
(11:01):
wasn't all that like that. That there had been some
intentional decisions to to move some of that investment that
was going into advertising and paid media into you know,
other other places. And so some of those places were
third party you know, third party delivery virtual brands which
were which were started during during COVID and then also
(11:24):
you know, the using our my Chile's rewards database. Uh,
there was a lot of discounting like being sent out
and so it was basically twice per week, so once
you know, on every Monday, and then that that offer
was kind of good Monday to Thursday, and then another
offer was sent on a Friday for the weekend and
it was going out to the entire you know, the
(11:45):
entire database. And so you start looking at that and
you know, you go from nationally advertising driving awareness to
not doing that anymore and talking to the same kind
of group of people and kind of starting to encourage
that discount deal mentality. It's it's kind of a recipe
for for the brand not being as relevant and top
(12:07):
of mind anymore. And so that was kind of where
we wanted to start. And so, you know, one of
the first things we did is really pull back on
a lot of that discounting that we were you know,
sending out and take that money to reinvest into advertising
and putting Chilis back out there in a different way
and reminding people about Chili's and and the and the
(12:29):
value that we offer. And then you know, the other
piece was, you know, we have we had a great
a great construct here, a great everyday value construct and
the three for Me. There are some tweaks that we
needed to make to it. You know, I think in
some ways, you know, it was it was almost you know,
the three for Me, like there was almost too many
(12:50):
things in it, right, which made it too too easy
to get into that. And so we wanted that to
be you know, for the people that are looking for
that amazing every day value. You can find it very
easily every single day, but you know, you're gonna have
to make choices, right if you want that value. You know,
there's going to be a select menu that you can
choose from all all are going to be great options,
(13:12):
but we didn't want to put some of our core
favorites like a fajitas or things like that and into
that and those need to be signature items that you know,
you know, it's it's still a great value for us,
but you can't find it on that three for Me menu.
So we made some tweaks to you know, what was
what was available in three for Me. We have the
price tiers and uh, and then we start talking about
(13:33):
it right and and tell people about it so you know,
you can you can get out there. And so that
was really you know, when we were diagnosing what was
going on, those are some of the big, the big
ticket items that we felt like we needed to address
right away and get after the the other piece I
would I would say that that stood out to us
in that early in those first six months was just complexity,
(13:57):
the complexity of the menu, you know, in terms like
you said, I think a lot of casual dining chains
fall into this habit of or this trap of trying
to be everything to everybody. And so there's a balance there, right,
you need a good variety so that you know everyone
can find something they like, but you also want to
do things in a way that you know you can
(14:18):
make the menu manageable and execute it consistently. And so
so there's a lot of low hanging fruit there in
terms of ways to simplify the menu but also just
simplify the job of our team members. And Kevin's really great.
He brought a culture of listening to the field to
Chili's and so he spent probably the first you know,
(14:39):
six months he was here on the road most of
the time just in restaurant, watching, observing, getting in there
himself and really talking to team members to see what
are the things that we could do here to support
them and make their jobs easier so they could deliver
great service to our guests. So a big focus on
simplification both in terms of procedures and menu. I'd say
(15:00):
it was the other big kind of low hanging fruit there.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Great And how long did it take for the operational
improvements to kind of take hold so that you felt
like you could really be comfortable ramping up the marketing?
Speaker 3 (15:12):
You know, honestly, we were able to move fast.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
And I'll tell you that's one that's one nice thing,
you know, for us, at least for you know, some
of us that have come from other from other concepts,
you know, with with Chile's being primarily company owned, we've
been we've been able to make some pretty fast, fast
moves and and a lot of that's a testament to
Doug Cummings and he's our chief operating officer and the
(15:34):
work that are our vice presidents of operations across the country.
Do you know, we just started get after it and
like you know, we're we just started making making changes
implementing it.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
You know, we we.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Were some of the things we you know, we decided
not to test and just roll, and you know, we
don't get everything right, but but our hit rate's pretty good.
And so we started to see improvements pretty quickly, at
least feedback wise from you know, from team members and
terms of the impact I was having. And now i'd say,
you know, so we we probably we probably started advertising.
(16:08):
Maybe let's think about this, maybe like nine months in,
like six six, six to nine months in we started,
we started advertising after I joined, and at that point,
we were already starting to see the the the positive
feedback from our team members internally. And now what's great
is we're seeing that really translate into the metrics, into
(16:30):
into actual metrics that we're seeing from our guests, so
that they're they're experiencing a you know, a better, better atmosphere,
a better service at Chili's. And we're seeing that, you know,
in our internal metrics as well as you know, things
like Google ratings and another ways to measure the experience.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
All right, So we're renovating the core four. So for
my fellow Yankee fans, it's not Jeter Mo, Georgie and
Pettit right, But it's burgers, chicken crispers, Marks and Figita's
for Chili's. You know, that was an early initiative. It's
wrap up this year with Fajidas. Can you share a
little bit about what's to come?
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah, you know, I think it goes back to that
point on the menu, right, like you know, well, well,
we always need to offer a wide variety of things
to appeal to the masses. We also felt it was
important to have a strong point of view on the
things that that Chili's really stands for and the and
that core for really is it. And and so we've
been you know, on a on a steady, steady pace here.
(17:26):
We've got a great innovation team and culinary team that's
been working on this, and so chicken Crispers were really
the first piece of that that's been you know in
market for over a year now and been doing great,
great for our business and really making us more relevant
in a category that you know, is continuing to grow
every single year. We then have been tackling Margarita's, which
(17:50):
has been really fun for me. The alcohol space is
a news space for me coming to Chili's and so
you know, being being a destination for Margarita's. It's a
great time to be that tequila has never been more popular.
I've learned a ton since, uh, since joining here in
the last couple of years, and so we're really you know,
we we talk about this Barbell strategy.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Right.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
You can come in and get a six dollars margria
the month, every day of the year at Chile's, which
has uh, you know, great flavors, great spirits in it
and and is obviously a great value. But we've also
innovated on the top end, which I'm really proud of.
And so we've got a whole top shelf lineup that
includes Cosamigos, Patron and we're gonna be We're going to
(18:33):
be bringing on Don Julio here and uh basically next
week that's going to be on our menus. So so
I think, you know, being able to to innovate on
both the value side of that and the premium site
has been great. Burgers, the big smasher uh has been
a big, a big success for us and a big
driver of our success recently. And now we're hitting fajitas
(18:56):
and and I'll tell you that's the most complex of
the core four for a lot of reasons. It's just
there's there's more components to it, obviously, but there's there's more,
there's more parts of that experience. You know, there's the
the little the literal theater of it all. And you know,
so we've been looking at every piece of of the
fajita experience. And so whether it's the proteins that are
(19:17):
coming with the fijidas, the you know, the onions and
the peppers that come on the skillets. We've upgraded our tortillas,
We're looking at dippable fijidas as well as you know,
other other things that that that can make that experience great.
And so those are all in progress and so we're
excited to bring those out later, you know, later in
(19:39):
our fiscal year here, which would be the last of
the core four. Now it doesn't mean we're done. There's
tons of things outside of the core four that we're
going to be looking at, whether it's desserts, appetizers, things
of that nature. And then you know, we're going to
continue to look at those core four categories and you know,
what's the next thing on crispers, what's the next thing
on burgers. So we've really you know we didn't really
(20:00):
have a pipeline of innovation or a culture of innovation
when I got here that the branch just hadn't been innovating.
