Chi-Chi’s
The first Chi-Chi’s Mexican Restaurant opened in downtown Minneapolis in 1975 and was one of the breakout restaurants of the year, pulling in $2 million. Founders Marno McDermott and Max McGee’s creation had basically no competition in the Midwest, and by 1986 a whopping 237 locations had been opened, with 42 openings in 1985 alone.
From there, unfortunately, it was all downhill. Attempts at expanding to New York City, New England, and the South failed, and increased competition, combined with baby boomers aging out of the chain’s target demographic and a decline in alcohol consumption, spelled its doom.
Locations fell to 144 by 2002, and a month after Chi-Chi’s filed for bankruptcy in 2003, green onions served at a Pittsburgh-area outpost set off the largest hepatitis-A outbreak in American history, sickening 660 and killing at least four.
The remaining 65 restaurants closed the following year, and today the brand exists in the United States only as a salsa product owned by Hormel, which licensed their name. Oddly enough, there are 11 Chi-Chi’s still open in Europe, eight of those in Belgium.
