COVER STORY
THE CHILIHEAD: KEVIN HOCHMAN BRINGS PRIDE BACK TO CHILI’S The 2025 Restaurant Business Restaurant Leader of the Year engineered the industry’s most unlikely comeback with a simple formula: Get people in the door and give them a good time once they get there.
CEO KEVIN HOCHMAN HAS LED A REMARKABLE TUR PHOTO BY TERRI GLANGER
K evin Hochman mingled among the attendees at a dinner on the last night of a meeting for Chili’s district managers in Coronado, California, last month, chatting with everyone from the woman serving wine at the Il Fornaio restaurant to his fellow executives, when Doug Brooks grabbed a microphone and started the evening’s toast. Well, “toast” is one way of putting it. Brooks, the legendary former CEO of Chili’s owner Brinker International, held court for 19 minutes, providing a lesson on the history of casual dining and Brinker. He noted that both Chili’s and Maggiano’s could have easily had a history more akin to bygone chains like Stuart Anderson’s Steakhouse or Howard Johnson’s, or perhaps like Steak & Ale or Ponderosa and Bonanza. Had just a few things worked out differently, he said, “We wouldn’t be here celebrating the greatest turnaround in restaurant industry history.” Brooks listed the major events that kept that from happening, including the time when Norman Brinker left Pillsbury to take on a deeply-in-debt, 23-
JONATHAN MAZE
JONATHAN.MAZE@INFORMA.COM
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RESTAURANT BUSINESS APRIL 2025
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