And so we've we've had great success there. Our director
of culinary Brian Paquett and Mary Allan Scott, who's our
director for the innovation side of things, has really kind
of created a new culture and a new process here
that now we do actually have a pipeline and in
(20:22):
a formal way that we bring new new items to market.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up
with the fajitas. The Caesar Milan skillet whisper campaign was
a funny one, man.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
You know, it's so funny like that, there's such a
it's just there's such a fun like I don't I'm
sure you see all the things on you know, on
Instagram or whatever, and like just like, uh, there's just
such a fun cultural thing about being the person that
orders fajitas at the table and like what what happens next?
That I'm really excited to start exploring some of that space.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Yeah, the sounds, the smells, it's just.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
It's a great experience and that's what Chili's is all
about right, like like a great Chili's experience. You should
be hearing that that Margarita shaker coming to your table,
You should be seeing that sizzlin Fahida coming through. It
should just be a you know that that atmosphere is
what we want to get back to. And so so
we're definitely excited. And Fajidas is in our DNA. We
we introduced uh, you know, the country to Fijidas.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
You know.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, I went, yeah, and even the team members singing
happy birthday, right, oh yeah, I got some crispers and
wings with my son last night. They were both great.
Oh awesome, awesome, that's great, very good experience. Yeah, and
I saw you had renovated the sauces, which is so big.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yeah, like I mean just sauces in general are yeah,
I mean yeah, like you can see it across the industry,
like it. I think people consumers are really craving that
that experience, but also just that flavor exploration. So we
we we did revamp our sauces. You know, I think
there's still tons of room to grow there. And I
(22:00):
think at Chili's, like we it's part of the Chili's
experience too, Like there's so many so many of our things,
whether it's chips and salso, whether it's you know, Caso's, Crisper's.
You know, there's so many things that are that are
kind of dipped at Chili's. It's just becoming part of
part of that experience as well.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
So at the twenty twenty three investor Day you mentioned
red marketing, you know, those surprize coming from young brands
that represents relevant, easy and distinctive for the for the listeners,
Chili Shore feels culturally relevant again. Right tied into Jenna
and Angela from the office, you brought some nineties nostalgia
(22:37):
back that you know, I told you before I'm a
huge fan of the Brian McKnight three for Me commercial.
And so if you could talk a little bit about
how important it is just making you know, Chili's culturally
relevant again and how that ends up bringing it into
the consideration set for all consumers, and I just i'd
(22:57):
imagine younger consumers too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Absolutely, you know, I'm I'm a big believer in that
that read philosophy. The folks that Collider Labs kind of
coined that and and learned that when I was at
young and.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
You know, relevance.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
I think cultural relevance I think is just absolutely imperative
for if you're building a brand, and especially in the
situation we're in with Chili's, where we're a brand that
lost you know, we had it and we've lost it, right,
And so I think when when you look back when
Chili's was at its best, you know, we were a
brand in culture, you know, whether it's uh, you know,
the Office, whether it's Austin Powers, you know, whatever, like
(23:36):
in sync, Like, it was a brand that was in culture,
and so we wanted to get We're we're pretty adamant
we want to get back to that. And so, you know,
I think I think that's uh, I think that's part
of you know, a signal that that you're back in
the mind space right, because in restaurants particularly, I think
it's such a battle for for being top of mind
(23:58):
right because you have so many choices. It's easier than ever.
You don't even have to leave your house anymore. You
can get everything brought right to you. So I think,
you know, beyond just kind of the tactical kind of
advertising that we that we all need to do, I
think cultural relevance can really be that thing that kicks,
you know, kicks you up a notch on top. And
so we've been you know, I'm a big believer and
(24:19):
just taking taking swings and you got to take a
lot of swings. They're not all going to hit, but
the more swings you take them, you know, the more
odds you have of being able to to do that.
And so it's something that we did back on the
KFC days and you know, trying to bring that same
philosophy here so you know, the office ladies, I think
it was a fun way just to dip back into nostalgia.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
And you know, we don't we also don't want you
got to be careful.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
I think working on a on a heritage brand that
you don't just kind of go back for nostalgic sake,
but you want to do things that you know are relevant.
You know, you know you're taking the things that are
great about the brand, but you're making them relevant today.
And so you know, when we do things is like
with the you know, Jenna and Angela or Brian McKnight
or Boys to Men, we want to still you know,
(25:05):
do it with a little bit of a self awareness
and a wink, but we also want to make sure
we do it in a way that's that's relevant today.
And I think our creative partners have really done a
nice job with that. I think more recently some things
we tried to do, you know, just in the past years.
Is also like reaching different types of audiences that we
think overlap with casual dining. So NASCAR is a big one, right,
(25:28):
Like the NASCAR audience loves casual dining, loves Chili's and
so you know, we we partnered with Spire Motorsports to
sponsor a car this past year in the Daytona five hundred.
It was all about catcher Rita. We had all these
QR codes on the car, and you know, we wanted
to do something that was felt felt fun for the
NASCAR fans, but do it do it in an authentic
(25:48):
way for Chili's. Another audience that we think needs to
be you know, more more prevalent at Chili's is the
Bravo audience. I don't know, Mike, if you're a you're
a Bravo fan at all, but but a lot of
people are a lot of a lot of a lot
of women in particular, and so you know, the number
one show on cable is Vanderpump Rules. And so when
(26:11):
we when we launched our take on an espresso martini,
who better than you know, Katie and Sheena from vander
Pump China happened to be a former chili head working
at Chili's. So yeah, so that was a lot of fun.
And then you know, gaming, we we had some fun
with bringing back Burger Time, which was a game I
used to play on an Apple twoey, but we made
it all about the big Smasher and defeating the evil
(26:33):
Fast Food syndicate. And so, you know, there's there's lots
of different ways. You know, my goal is for people
to kind of come across Chili's in an unexpected way
and and kind of say, hey, do you see what
Chilis just did? And and kind of you know, show
up in unexpected places. And so we're going to continue
to to surprise people hopefully and and and put Chili's
(26:55):
into that cultural conversation.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
And you mentioned you like to take a lot of swings.
Took some swings at fast Food this year. You got
any you have any bullets left?
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Well, you know, I'll here's what I'll say on that
the conversation was happening. You know before we kind of
we got in and that's as a marketer, you know,
it's always better to tap into an existing conversation than
try and start, you know, something brand new. And you know,
we just saw it online. I'm sure you saw it too.
There's a lot of frustration with people in the drive through,
(27:29):
like sticker shock, frankly, like how in the world did
I just spend this much money? And so I think
just with the rising cost of fast food, it kind
of brought us into the conversation because when you talk
about you know, the Chili's three for me, it's it's
a nearly half cound burger, fries, bottomless chips and sauce,
a bottomless drink for ten ninety nine. That's that's going
to beat most most drive throughs, both in terms of
(27:52):
not just price point, but also the quality of the
food you're getting. You're getting full service. So, you know,
we started to see the groundswall of like you know,
popping up on social media. Our social teams start jumping
in a little bit, having some fun with that, and
then you know, really we just wanted to you know,
capitalize on that insight. And so when we launched the
Big smasher, which obviously is a is a take on
(28:15):
a familiar fast food burger, but on a chili's burger.
We really saw that as an opportunity to go squarely,
you know, right at it and and really just kind
of address the thing that that people were already talking about.
And so you know, we're going to keep We're going
to keep at it just because you know, I think
it's it's not it's not something that's going away if
(28:35):
you turn on the news or morning shows. You know,
I feel like it's a it's a pretty common topic
of conversation, and and we were really proud of the
fact that we can deliver every day value that is
that is really you know, we believe the best in
the industry, and you know, we we believe it's it's
not just about the lowest price point.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
It's it's what you get for what you pay.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
And we don't think we can be beat both on
the price and the quality and abundance of the food
that offer.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Everyday value is where it's at. Man. Yeah, absolutely, the discounting,
you know, you're just training your customers that the food's
not worth the menu price, right.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Absolutely, And I think you're I mean, frankly right now,
I mean you see this same way I do. Like
there's a lot of brands throwing a lot of stuff
out there right now that you know they're they're kind
of scrambling and throwing some some low prices out there.
