For many families, Chi-Chi’s once marked moments of togetherness — birthdays, after-game dinners, long tables filled with chips, fajitas, and laughter. It wasn’t just a restaurant. It was a place where ordinary life paused for celebration.
Founded in 1975, the Tex-Mex chain grew to more than two hundred locations across the Midwest and East Coast before its sudden collapse in 2004, brought on by financial strain and a widely publicized health crisis. The dining rooms went dark, though the name lingered quietly through grocery-store salsas and a lone overseas location that kept the memory alive.
