Chili’s is taking on the fast-food giants, and Taco Bell could be next

One takeaway from Brinker International’s Investor Day on Thursday is that the company — which has been on a multi-year hot streak — doesn’t rely on short-term, flash-in-the-pan marketing wins. Instead, Chili’s is using its “Better Than Fast Food” strategy to systematically go after major fast-food categories, with Mexican QSR potentially the next frontier.

While that move is probably still a couple of years away, Chili’s executive vice president and CMO George Felix said he can see a five-year pipeline of opportunities for the campaign, which takes aim at the value QSR brings to the table.

“I can easily see five years of a pipeline where we can go to keep the Better Than Fast Food campaign going strong,” Felix said.

The strategy is similar to how Chili’s handled the viral Nashville Hot cheese pull of 2024, which Felix used as one example during Thursday’s presentation to investors. His team wasn’t content to just let the social media moment pass by. Instead, it inspired them to capitalize on the short term and use the moment to inform marketing strategy in the long term.

“I hear all the time that Chili's just got lucky a few years ago with the cheese pull,” Felix said. “Most brands have a viral moment, and their sales spike for a couple of weeks, then their business normalizes again. For us, we mobilized our social media team and innovation team to figure out how can we pour gas on the fire and sustain this.”

Two years, multiple social media launches and influencer campaigns later, the Triple Dipper sampler platter — and its Nashville Hot star — went from a $220 million menu item in 2024 to an $860 million item in 2026 that now makes up 16% of Chili’s sales.

Better than fast food strategy

This is the exact same strategy Chili’s is employing with its “Better Than Fast Food” ad campaign.

Starting in 2024, Chili’s began positioning itself as a direct competitor to McDonald’s with the launch of the Big Smasher burger, to take on the Big Mac, and the subsequent 2025 release of the QP Burger, to take on McDonald’s Quarter Pounder. The advertisements were not subtle and called on guests who are “McDone with overpriced burgers.”

But this wasn’t just a one-time advertising war done for short-term attention and laughs. Earlier this year, Chili’s rolled out its Big Crispy Chicken Sandwich platform to directly compete with QSR chicken leaders like Popeyes and KFC.

And the strategy doesn’t stop with burgers and chicken.

Targeting qsr mexican

The next target? QSR Mexican. Although Chili’s leaders did not mention Taco Bell by name, the brand believes it can replicate the “diss advertising” success of the McDonald’s ads and continue capitalizing on Chili’s hot streak against QSR brands.

“Why wouldn't Chili's, who has a right to win in this category, take that category on next?” Felix said. He emphasized that trying to take share from the QSR Mexican space probably would not happen for the next one to two years, but it’s something they’re actively working on.

“We already play in Mexican categories like quesadillas and fajitas,” Felix said. “As we continue to upgrade our proteins across the menu, like our fajita steak, we're going to look for other places we can use those proteins on the menu.”

He teased future menu pipeline examples using SKUs Chili’s already has, like a steak quesadilla using the newly upgraded fajita steak, or using the chicken crispers in a spicy taco format.

While McDonald’s traffic has been on a downward trend, making them a prime target for “dig” advertising, Taco Bell continues to be the crown jewel and focus of Yum Brands’ now-smaller portfolio, continuing to outpace the QSR industry.

So, taking market share from such a strong brand would be quite the challenge. But Chili’s is already thinking about how it can take the “Better Than Fast Food” strategy into that category next.

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