But you know, I just I don't know. To me,
it doesn't look like it's going to be sustainable. And
you know, I feel really confident about where we are
(29:30):
because the thing we've been talking about the three for
me for eighteen months now, it's built into our it's
built into our business model, and we feel really good
about the way it's constructed. So you know, we're we're
really excited about where we are. And it seems like
there's a lot of a lot of concepts out there
that are kind of, you know, scrambling right now.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Can you talk about your investments in TikTok and influencer
marketing and what is doing for your business?
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yeah, I think it comes down to relevance again, like
this is you know, you got to you got to
adapt to where people are and where where they're spending time.
And my god, increasingly TikTok is is where people are,
right It's uh it's it's it's unavoidable. It's not even
you can't even just say it's where younger, younger consumers are.
It's it's where everybody is now. And so I buckled.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
I buckled and downloaded about a month or two ago.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Yeah, it's crazy, right that that for you page like
it's it's it's wild how they know exactly the content
you're looking for. And so for us, we've got an
amazing social team. Louse bickert Uh heads that up with
with Jack Hayley, and they they do a great job
of really helping us understand what's going on trend wise,
(30:39):
what are people talking about, and and it goes beyond TikTok,
it's across all these platforms and and that's that's something
they've they've really honed in on, is like we have
to have a different presence on each platform because it's
got you got to you know, each each one has
its own nuance. I think the thing that we found
on TikTok is there is a real power there like
unlike any other platform. I think TikTok showing the ability
(31:00):
and other concepts of seeing it as well to really
move the needle when you have something that.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Takes hold and takes off.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
And so what we saw happening, you know, probably back
in May, was a big fascination on TikTok with with
our triple Dipper, which is this you know, amazing appetizer
platter where you get to choose three items, and in
particular our fried mozzarella, which I don't know if you
had with your son last night, but it's it's phenomenal.
(31:27):
It's not you can't even call it a cheese stick.
It's like a plank of fried mozzarella. It's really it's
really great. And the thing that took off was people
eating it and then doing this like cheese pull to
see how far they could pull the mozzarella cheese. And
so we started seeing these, you know, just they start
picking up each day, more and more coming out, and
(31:50):
a lot of it was happening organically, and so then
our social team really kind of jumped on that and said,
how do we pour gas on the fire and so
how do we work with influencers to to kind of
there this further this trend and you know, we saw
probably in that timeframe, you know, over fifty million views
you know, between paid and organic on TikTok of people
(32:11):
cheese pulls in their cars, in the restaurant wherever, and
we could see it. We could see that, you know,
play out in sales, you know, whether you know Triple
Dipper and in our Frid Mozzrella, which was which was
great and really correlate, you know, when you started to
see the TikTok spikes, you could start to see it
in our in our sales. And then then we decided,
(32:32):
you know, like, hey, how can we how can we
capitalize on this, And so at the beginning of August,
we we released a new version of the Frid Mozzrella
which was in our toss in our natural hot sauce,
so it was Nashville Hot Mots. And we did that
as a secret menu item because we want to move fast.
So just in a matter of weeks we kind of
(32:53):
got that from our test kitchen out into our restaurants.
But you know, we didn't have a menu to reprint
or anything like that, so we just kind of put
it out on on on TikTok with with again you know,
some influencer work to help get that started, and man,
it took off again and and you know, some of
it was certainly from from the paid work that our
social team did with influencers, but a lot of it,
(33:15):
again was organic, and we probably had another fifty million views,
you know, just over the last you know, four to
six weeks on that.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
On that as well.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
So it's really just kind of kept that conversation going
and kept that that experiential part of what makes Chili
so fun in the forefront. So, you know, we really
see influencer marketing as being a pretty you know, like
pretty solid channel for us going forward, if you want
to think of it that way, as as a media channel.
(33:45):
And you know, we're honestly learning as we go to
be to be totally honest, but we're starting to codify
the things that work and how we can you know,
we can supplement some of the organic work with with
some some paid influencer work as well.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Great, and I fumbled, you know, I hadn't remember reading
and seeing some stuff about the Nashville Hot Lutz and
I fumbled. I didn't order it last night.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
But next time, well next time, now you've got a
reason to go back.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
How's the loyalty program revamp coming.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
It's coming along really well. So we brought in we're
around Steve Kelly.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Who's a VP on my team to really lead that work,
and uh, we're we brought on Gail as our agency
partner there and so you know, it's, uh, it's one
of those things that is easier said than done, I
would say, And so having the right people and the
right strategy is is critical. And I think what I
appreciate about what they did is it wasn't a race
(34:40):
to say we're going to go you know, this is
this is the change we're going to make, or this
is what we're gonna do.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
It's like, hey, what do we need to do?
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Really, we got to get our data data strategy in
order first, and so we've been working on that. We're
we're getting you know what we call it, you know,
token data, so we can have a better understanding of
you know, our first party data to underst and what's
going on with our consumers, you know what what's uh
you know frequency, what are they buying all of those things?
(35:07):
Because we did we just didn't have a great handle
on that. That is progressing really well. The other piece
we're working on now is how do we how do
we move our our CRM focus from that kind of
shotgun blast that we used to do, which was not
very strategic to now taking that data and the understanding
we have of our consumers, segmenting them to know, you know,
(35:29):
whether it's frequency bands or the types of food they
like to eat, and being able to now be smarter
about the communications we're sending them. And so, you know,
Steve uses the term surgical CRM, which is, you know,
still you're talking about large groups of large audience groups,
but hey, you know, like great example, you know, Crispers.
(35:50):
We we we now know you know, people that have
not ordered Crispers. They've been to Chile's, but they haven't
ordered Crispers. Great, great opportunity for us to send them something.
And that's an offer that I'd be happy with, right
because if it's getting them back into a Chili's and
getting them into one of the products that we're really
proud of and we think is something that I'll keep
(36:12):
them coming back, that's a that's a great way to
incentivize a visit to Chili's. So we're starting to get
more into that surgical CRM. I think that the last
piece of this, you know, when you talk about like
true like loyalty programs, I think one of the things
we're we're still working on, to be honest, is, you know,
what does the loyalty program at Chili's look like? You know,
we know that, you know we offer free chips and
(36:33):
so also when you join my Chili's Rewards, which we
think is you know, a great way to get people
into the program. You know, We're not as certain is
I don't think we're leaning towards like a points based
program like you might see in a lot of QSRs
or things like that. I think just the frequency of
casual dining, you know, it doesn't necessarily lend itself to that.
And I think you're seeing a ton I'm sure you
know you probably know this better than me, but like
(36:56):
it feels like every few weeks you see another program
that's announcing a re vamp of the points and what
the value is and all that. Right, So I don't
think that's the direction we want to go. I don't
think that's probably right for our business model. But I
think with the with the improvements in our data understanding
and the improvements and our ability to segment that audience,
I think we're going to be able to do some
(37:16):
pretty interesting things in terms of how we reach out
to how we how we interact with with those guests.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
In a smarter way. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
We had a whole podcast episode a couple of months
back about you know, loyalty two point oh, you know,
and the headline is that everybody's doing it over because
it didn't work the first time.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
I kind of deal exactly.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Yeah, Yeah, we don't want to we don't want to
follow that. We don't want to be on on the
next episode that Loyalty three point oh. So, so I think,
thankfully we've got we've got great you know, the partners
we have a gale are really experts in that space.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
And and so we got the right people thinking on that.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Ten years later, ziosks are back of back, baby, Well
I didn't they work the first time? I'm and why
why are customers adopting them now?
