Chili's Plans 30 New Restaurants a Year by Fiscal 2029, With 300 Sites Already Scoped

Chili's is back in the real estate business. Parent company Brinker International told investors at its September 17 investor day that it will grow the brand's unit count 2% to 3% a year, ramping to roughly 30 new restaurants annually by fiscal 2029, and Restaurant Dive reports the company has already identified more than 300 potential development sites to feed that pipeline. The plan caps a fiscal 2026 in which Chili's posted a 9.2% full-year comparable sales gain, its fifth straight year of same-store sales growth.

That kind of talk would have sounded odd a few years ago. Chili's company-operated U.S. fleet shrank from 1,131 locations in fiscal 2022 to 1,110 in fiscal 2026, according to Restaurant Dive, and the brand only just returned to growth with a single net new unit last fiscal year. Systemwide, Brinker ended fiscal 2026 with 1,209 domestic Chili's, 374 international locations and 52 Maggiano's, per the company's August earnings release. For most of the past decade the story was fixing the restaurants Chili's had, not adding more.

Where the new Chili's will go.

Restaurant Dive reports the site hunt spans underpenetrated markets like Washington state, core strongholds in Texas, California and Florida, and growth corridors through the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia and the Washington, D.C. region, along with heartland territories held by franchisees. That is a wide net: greenfield markets on one end, backfill in territory the brand knows cold on the other. Landlords should read this part twice. Brinker says it will consider conversions of existing buildings as well as ground-up construction, which matters in a market flush with second-generation restaurant boxes and short on cheap new construction.

The economics explain the confidence. Average unit volumes climbed from $3.3 million in fiscal 2023 to $5 million in fiscal 2026, per Restaurant Dive, and weekly guest counts recovered from about 3,400 to 4,200 over roughly the same stretch, helped by $180 million of investment in front-of-house service along with kitchen and technology upgrades. New locations are expected to cost $5 million to $6 million apiece. At current volumes that is a strong sales-to-investment ratio. Brinker's full-year fiscal 2026 revenue reached $5.81 billion, up from $5.38 billion a year earlier, and the company guided fiscal 2027 capital expenditures to $265 million to $285 million, a budget that now has to cover remodels of the existing estate as well as new builds.

"Chili's has never been more relevant," CEO Kevin Hochman said in the investor day announcement. "We are excited to keep building on this momentum and introduce more guests to the #1 casual dining brand, all while delivering value to our shareholders." Hochman told investors that sustained unit growth is a "completely new lever" for the company, per Restaurant Dive.

For shopping center owners, a growth-mode Chili's is rare good news in a casual dining segment that has mostly been shedding boxes. O'Charley's shut its remaining corporate restaurants just this month. A credit tenant chasing 20 to 30 pads a year, with 300 sites already scoped, becomes a real anchor prospect for power centers and outparcel developers in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic corridors Brinker named. The conversion appetite is worth tracking too. A chain that will take second-generation buildings can move faster and cheaper than ground-up-only competitors, and it could end up buying the very casual dining boxes its struggling peers are vacating. The $5 million to $6 million build cost against $5 million average volumes says Brinker can underwrite market-rate rents. It also says Brinker will be picky. If construction costs climb or comps soften, the first thing to check is whether the ramp to 30 a year actually holds.