Chi-Chi’s Is Making A Comeback In 2025…Starting in Minnesota

(CNN/FOX9) — Chi-Chi’s, the Mexican restaurant chain that closed 20 years ago, is staging a comeback.

Hormel Foods, owner of the trademark, announced it’s letting Michael McDermott, son of the chain’s co-founder, use the name to reopen restaurants in 2025.

He told FOX 9 in the Twin Cities that the first two restaurants will open in Minnesota.

Chi-Chi’s, started in Minnesota in 1975 by Marno McDermott and Green Bay Packers player Max McGee, would eventually expand to more than 200 locations.

The chain closed in 2004 following the largest hepatitis A outbreak in the country which caused four deaths and several hundred lawsuits.