Speaker 2 (38:03):
Well, I don't have all the you know, all the
previous knowledge obviously, because you know, I wasn't here, you know,
my my hunches. You know, it might have been a
little little cutting edge, you know, ten years ago, a
little bit early. You know, in my experience on tech,
I don't particularly want to be on the bleeding edge.
I like to be more you know, once it's proven
out and then you're able to to to jump on
(38:26):
jump on that. I'll tell you now though, like you know,
with with the Ziasque, we've just rolled out into our restaurants.
You know, we see a couple a couple of big advantages. One,
I think just the the device itself, I think feels
you know, very very modern, very you know, intuitive for
our guests to use. You know, the big advantage that
(38:46):
we think those tabletop devices give us is payment. For sure,
it's a great experience for the guests. It's also great
for our team members. It you know, it takes some
of that friction out. You know, I don't know about you,
but when I'm out dining with my family, there's a
point of there's a point where it's like it's time
to go. You don't want to be you know, waiting
for you know, waiting for the server who might be
(39:08):
working with you know, a few other tables. You can
kind of control then that last part of the meal
and kind of go on your own terms. We obviously
also get you know, a ton of great feedback from
our guests just through the surveys that that that device offers.
Through the payment process, and so you know, I was
shocked at how many services we get millions and millions
(39:29):
of surveys, which are far more than you'd get on
like in my past world, where you know you'd ask
people to fill out a survey on a receipt, you
just don't.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
You just don't get as much engagement on that.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
So that data is really valuable for us just to
make sure we're we're staying on top of the experience
that we're delivering. And so you know, we we we
think there's there's exciting opportunities there. I think right now
we're focused on just getting the fundamentals right and making
sure that experience is really good. But you know, in
the future there could be some more things we do
in terms of the interaction with the guests and the devices.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Great, all right, last question, Well, the chicken fried steak
ever make it back on the menu?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Wow, chicken fried steak fans. It is not currently on
our innovation pipeline. I'll just put it that way, but
since you brought it up, it might have to be
something we take a look at. But I can't, I can't,
I can't make anything.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
The chicken fried steak was really good. Back in the day,
you know. But when I ate it, you know, I
was in my late teens, early twenties, and anything I
ate turned into lean muscle. I'm not quite you know.
Forty seven year olds aren't really the you know, chicken
fried steak crowd, I don't think.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
But that's right, that's right. But I'll put it on
the list. We'll take a look at it.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
I appreciate it, George. Thank you so much for doing this.
Brinker's been so much fun to cover for the last
couple of years. And yeah, I look look forward to
continuing work with you and following the story, and I'll
look forward to following your marketing campaigns.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Especially.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Hey, thanks a lot. It's awesome to be on. I
appreciate the work you do to cover the industry, and
you're interested in what's going on at Chili's.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Great and thanks to the audience for tuning in. If
you liked the episode, please share it with your friends
and colleagues. Check back soon for a conversation about the
election and its impact on consumer spending with Nathan Dean,
bi's litigation and policy analyst,
Welcome to Chopping It Up. I'm your host, Mike Hanlon,
the senior Restaurant and Food Service Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
Our research and that a bi's five hundred analysts around
the globe can be found exclusively on the Bloomberg terminal. Today,
we're joined by George Felix, chief marketing officer of Chili's
Grill and Bar. So in my research, I noticed you're
a Notre Dame guy. That was a tough loss last week, George.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, Mike, I wish we would have talked maybe a
week before. That was a far far better time for
the fighting Irish.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Yeah, it was. It was pretty rough.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
My family and I went to the text A and
M game. We were riding high and then obviously major
letdown last week. So we'll see if they can they
can rally the troops and uh and recover. But still
still can't believe it.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Well, the good thing about the extended playoff scenario is
that you know you're not finished after one loss, so
so they're still in it.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
That's right, Still still still some hope.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah. I'll be in South Bend next week for the
game against Miami of Ohio. It's going to be my
first time over there.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Oh nice, we'll have to we'll catch up offline on
on on all the spots you got to hit.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
I'm going to be there the week after for the
Louisville game.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Okay, awesome. Yeah, you read my mind about the spots,
all right, good stuff, So I'll definitely pick your brain.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
So for those of you that aren't familiar with George,
he's worked on some of the most iconic campaigns I
can remember Old Spices, Smell like a Man Man KFC's
Colonel campaign, you know. Jim Gaffikin was was phenomenal. He
was so funny. But the extra crispy Colonel I think
was my favorite. Oh yeah, so good at George Hamilton.
(02:03):
But do you do any of those hold a soft
spot in your heart?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
They all do, to be honest with you, like, I
learned a ton from from getting to be a part
of great brands. Uh, you know, the Old Spice work,
you know, definitely holds a special spot in my heart,
just because it's the It's literally the first thing I
worked on, you know, when I when I got into
marketing and at a business school and and so getting
to work with the people I did. We had a
(02:28):
great team at Old Spice, an amazing agency, Widen and Kennedy.
It was it was probably the best, the best way
to start a career. I was worried that like that
was going to be the only thing I ever I
ever did, But thankfully I've been able to work with
some great brands and some great people along the way.
But that thing happened. It was wild because like it
(02:49):
was not planned. It was all kind of in response
to a competitive launch in market, and it happened in
the matter of months. And so it taught me a
few things. One like, sometimes when you don't have as
much time you make, you can make better decisions because
you don't overthink things and you kind of go, you
go with your gut and uh, and we did that
(03:10):
a lot on that. And then the second part was, Uh,
creativity can really be a way to solve business problems.
And I think that's something that I've tried to carry
through through my career since then. So certainly that one
has a has a special place for me, just because
it was it was the first one and really kind
of got me hooked on on on brand, brand building
(03:32):
and and and trying to make breakthrough creative.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah, it was phenomenal. And Andre, are are you like
a parent and you're not allowed to admit it? Or
do you have a favorite kernel.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Let's see now that i'm you know, now that I'm
off KFC, I guess I could probably answer that. I mean,
they were there were so many great ones, so uh,
you know, there's there's something fun on each one, but
probably Norm MacDonald, I would say, And you know, rest
in peace, Norm, But he really kind of got that
thing moving for us, so that you know, that holds
(04:05):
a special place for me. But man, just getting to
you know, he was he was one of our longer
running kernels, so we had several several shoots with him,
and he was phenomenal to be with on set. He
had us just dying laughing, you know, offset and just
the stories and just such a such a nice guy.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
So I think I.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Think Norm Norm would probably be my number one. His
Twitter account, I don't know if you ever followed Norm
on Twitter, it was unbelievable. He just just randomly on
a Sunday afternoon, just live tweet like a really super
random golf tournament, like for no reason.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I mean, and it's amazing too, how how his like
old like late night TV clips are all over Instagram
and TikTok killed it forever.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Man. Oh yeah, he had this great he had this
great story.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
H He was telling us like he was like his
son came up to him and was like, oh, man, Dad,
have you seen Seth Myers on Weekend Update on SNL.
He's so funny. And Norm just looked at him and said,
do you even know how time works?
Speaker 1 (05:06):
I did that.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I was way better than him, like twenty years before.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
That's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Man.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yeah, So I didn't realize that you work for Kevin
Hawkman CEO Kevin Hackman at P and G as well
as Young Brand. So he must be a great boss.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
He sure is.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yeah, yeah, he He and I have been together since
I guess two thousand and eight. The summer of two
thousand and eight, I was in a business school intern
at Procter and Gamble working on the Old Spice brand,
and he was the marketing director there, and so I
worked for James Morehead was our brand manager, and James
worked for Kevin, and those two guys really, you know,
(05:48):
really responsible for me getting into marketing, and they taught
me a ton and so Yeah, Kevin. Kevin hired me
there and we worked together at P and G and
then I follow him to a few more stops. So
I think this is our our fourth brand that we've
worked on together.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Very cool. So what is it about the CpG marketing
guys tend to do pretty well in restaurants?
