Casual Dining Louisville, KY
1975–2004
Founded in Minnesota by a restaurateur and a former Green Bay Packer, Chi-Chi's served Americanized Mexican food — fried ice cream, chimichangas, and frozen margaritas — in festive cantina-style dining rooms that made it one of the country's largest Mexican chains. Already weakened and in bankruptcy, the chain was devastated by a 2003 hepatitis A outbreak traced to green onions at a Pennsylvania location, and it closed all of its U.S. restaurants in 2004. The brand lives on today only as a line of supermarket salsa and chips.