The Mexican restaurant brand Chi-Chi’s, which shut down 20 years ago, is making a resurgence.
The Chi-Chi’s trademark is currently owned by Hormel Foods, which said on Tuesday that it will allow Michael McDermott, the son of the chain’s co-founder, to reopen locations under the iconic name in 2025. Not all menu items, locations, or designs were made public right away.
Max McGee of the Green Bay Packers and Marno McDermott founded Chi-Chi’s in Minnesota in 1975, and it has since grown to more than 200 locations.
But the restaurant shut down in 2004 after a hepatitis A outbreak at a Pittsburgh-area site linked to green onions in their free salsa made roughly 650 people ill, led to four fatalities, and sparked hundreds of lawsuits.