Speaker 3 (06:12):
What is it that's That's a good question.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I don't know if I totally have the answer, but
you know, I think CpG is Personally, I think it's uh,
there isn't a better place to learn about brand building
and marketing than the CpG and certainly Procter and Gamble.
You know, for me, it was it was almost like
getting another MBA, to be honest, like the training you
get I still reference to this day so many of
(06:36):
the things that I learned there in my first few
years there. And so I think, I think there's just
a really strong foundation. So I don't know if it's
just in the food industry, to be honest, I'm guessing
CpG marketers probably do well in a in a host
of industries. And then you know, I think I think
the big change for a CpG marketer moving into food
(06:57):
is the is the pace And that was the biggest change.
And Kevin told me that when when when I joined
him at Young and uh, you know, I don't know
if that's for everybody, but you know, I think CpG
has a very slow pace, right, like just by nature
of the product development life cycle and selling it into
the retailers and and all that. Whereas you know, food,
(07:19):
you know, you get results every single day, right, you
get a sales report every morning, and and and you're
you're being judged on a much different timeframe. And so
I think some people, you know, take that that base
foundation they learn and CpG on how to build a brand,
and then really are able to apply that into a
retail business that that you can move move quickly on.
(07:39):
And I think that that tends to be a pretty
good combination.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Great all right, So other than than Kevin, what attracted
you to Chili's.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Well, it's, uh, it's a great brand, uh, you know,
there's it's one of those places where when I when
I tell when I tell people I work at Chili's,
like generally speaking, they all a smile kind of comes
to their face. And and it's a brand that that
people have fond memories of, whether it's you know, a
family with friends, maybe first dates, you know, after baseball games,
(08:06):
whatever the case may be. And uh, it's a brand
that people kind of root for, I would say, like,
which is not always the case with brands. And so
you know, for me, you know, I've I've worked on
several kind of turnaround brand brands that we've talked about, right,
Old Spice, KFC, Pizza Hut kind of all all similar
and and you know, I've put Chili's in that same
(08:27):
in that same group in terms of a brand that
that had a had a heyday and and now maybe
you know, had lost some of that momentum. And so
when I'm looking at a brand, you know, I'm looking
for a brand that has great bones, something to work
with as as a marketer. And I felt, I felt
Chilis kind of checked the check that box and then
the other piece that you know, you can't really know
(08:49):
until you until you get here. But in talking to
the people going through the process before joining the culture
here at Brinker and at Chili seemed really unique. And
I've now you know, been having been here two years,
I can say it's you know, it's the best culture
I've worked in, and it is it is something special,
right like every other you know, seemingly every other person
(09:11):
that I work with here in a meeting, it's like, oh,
I've been here fifteen years, I've been your twenty years,
I've been your twenty five years. And you don't see
that very often. And you know, we've got three three
members of our of our leadership team and our c suite,
Our chief operating officer, chief people officer, and chief financial
officer all started as hourly team members working in restaurants
and are now.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
You know, running the company.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
And I don't know how many companies that's like even
possible at anymore these days. So those are those are
kind of the big things that that kind of drew me,
drew me in obviously, in addition to to Kevin being here.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Yeah, very cool. Yeah, it's interesting because I felt like
for a while, Chile's kind of lost its way. It
was kind of differentiated, and then it became very similar
to the to a lot of other casual dining brands.
A CFO that I used to work with, Larry Hyatt,
he was excellent. He worked for a Cracker Barrel and
this was you know, maybe ten years ago. He's you know,
(10:06):
he used to call them, TGI, Chillibees. You know, everybody's
got the same menu, serving the same things.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
All right.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
You mentioned two years at Chile's. You know, the turnaround
has been impressive. I'd really like to dig into maybe
your first six months, you know, right Sizing the amount
of transactions on deal, simplifying the menu, and identifying sales
opportunities were all kind of points of emphasis on the
team's very first earnings call. How did you id and
(10:33):
prioritize the lowest hanging fruit?
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Yeah, you know, when we came in, you know, you're
doing that.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Kind of you're assessing the landscape to see what's going
on in the business, and you know, a couple of
things we noticed right away. One the brand had not
been you know, from a marketer standpoint, the brand had
not been advertising for three plus years at that point.
And you know, part of that was COVID and a
lot of brands you know, made that decision. But it
(11:01):
wasn't all that like that. That there had been some
intentional decisions to to move some of that investment that
was going into advertising and paid media into you know,
other other places. And so some of those places were
third party you know, third party delivery virtual brands which
were which were started during during COVID and then also
(11:24):
you know, the using our my Chile's rewards database. Uh,
there was a lot of discounting like being sent out
and so it was basically twice per week, so once
you know, on every Monday, and then that that offer
was kind of good Monday to Thursday, and then another
offer was sent on a Friday for the weekend and
it was going out to the entire you know, the
(11:45):
entire database. And so you start looking at that and
you know, you go from nationally advertising driving awareness to
not doing that anymore and talking to the same kind
of group of people and kind of starting to encourage
that discount deal mentality. It's it's kind of a recipe
for for the brand not being as relevant and top
(12:07):
of mind anymore. And so that was kind of where
we wanted to start. And so, you know, one of
the first things we did is really pull back on
a lot of that discounting that we were you know,
sending out and take that money to reinvest into advertising
and putting Chilis back out there in a different way
and reminding people about Chili's and and the and the
(12:29):
value that we offer. And then you know, the other
piece was, you know, we have we had a great
a great construct here, a great everyday value construct and
the three for Me. There are some tweaks that we
needed to make to it. You know, I think in
some ways, you know, it was it was almost you know,
the three for Me, like there was almost too many
(12:50):
things in it, right, which made it too too easy
to get into that. And so we wanted that to
be you know, for the people that are looking for
that amazing every day value. You can find it very
easily every single day, but you know, you're gonna have
to make choices, right if you want that value. You know,
there's going to be a select menu that you can
choose from all all are going to be great options,
(13:12):
but we didn't want to put some of our core
favorites like a fajitas or things like that and into
that and those need to be signature items that you know,
you know, it's it's still a great value for us,
but you can't find it on that three for Me menu.
So we made some tweaks to you know, what was
what was available in three for Me. We have the
price tiers and uh, and then we start talking about
(13:33):
it right and and tell people about it so you know,
you can you can get out there. And so that
was really you know, when we were diagnosing what was
going on, those are some of the big, the big
ticket items that we felt like we needed to address
right away and get after the the other piece I
would I would say that that stood out to us
in that early in those first six months was just complexity,
(13:57):
the complexity of the menu, you know, in terms like
you said, I think a lot of casual dining chains
fall into this habit of or this trap of trying
to be everything to everybody. And so there's a balance there, right,
you need a good variety so that you know everyone
can find something they like, but you also want to
do things in a way that you know you can
(14:18):
make the menu manageable and execute it consistently. And so
so there's a lot of low hanging fruit there in
terms of ways to simplify the menu but also just
simplify the job of our team members. And Kevin's really great.
He brought a culture of listening to the field to
Chili's and so he spent probably the first you know,
(14:39):
six months he was here on the road most of
the time just in restaurant, watching, observing, getting in there
himself and really talking to team members to see what
are the things that we could do here to support
them and make their jobs easier so they could deliver
great service to our guests. So a big focus on
simplification both in terms of procedures and menu. I'd say
(15:00):
it was the other big kind of low hanging fruit there.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Great And how long did it take for the operational
improvements to kind of take hold so that you felt
like you could really be comfortable ramping up the marketing?
