Chi-Chi’s is coming round again.The Mexican chain mentioned this week that it plans to open some new eating places subsequent 12 months. The places will be the first since Chi-Chi’s filed for chapter coverage in 2003.Michael McDermott, the son of Chi-Chi’s founder, mentioned he struck an settlement with Hormel Meals to open the eating places. Austin, Minnesota-based Hormel owns the Chi-Chi’s trademark and produces Chi-Chi’s-branded chips and salsas.“The Chi-Chi’s emblem is likely one of the maximum loved, revered, and well known names within the Mexican meals class,” Hormel mentioned Thursday in a commentary. “The legacy and spirit of the logo stay robust, and we’re thinking about the impending relaunch of Chi-Chi’s eating place places.”McDermott, a restauranteur who additionally based Kona Grill and Rojo Mexican Grill, didn’t say what number of places he deliberate to open or the place. McDermott mentioned the eating places could be an up to date model of the vintage Chi-Chi’s.
“We have now observed the have an effect on our eating place has had on folks and households around the nation and imagine there’s a robust alternative to carry the logo again in some way that resonates with lately’s client,” McDermott mentioned in a commentary.
Chi-Chi’s was once based in 1975 by way of Marno McDermott and previous Inexperienced Bay Packers participant Max McGee. It grew swiftly within the Nineteen Nineties, achieving greater than 200 places national. However by way of 2003 it had filed for chapter after going via a sequence of possession adjustments and suffering with expanding pageant.
Across the time of its chapter submitting, Chi-Chi’s recognition was once additionally married by way of a hepatitis A outbreak at one among its eating places in Pennsylvania. The outbreak, related to the fairway onions it used as a garnish and in its salsas, killed 4 other people and sickened 660.The final Chi-Chi’s closed its doorways in 2004.
