Chili’s traffic keeps rising. Can its restaurants keep up?

Is Brinker International experiencing too much of a good thing? As Chili’s traffic is up 6% from last year and continuing to outperform its peers, the company has work to do to make room for more customers. It’s a good problem to have as Brinker reported its 22nd straight quarter of same-store sales growth for the first quarter ended Sept. 23.

But throughput is still a stumbling block for Brinker and is part of the reason why the company has been so focused on fundamentals. When your restaurants have lines out the door, store operations and table turnover must work like a well-oiled, hot mozz-serving machine.

Brinker CEO Kevin Hochman said during the company’s Q1 earnings call that since focusing on front of house efficiency, Chili’s has seen a “slight decrease in ticket time” but not significant enough to report on. Brinker has started to implement recommendations from its North of Six initiative, which focuses on replicating best practices from its top-performing locations.

Last quarter, Chili’s began tweaking its front of house processes, including a reevaluation of host standards, staffing appropriately for store volume — including multiple hosts in many locations — introducing more iPad training for hosts, and making sure managers are on the floor for larger parties.

“Just one missed four top per day is almost a point in sales, so it's a pretty big opportunity for us,” Hochman said.

Another goal for Chili’s has been to get down to zero false wait times.

“False waits are very common in casual dining, where through improper preparation or lack of labor scheduling, the restaurant gets backed up, so servers are pushed to give out false wait times,” Hochman said. “We want hosts quoting the exact quote time that the system is quoting.”

Part of that equation is to teach all restaurant leaders to write better labor schedules – a skill they are currently learning from the North of Six restaurants. Additionally, Chili’s is rolling out new handheld interface devices for team members by the end of the year, which will eliminate half the tasks required to input an order from a table and cut down on table time.

Brinker is zeroing in on fundamentals because when demand is high, restaurants need a solid foundation to lean on. Otherwise, continued growth could cause problems.

All of these smaller process improvements add up to improved wait times, table turnover rates, and more. Just ask the North of Six restaurants.

“When we look at the restaurants that have nailed throughput, everything's better — food grade scores, GWAP (Guest with a Problem), productivity. They save on the labor line, and ticket times are lower, despite having way more volume. If we can crack the nut on this productivity thing, I would expect there to be plenty of upside.”

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