Speaker 3 (15:12):
You know, honestly, we were able to move fast.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
And I'll tell you that's one that's one nice thing,
you know, for us, at least for you know, some
of us that have come from other from other concepts,
you know, with with Chile's being primarily company owned, we've
been we've been able to make some pretty fast, fast
moves and and a lot of that's a testament to
Doug Cummings and he's our chief operating officer and the
(15:34):
work that are our vice presidents of operations across the country.
Do you know, we just started get after it and
like you know, we're we just started making making changes
implementing it.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
You know, we we.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Were some of the things we you know, we decided
not to test and just roll, and you know, we
don't get everything right, but but our hit rate's pretty good.
And so we started to see improvements pretty quickly, at
least feedback wise from you know, from team members and
terms of the impact I was having. And now i'd say,
you know, so we we probably we probably started advertising.
(16:08):
Maybe let's think about this, maybe like nine months in,
like six six, six to nine months in we started,
we started advertising after I joined, and at that point,
we were already starting to see the the the positive
feedback from our team members internally. And now what's great
is we're seeing that really translate into the metrics, into
(16:30):
into actual metrics that we're seeing from our guests, so
that they're they're experiencing a you know, a better, better atmosphere,
a better service at Chili's. And we're seeing that, you know,
in our internal metrics as well as you know, things
like Google ratings and another ways to measure the experience.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
All right, So we're renovating the core four. So for
my fellow Yankee fans, it's not Jeter Mo, Georgie and
Pettit right, But it's burgers, chicken crispers, Marks and Figita's
for Chili's. You know, that was an early initiative. It's
wrap up this year with Fajidas. Can you share a
little bit about what's to come?
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah, you know, I think it goes back to that
point on the menu, right, like you know, well, well,
we always need to offer a wide variety of things
to appeal to the masses. We also felt it was
important to have a strong point of view on the
things that that Chili's really stands for and the and
that core for really is it. And and so we've
been you know, on a on a steady, steady pace here.
(17:26):
We've got a great innovation team and culinary team that's
been working on this, and so chicken Crispers were really
the first piece of that that's been you know in
market for over a year now and been doing great,
great for our business and really making us more relevant
in a category that you know, is continuing to grow
every single year. We then have been tackling Margarita's, which
(17:50):
has been really fun for me. The alcohol space is
a news space for me coming to Chili's and so
you know, being being a destination for Margarita's. It's a
great time to be that tequila has never been more popular.
I've learned a ton since, uh, since joining here in
the last couple of years, and so we're really you know,
we we talk about this Barbell strategy.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Right.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
You can come in and get a six dollars margria
the month, every day of the year at Chile's, which
has uh, you know, great flavors, great spirits in it
and and is obviously a great value. But we've also
innovated on the top end, which I'm really proud of.
And so we've got a whole top shelf lineup that
includes Cosamigos, Patron and we're gonna be We're going to
(18:33):
be bringing on Don Julio here and uh basically next
week that's going to be on our menus. So so
I think, you know, being able to to innovate on
both the value side of that and the premium site
has been great. Burgers, the big smasher uh has been
a big, a big success for us and a big
driver of our success recently. And now we're hitting fajitas
(18:56):
and and I'll tell you that's the most complex of
the core four for a lot of reasons. It's just
there's there's more components to it, obviously, but there's there's more,
there's more parts of that experience. You know, there's the
the little the literal theater of it all. And you know,
so we've been looking at every piece of of the
fajita experience. And so whether it's the proteins that are
(19:17):
coming with the fijidas, the you know, the onions and
the peppers that come on the skillets. We've upgraded our tortillas,
We're looking at dippable fijidas as well as you know,
other other things that that that can make that experience great.
And so those are all in progress and so we're
excited to bring those out later, you know, later in
(19:39):
our fiscal year here, which would be the last of
the core four. Now it doesn't mean we're done. There's
tons of things outside of the core four that we're
going to be looking at, whether it's desserts, appetizers, things
of that nature. And then you know, we're going to
continue to look at those core four categories and you know,
what's the next thing on crispers, what's the next thing
on burgers. So we've really you know we didn't really
(20:00):
have a pipeline of innovation or a culture of innovation
when I got here that the branch just hadn't been innovating.
And so we've we've had great success there. Our director
of culinary Brian Paquett and Mary Allan Scott, who's our
director for the innovation side of things, has really kind
of created a new culture and a new process here
that now we do actually have a pipeline and in
(20:22):
a formal way that we bring new new items to market.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up
with the fajitas. The Caesar Milan skillet whisper campaign was
a funny one, man.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
You know, it's so funny like that, there's such a
it's just there's such a fun like I don't I'm
sure you see all the things on you know, on
Instagram or whatever, and like just like, uh, there's just
such a fun cultural thing about being the person that
orders fajitas at the table and like what what happens next?
That I'm really excited to start exploring some of that space.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Yeah, the sounds, the smells, it's just.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
It's a great experience and that's what Chili's is all
about right, like like a great Chili's experience. You should
be hearing that that Margarita shaker coming to your table,
You should be seeing that sizzlin Fahida coming through. It
should just be a you know that that atmosphere is
what we want to get back to. And so so
we're definitely excited. And Fajidas is in our DNA. We
we introduced uh, you know, the country to Fijidas.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
You know.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, I went, yeah, and even the team members singing
happy birthday, right, oh yeah, I got some crispers and
wings with my son last night. They were both great.
Oh awesome, awesome, that's great, very good experience. Yeah, and
I saw you had renovated the sauces, which is so big.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yeah, like I mean just sauces in general are yeah,
I mean yeah, like you can see it across the industry,
like it. I think people consumers are really craving that
that experience, but also just that flavor exploration. So we
we we did revamp our sauces. You know, I think
there's still tons of room to grow there. And I
(22:00):
think at Chili's, like we it's part of the Chili's
experience too, Like there's so many so many of our things,
whether it's chips and salso, whether it's you know, Caso's, Crisper's.
You know, there's so many things that are that are
kind of dipped at Chili's. It's just becoming part of
part of that experience as well.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
So at the twenty twenty three investor Day you mentioned
red marketing, you know, those surprize coming from young brands
that represents relevant, easy and distinctive for the for the listeners,
Chili Shore feels culturally relevant again. Right tied into Jenna
and Angela from the office, you brought some nineties nostalgia
(22:37):
back that you know, I told you before I'm a
huge fan of the Brian McKnight three for Me commercial.
And so if you could talk a little bit about
how important it is just making you know, Chili's culturally
relevant again and how that ends up bringing it into
the consideration set for all consumers, and I just i'd
(22:57):
imagine younger consumers too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Absolutely, you know, I'm I'm a big believer in that
that read philosophy. The folks that Collider Labs kind of
coined that and and learned that when I was at
young and.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
You know, relevance.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
I think cultural relevance I think is just absolutely imperative
for if you're building a brand, and especially in the
situation we're in with Chili's, where we're a brand that
lost you know, we had it and we've lost it, right,
And so I think when when you look back when
Chili's was at its best, you know, we were a
brand in culture, you know, whether it's uh, you know,
the Office, whether it's Austin Powers, you know, whatever, like
(23:36):
in sync, Like, it was a brand that was in culture,
and so we wanted to get We're we're pretty adamant
we want to get back to that. And so, you know,
I think I think that's uh, I think that's part
of you know, a signal that that you're back in
the mind space right, because in restaurants particularly, I think
it's such a battle for for being top of mind
(23:58):
right because you have so many choices. It's easier than ever.
