Kevin Hochman

“I tell this to our employees that they have to make sure that they're deliberately making time for their family. You know, one of my rules is if you have a choice between family and work, always choose family because they're going to still be around for you. Work may not be.”

— From Chili’s, Children, and the CEO Playbook: Kevin Hochman’s Guide to Legacy, BG Podcast Network (July 01, 2025)

“People always wonder how f why we've been able to do our turnaround so fast is we don't work on anything small. Doesn't matter whether my board asked me to do something small or a friend calls I want you to meet with this supplier. It's like no if it's not on our strategy we don't do it and we don't waste money. We don...”

— From Chili’s, Children, and the CEO Playbook: Kevin Hochman’s Guide to Legacy, BG Podcast Network (July 01, 2025)

“We refortified our marketing budgets three years ago. We spent about $32 million on marketing this past fiscal year, and we just finished spending $137 million. So they actually have ammo with which to do marketing, and they're doing a phenomenal job.”

— From Brinker International CEO on marketing success: It's relevant to people's lives and it's working, CNBC Television (August 13, 2025)

“We have the best marketing team in the entire world. These guys just got honored by AD Age for the brand of the year, not just in restaurants but across every industry.”

— From Brinker International CEO on marketing success: It's relevant to people's lives and it's working, CNBC Television (August 13, 2025)

“We refortified our marketing budgets three years ago. We spent about $32 million on marketing this past fiscal year, and we just finished spending $137 million. So they actually have ammo with which to do marketing, and they're doing a phenomenal job showing how our Chili's proposition is relevant to people's lives, an...”

— From Brinker International CEO Kevin Hochman goes one-on-one with Jim Cramer, CNBC Television (August 13, 2025)

“The number one thing that you can do to offset cost and labor pressure is to continue to grow your business. It's going to be very difficult to simply cost cut your way to control margins and maintain margins with the inflationary environment that we all have to deal with. So number one is we got back to growth. We are...”

— From Brinker International CEO Kevin Hochman goes one-on-one with Jim Cramer, CNBC Television (August 13, 2025)

“We spent hundreds of millions of dollars on labor, on repairing the restaurants, on upgrading the food. And that's having a big payback to the business right now because our average unit volumes are so much higher, we get leverage on the fixed costs. That's one way that we're able to really explode margins.”

— From Brinker International CEO Kevin Hochman goes one-on-one with Jim Cramer, CNBC Television (August 13, 2025)

“Our margins when I started were around 12%. This fiscal year we just finished and announced we were at 18%. So when you have over 40% growth in average unit volumes and margin improvement of 600 basis points, really good things happen to absolutely.”

— From Brinker International CEO Kevin Hochman goes one-on-one with Jim Cramer, CNBC Television (August 13, 2025)

“In terms of the value equation, we've been able to hold $10.99 now for a long time. Doesn't matter where you go in the country, even in higher wage states like California, you're always able to get a $10.99 meal from Chili's, and it's always something good. We make it really easy to get abundant value, and I think that...”

— From Brinker International CEO Kevin Hochman goes one-on-one with Jim Cramer, CNBC Television (August 13, 2025)

“We still have opportunities in food and service and atmosphere. That's the fundamentals of casual dining and the only way we're going to continue to grow the business quarter after quarter. We think we can upgrade 50% of our menu, making millions of dollars of investments in core ingredients, and continuing to add labo...”

— From Brinker International CEO Kevin Hochman goes one-on-one with Jim Cramer, CNBC Television (August 13, 2025)

“We have about 200 restaurants that haven't been touched in a few years that need a bit of love. That's what this Reimage program is about. We're going to test it here in Dallas by the end of the calendar year, then start rolling it out to 10% of restaurants every year for the next ten years. We'll always have a fresh e...”

— From Brinker International CEO Kevin Hochman goes one-on-one with Jim Cramer, CNBC Television (August 13, 2025)

“We have a barbell strategy on margaritas. Whether you want our $6 margarita of the month or a $10 Patron margarita, regardless of price point, you want something of quality and substance served well in a nice atmosphere. Everybody wants that, and that's one of the reasons why we've been delivering on value.”

— From Brinker International CEO Kevin Hochman goes one-on-one with Jim Cramer, CNBC Television (August 13, 2025)

“One of the ideas actually came from our culinary team.”

— From Chili’s CEO Breaks Down the Changes That Turned the Restaurant Around | WSJ, The Wall Street Journal (April 18, 2025)

“We all got it wrong... the pickles were different — and by the way, this is over $500 cheaper than the liberated pickles, right? None of us could pick which pickle it was.”

— From Chili’s CEO Breaks Down the Changes That Turned the Restaurant Around | WSJ, The Wall Street Journal (April 18, 2025)

“What we found was one, they weren't as hot as they could be, and two, they weren't seasoned properly... it's not the cook's fault. It was the home office's fault because we gave them two fries to make so we had a curly fry and a straight fries.”

— From Chili’s CEO Breaks Down the Changes That Turned the Restaurant Around | WSJ, The Wall Street Journal (April 18, 2025)