Chili's Logs 22 Straight Growth Quarters by Rebuilding Its Supply Chain

Chili's has posted 22 consecutive quarters of sales growth, up 10% year over year, with a cumulative increase of more than 50% over three years. Behind that streak sits a deliberate reordering of supply chain priorities at parent Brinker International, which also owns Maggiano's.

Chief Supply Chain Officer James Butler joined Brinker in 2023 and found a company he described as "a little bit stagnant." The supply chain, he said, was so focused on cost reduction that it outranked both the restaurant team member and the guest experience.

"When I came in, I recognized that's not a recipe for growth," Butler said. "I really had to convince the team here that if we're going to grow, we've got to think differently about the way that we're doing things."

Butler, who now also serves as SVP of corporate strategy, spent nearly four years shifting the function away from buying and cost cutting. The team now traces restaurant-level problems back to suppliers to, in his words, "quell the issue from the root cause."

What changed on the priority list?

The hierarchy itself moved. Food safety remains priority one, always. Reducing friction for restaurant managers now ranks second. Cost management fell to third.

"The key success to any restaurant — and we've had tremendous success over the last four years — is the overall satisfaction of the team that's in that restaurant," Butler said.

Two fixes illustrate the approach.

• Slider buns. Buns arrived in sheets of 36 connected units. A prep cook spent roughly 30 minutes a day separating them. Butler brought the bakery supplier into a restaurant to see the problem. The supplier proposed baking buns in clusters of four and delivered a prototype within three weeks. Production began in January 2024 across 80% of restaurants; the rest converted by January 2025.
• Chicken Crispers. The original spec allowed suppliers to send pieces so small they "would almost look like a boneless wing" instead of large tenders, Butler said. Chili's tightened the spec and raised product testing from monthly to weekly, a cadence in place since July 2023 and planned indefinitely.

Butler called the tenders "plump" and "really abundant." Consistent sizing protects that promise; varied sizes would make a repeat customer base impossible, he argued.

How does supply chain support the growth?

Chili's has increased same-store sales 71% in five years, and volume strains the pipeline.

The Big Crispy Chicken Sandwich, launched in April with variations including Honey Chipotle and Nashville Hot, sold 161% more sandwiches than pre-launch within weeks. In the latest quarter, restaurants averaged 55 sandwiches sold per location per day.

"When people come to your restaurant for a specific item … you want to make sure that you have the capacity for it," Butler said.

To keep pace, Chili's raised truck deliveries from twice weekly to three times weekly at some locations and leaned on long-term supplier relationships to lock in capacity.

Did suppliers push back?

They did. The tighter specs and weekly testing for Chicken Crispers initially reduced efficiency at supplier operations, suppliers told the company. The counterweight is commercial: Chili's has nearly doubled spending on the category with the same suppliers since the change.

Once suppliers saw that product adjustments grew Chili's business, and by extension their own, resistance faded.

"We've got a lot of people who have served as suppliers for Chili's for 30, 40, 50 years," Butler said. "I want my suppliers to be healthy. I want them to make money. … I want them to be excited that they're a Chili's supplier."

Notably, the bun suppliers remain the same partners today. The company framed continuity, not vendor churn, as the mechanism.

What the account does not quantify is the cost of the changes — higher delivery frequency and weekly testing carry expenses Brinker has not disclosed. Butler asserts the trade paid for itself in growth. With 22 growth quarters behind him and a 71% five-year same-store sales gain, the burden of proof now shifts to sustaining that pace as the sandwich program scales.