You don't even have to leave your house anymore. You
can get everything brought right to you. So I think,
you know, beyond just kind of the tactical kind of
advertising that we that we all need to do, I
think cultural relevance can really be that thing that kicks,
you know, kicks you up a notch on top. And
so we've been you know, I'm a big believer and
(24:19):
just taking taking swings and you got to take a
lot of swings. They're not all going to hit, but
the more swings you take them, you know, the more
odds you have of being able to to do that.
And so it's something that we did back on the
KFC days and you know, trying to bring that same
philosophy here so you know, the office ladies, I think
it was a fun way just to dip back into nostalgia.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
And you know, we don't we also don't want you
got to be careful.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
I think working on a on a heritage brand that
you don't just kind of go back for nostalgic sake,
but you want to do things that you know are relevant.
You know, you know you're taking the things that are
great about the brand, but you're making them relevant today.
And so you know, when we do things is like
with the you know, Jenna and Angela or Brian McKnight
or Boys to Men, we want to still you know,
(25:05):
do it with a little bit of a self awareness
and a wink, but we also want to make sure
we do it in a way that's that's relevant today.
And I think our creative partners have really done a
nice job with that. I think more recently some things
we tried to do, you know, just in the past years.
Is also like reaching different types of audiences that we
think overlap with casual dining. So NASCAR is a big one, right,
(25:28):
Like the NASCAR audience loves casual dining, loves Chili's and
so you know, we we partnered with Spire Motorsports to
sponsor a car this past year in the Daytona five hundred.
It was all about catcher Rita. We had all these
QR codes on the car, and you know, we wanted
to do something that was felt felt fun for the
NASCAR fans, but do it do it in an authentic
(25:48):
way for Chili's. Another audience that we think needs to
be you know, more more prevalent at Chili's is the
Bravo audience. I don't know, Mike, if you're a you're
a Bravo fan at all, but but a lot of
people are a lot of a lot of a lot
of women in particular, and so you know, the number
one show on cable is Vanderpump Rules. And so when
(26:11):
we when we launched our take on an espresso martini,
who better than you know, Katie and Sheena from vander
Pump China happened to be a former chili head working
at Chili's. So yeah, so that was a lot of fun.
And then you know, gaming, we we had some fun
with bringing back Burger Time, which was a game I
used to play on an Apple twoey, but we made
it all about the big Smasher and defeating the evil
(26:33):
Fast Food syndicate. And so, you know, there's there's lots
of different ways. You know, my goal is for people
to kind of come across Chili's in an unexpected way
and and kind of say, hey, do you see what
Chilis just did? And and kind of you know, show
up in unexpected places. And so we're going to continue
to to surprise people hopefully and and and put Chili's
(26:55):
into that cultural conversation.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
And you mentioned you like to take a lot of swings.
Took some swings at fast Food this year. You got
any you have any bullets left?
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Well, you know, I'll here's what I'll say on that
the conversation was happening. You know before we kind of
we got in and that's as a marketer, you know,
it's always better to tap into an existing conversation than
try and start, you know, something brand new. And you know,
we just saw it online. I'm sure you saw it too.
There's a lot of frustration with people in the drive through,
(27:29):
like sticker shock, frankly, like how in the world did
I just spend this much money? And so I think
just with the rising cost of fast food, it kind
of brought us into the conversation because when you talk
about you know, the Chili's three for me, it's it's
a nearly half cound burger, fries, bottomless chips and sauce,
a bottomless drink for ten ninety nine. That's that's going
to beat most most drive throughs, both in terms of
(27:52):
not just price point, but also the quality of the
food you're getting. You're getting full service. So, you know,
we started to see the groundswall of like you know,
popping up on social media. Our social teams start jumping
in a little bit, having some fun with that, and
then you know, really we just wanted to you know,
capitalize on that insight. And so when we launched the
Big smasher, which obviously is a is a take on
(28:15):
a familiar fast food burger, but on a chili's burger.
We really saw that as an opportunity to go squarely,
you know, right at it and and really just kind
of address the thing that that people were already talking about.
And so you know, we're going to keep We're going
to keep at it just because you know, I think
it's it's not it's not something that's going away if
(28:35):
you turn on the news or morning shows. You know,
I feel like it's a it's a pretty common topic
of conversation, and and we were really proud of the
fact that we can deliver every day value that is
that is really you know, we believe the best in
the industry, and you know, we we believe it's it's
not just about the lowest price point.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
It's it's what you get for what you pay.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
And we don't think we can be beat both on
the price and the quality and abundance of the food
that offer.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Everyday value is where it's at. Man. Yeah, absolutely, the discounting,
you know, you're just training your customers that the food's
not worth the menu price, right.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Absolutely, And I think you're I mean, frankly right now,
I mean you see this same way I do. Like
there's a lot of brands throwing a lot of stuff
out there right now that you know they're they're kind
of scrambling and throwing some some low prices out there.
But you know, I just I don't know. To me,
it doesn't look like it's going to be sustainable. And
you know, I feel really confident about where we are
(29:30):
because the thing we've been talking about the three for
me for eighteen months now, it's built into our it's
built into our business model, and we feel really good
about the way it's constructed. So you know, we're we're
really excited about where we are. And it seems like
there's a lot of a lot of concepts out there
that are kind of, you know, scrambling right now.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Can you talk about your investments in TikTok and influencer
marketing and what is doing for your business?
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yeah, I think it comes down to relevance again, like
this is you know, you got to you got to
adapt to where people are and where where they're spending time.
And my god, increasingly TikTok is is where people are,
right It's uh it's it's it's unavoidable. It's not even
you can't even just say it's where younger, younger consumers are.
It's it's where everybody is now. And so I buckled.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
I buckled and downloaded about a month or two ago.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Yeah, it's crazy, right that that for you page like
it's it's it's wild how they know exactly the content
you're looking for. And so for us, we've got an
amazing social team. Louse bickert Uh heads that up with
with Jack Hayley, and they they do a great job
of really helping us understand what's going on trend wise,
(30:39):
what are people talking about, and and it goes beyond TikTok,
it's across all these platforms and and that's that's something
they've they've really honed in on, is like we have
to have a different presence on each platform because it's
got you got to you know, each each one has
its own nuance. I think the thing that we found
on TikTok is there is a real power there like
unlike any other platform. I think TikTok showing the ability
(31:00):
and other concepts of seeing it as well to really
move the needle when you have something that.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Takes hold and takes off.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
And so what we saw happening, you know, probably back
in May, was a big fascination on TikTok with with
our triple Dipper, which is this you know, amazing appetizer
platter where you get to choose three items, and in
particular our fried mozzarella, which I don't know if you
had with your son last night, but it's it's phenomenal.
(31:27):
It's not you can't even call it a cheese stick.
It's like a plank of fried mozzarella. It's really it's
really great. And the thing that took off was people
eating it and then doing this like cheese pull to
see how far they could pull the mozzarella cheese. And
so we started seeing these, you know, just they start
picking up each day, more and more coming out, and
(31:50):
a lot of it was happening organically, and so then
our social team really kind of jumped on that and said,
how do we pour gas on the fire and so
how do we work with influencers to to kind of
there this further this trend and you know, we saw
probably in that timeframe, you know, over fifty million views
you know, between paid and organic on TikTok of people
(32:11):
cheese pulls in their cars, in the restaurant wherever, and
we could see it. We could see that, you know,
play out in sales, you know, whether you know Triple
Dipper and in our Frid Mozzrella, which was which was
great and really correlate, you know, when you started to
see the TikTok spikes, you could start to see it
in our in our sales. And then then we decided,
(32:32):
you know, like, hey, how can we how can we
capitalize on this, And so at the beginning of August,
we we released a new version of the Frid Mozzrella
which was in our toss in our natural hot sauce,
so it was Nashville Hot Mots. And we did that
as a secret menu item because we want to move fast.
