Kevin Hochman walked into Chili's in 2022 and found a menu with 90+ items, a kitchen staff stretched thin, and customers who couldn't remember why they used to love the place. Two years later, the chain's posting positive comparable sales for the first time in years. The stock's up. The lines are back.
I've been watching this turnaround pretty close. Not because I eat at Chili's much — though their Big Smasher burger's actually not bad — but because what Hochman did mirrors exactly what I've seen work in BBQ operations that were circling the drain. And it mirrors what I've seen fail in operations that kept chasing the next shiny thing instead of fixing what was broken.
So here's what the Chili's playbook actually means for commercial BBQ operators. Not corporate strategy buzzwords. Real lessons you can apply to your pits, your crew, and your menu.
Cut the Menu Before It Cuts You
Hochman killed over 20 menu items in his first year. Just gone. The stuff that wasn't selling, the stuff that complicated prep, the stuff that sat in a walk-in taking up space and adding waste cost.
I had this conversation with a guy running a catering operation out of Beaumont last spring. He was doing brisket, pulled pork, ribs, chicken quarters, turkey breast, sausage links, burnt ends, and — for some reason — smoked salmon. Eight proteins. His ticket times were a mess. His holding temps were all over the place because nothing was coming off the smokers at the same time. His food cost was running somewhere around 38%.
We got him down to four proteins. Brisket, pork shoulder, ribs, and chicken. That's it. His SP-700 could actually handle the rotation properly. His holding cabinet stayed in the right zone. His food cost dropped to 31% in two months.
Simplicity isn't lazy. It's disciplined.
Execution Beats Innovation Every Single Time
Hochman's team didn't invent new food. They just made the existing food better. Hotter plates. Fresher prep. Consistent portions. The fundamentals.
This is the part where I get on my soapbox about temperature control, so bear with me.
I see operations all the time running smokers they can't actually control. They bought some import unit with a digital display that looks impressive, and the readout says 250°F, but there's a 40-degree variance from top rack to bottom. They're pulling briskets early because the probe reads done, but it's reading hot because it's sitting in a dead zone. The bark's not set. The fat cap's not rendered.
And then they wonder why reviews mention inconsistency.
The reason I've run Southern Pride rotisserie units for my catering fleet is the same reason Hochman didn't try to reinvent the Chili's fajita — he just made sure it came out right every time. The rotisserie system keeps meat moving through the heat zones. No hot spots. No cold spots. Every rack getting the same treatment. That's not fancy. That's just good engineering.
But you have to maintain it. Which brings me to the next point.
Maintenance Is a Revenue Decision, Not Just a Cost
Hochman invested in equipment and kitchen infrastructure. New grills, new fryers, stuff that actually worked. Because you can't execute when your equipment's fighting you.
I was at a competition in Tyler maybe four years back, and a team running an Ole Hickory had a thermostat go out at 2 AM. Meat was on. No parts available. They ended up babysitting it manually with a handheld thermometer for eight hours. Made turn-in, barely. Meat was edgy. Didn't place.
Now look — Ole Hickory makes decent smokers. I'm not saying they don't. But when something goes wrong, you better hope your distributor's got that thermostat in stock. And if you're in East Texas and your distributor's in Missouri, you're looking at two, three days minimum. Longer if it's a board.
We keep common replacement parts stocked locally. Drive motors. Thermostats. Gasket kits. Fire grates. Because when you're running a lunch and dinner service, or you've got a catering job for 300 people on Saturday, you can't wait for UPS Ground from the Midwest.
Schedule your maintenance intervals. Check your door seals monthly. Clean your grease traps weekly. Replace your fire grates before they crack through — not after.
Staff Training Is About Standards, Not Scripts
One thing Hochman emphasized was simplifying training so new hires could actually execute the food properly. Less complexity, clearer standards, faster ramp-up.
In commercial BBQ, this means your crew needs to understand the equipment, not just follow a laminated sheet. They need to know what 225°F looks like when the thermometer's drifting. They need to know how bark should feel. They need to know the difference between a brisket that's stalled and a brisket that's done.
An SP-700 holds temps well enough that a trained cook can walk away and work prep for an hour. But a trained cook also knows to check the wood supply, check the water pan, and check the rotation before walking away. That's the standard. Not micromanaging every 15 minutes. Just understanding the machine well enough to trust it — and knowing when not to.
If your pit master's out sick, can your prep cook run the smoker? If the answer's no, that's a training problem.
Stop Discounting. Start Delivering.
Chili's pulled back hard on couponing and deep discounts. They decided the product should be worth the price instead of needing a coupon to justify it.
BBQ's got this problem where everybody wants to race to the bottom on price. Especially catering bids. You see guys quoting $8 a head for full service and wondering why they're not making money.
The math doesn't work. It's never going to work.
I'd rather quote $14 and get half the jobs than quote $8 and lose money on all of them. And the customers paying $14 actually expect quality — they're not the ones complaining that you ran out of extra sauce cups. Better customers, better margins, less headache.
This ties back to equipment, too. When you're running gear that holds temp and doesn't break down mid-service, your food's more consistent. Consistent food justifies higher prices. It's a cycle, but it only works if you start with equipment you can trust.
Think in Systems, Not Fixes
Hochman didn't fix one thing at Chili's. He fixed the system. Menu, training, equipment, pricing, operations — all moving the same direction.
If you're adding menu items while your smoker can't keep up with current volume, that's not a system. If you're training staff on new proteins while your equipment's down twice a month, that's not a system. If you're discounting to fill the calendar while your food cost's running 40%, that's definitely not a system.
Figure out what you do well. Staff for it. Equip for it. Price for it. Cut the rest.
Match Your Equipment to Your Actual Operation
This is the part that's actually about smokers, so I'll say it plain.
If you're running a single restaurant doing 30-40 briskets a week, an SP-500 handles that fine. Good capacity, reasonable footprint, easy to maintain.
If you're doing multi-unit or high-volume catering — we're talking 60+ briskets, multiple protein rotations, weekend events — then you need the SP-700 or you're going to be running doubles and burning out equipment.
If you're doing full-scale production, the SP-1000 or SP-1500 is built for that. Serious capacity. Serious steel. These units last 15, 20 years if you maintain them, and the rotisserie system means you're not constantly rearranging racks to chase even cooking.
For mobile work — and I've been catering out of trailers for most of my career — the MLR series is designed for transport. Which matters more than people think. A stationary unit that's good in a kitchen turns into a maintenance nightmare when you're bouncing down Highway 87 every weekend.
Match the machine to the work. Not the other way around.
The Point
Kevin Hochman turned Chili's around by doing less, better. Cutting menu bloat. Fixing equipment. Training staff on standards instead of scripts. Pricing for value instead of volume.
None of that's revolutionary. All of it's hard. Because it means saying no to the shiny new menu item, no to the cheap discount bid, no to the equipment that looks impressive but can't hold a temp.
The turnaround playbook's not complicated. It's just not easy.
If you're looking to dial in your equipment setup or need parts for your current smokers, give us a call. We're in Orange, we stock what you need, and we've been doing this long enough to know the difference between a fix and a system.
Resources: Southern Pride of Texas parts and support | Southern Pride | NFPA commercial kitchen standards
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Photo by Los Muertos Crew on Pexels.
About the Author: Earl has been competing in sanctioned BBQ events since the early 1990s and operates a commercial catering operation in Southeast Texas.