So just in a matter of weeks we kind of
(32:53):
got that from our test kitchen out into our restaurants.
But you know, we didn't have a menu to reprint
or anything like that, so we just kind of put
it out on on on TikTok with with again you know,
some influencer work to help get that started, and man,
it took off again and and you know, some of
it was certainly from from the paid work that our
social team did with influencers, but a lot of it,
(33:15):
again was organic, and we probably had another fifty million views,
you know, just over the last you know, four to
six weeks on that.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
On that as well.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
So it's really just kind of kept that conversation going
and kept that that experiential part of what makes Chili
so fun in the forefront. So, you know, we really
see influencer marketing as being a pretty you know, like
pretty solid channel for us going forward, if you want
to think of it that way, as as a media channel.
(33:45):
And you know, we're honestly learning as we go to
be to be totally honest, but we're starting to codify
the things that work and how we can you know,
we can supplement some of the organic work with with
some some paid influencer work as well.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Great, and I fumbled, you know, I hadn't remember reading
and seeing some stuff about the Nashville Hot Lutz and
I fumbled. I didn't order it last night.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
But next time, well next time, now you've got a
reason to go back.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
How's the loyalty program revamp coming.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
It's coming along really well. So we brought in we're
around Steve Kelly.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Who's a VP on my team to really lead that work,
and uh, we're we brought on Gail as our agency
partner there and so you know, it's, uh, it's one
of those things that is easier said than done, I
would say, And so having the right people and the
right strategy is is critical. And I think what I
appreciate about what they did is it wasn't a race
(34:40):
to say we're going to go you know, this is
this is the change we're going to make, or this
is what we're gonna do.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
It's like, hey, what do we need to do?
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Really, we got to get our data data strategy in
order first, and so we've been working on that. We're
we're getting you know what we call it, you know,
token data, so we can have a better understanding of
you know, our first party data to underst and what's
going on with our consumers, you know what what's uh
you know frequency, what are they buying all of those things?
(35:07):
Because we did we just didn't have a great handle
on that. That is progressing really well. The other piece
we're working on now is how do we how do
we move our our CRM focus from that kind of
shotgun blast that we used to do, which was not
very strategic to now taking that data and the understanding
we have of our consumers, segmenting them to know, you know,
(35:29):
whether it's frequency bands or the types of food they
like to eat, and being able to now be smarter
about the communications we're sending them. And so, you know,
Steve uses the term surgical CRM, which is, you know,
still you're talking about large groups of large audience groups,
but hey, you know, like great example, you know, Crispers.
(35:50):
We we we now know you know, people that have
not ordered Crispers. They've been to Chile's, but they haven't
ordered Crispers. Great, great opportunity for us to send them something.
And that's an offer that I'd be happy with, right
because if it's getting them back into a Chili's and
getting them into one of the products that we're really
proud of and we think is something that I'll keep
(36:12):
them coming back, that's a that's a great way to
incentivize a visit to Chili's. So we're starting to get
more into that surgical CRM. I think that the last
piece of this, you know, when you talk about like
true like loyalty programs, I think one of the things
we're we're still working on, to be honest, is, you know,
what does the loyalty program at Chili's look like? You know,
we know that, you know we offer free chips and
(36:33):
so also when you join my Chili's Rewards, which we
think is you know, a great way to get people
into the program. You know, We're not as certain is
I don't think we're leaning towards like a points based
program like you might see in a lot of QSRs
or things like that. I think just the frequency of
casual dining, you know, it doesn't necessarily lend itself to that.
And I think you're seeing a ton I'm sure you
know you probably know this better than me, but like
(36:56):
it feels like every few weeks you see another program
that's announcing a re vamp of the points and what
the value is and all that. Right, So I don't
think that's the direction we want to go. I don't
think that's probably right for our business model. But I
think with the with the improvements in our data understanding
and the improvements and our ability to segment that audience,
I think we're going to be able to do some
(37:16):
pretty interesting things in terms of how we reach out
to how we how we interact with with those guests.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
In a smarter way. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
We had a whole podcast episode a couple of months
back about you know, loyalty two point oh, you know,
and the headline is that everybody's doing it over because
it didn't work the first time.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
I kind of deal exactly.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Yeah, Yeah, we don't want to we don't want to
follow that. We don't want to be on on the
next episode that Loyalty three point oh. So, so I think,
thankfully we've got we've got great you know, the partners
we have a gale are really experts in that space.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
And and so we got the right people thinking on that.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Ten years later, ziosks are back of back, baby, Well
I didn't they work the first time? I'm and why
why are customers adopting them now?
Speaker 2 (38:03):
Well, I don't have all the you know, all the
previous knowledge obviously, because you know, I wasn't here, you know,
my my hunches. You know, it might have been a
little little cutting edge, you know, ten years ago, a
little bit early. You know, in my experience on tech,
I don't particularly want to be on the bleeding edge.
I like to be more you know, once it's proven
out and then you're able to to to jump on
(38:26):
jump on that. I'll tell you now though, like you know,
with with the Ziasque, we've just rolled out into our restaurants.
You know, we see a couple a couple of big advantages. One,
I think just the the device itself, I think feels
you know, very very modern, very you know, intuitive for
our guests to use. You know, the big advantage that
(38:46):
we think those tabletop devices give us is payment. For sure,
it's a great experience for the guests. It's also great
for our team members. It you know, it takes some
of that friction out. You know, I don't know about you,
but when I'm out dining with my family, there's a
point of there's a point where it's like it's time
to go. You don't want to be you know, waiting
for you know, waiting for the server who might be
(39:08):
working with you know, a few other tables. You can
kind of control then that last part of the meal
and kind of go on your own terms. We obviously
also get you know, a ton of great feedback from
our guests just through the surveys that that that device offers.
Through the payment process, and so you know, I was
shocked at how many services we get millions and millions
(39:29):
of surveys, which are far more than you'd get on
like in my past world, where you know you'd ask
people to fill out a survey on a receipt, you
just don't.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
You just don't get as much engagement on that.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
So that data is really valuable for us just to
make sure we're we're staying on top of the experience
that we're delivering. And so you know, we we we
think there's there's exciting opportunities there. I think right now
we're focused on just getting the fundamentals right and making
sure that experience is really good. But you know, in
the future there could be some more things we do
in terms of the interaction with the guests and the devices.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Great, all right, last question, Well, the chicken fried steak
ever make it back on the menu?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Wow, chicken fried steak fans. It is not currently on
our innovation pipeline. I'll just put it that way, but
since you brought it up, it might have to be
something we take a look at. But I can't, I can't,
I can't make anything.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
The chicken fried steak was really good. Back in the day,
you know. But when I ate it, you know, I
was in my late teens, early twenties, and anything I
ate turned into lean muscle. I'm not quite you know.
Forty seven year olds aren't really the you know, chicken
fried steak crowd, I don't think.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
But that's right, that's right. But I'll put it on
the list. We'll take a look at it.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
I appreciate it, George. Thank you so much for doing this.
Brinker's been so much fun to cover for the last
couple of years. And yeah, I look look forward to
continuing work with you and following the story, and I'll
look forward to following your marketing campaigns.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Especially.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Hey, thanks a lot. It's awesome to be on. I
appreciate the work you do to cover the industry, and
you're interested in what's going on at Chili's.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Great and thanks to the audience for tuning in. If
you liked the episode, please share it with your friends
and colleagues. Check back soon for a conversation about the
election and its impact on consumer spending with Nathan Dean,
bi's litigation and policy analyst,
Host
Michael Halen
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!