The Activation
Chili's Grill & Bar, the 1,600-unit casual dining flagship of Brinker International (NYSE: EAT), is staging a two-day branded pop-up at DeBell Golf Club in Burbank, California on August 28 and 29, converting the public municipal course's clubhouse into what the chain calls the "Chili's Golf Club." Open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days, the activation marks the brand's first-ever on-course location and targets the recreational golf daypart — the post-round 19th-hole occasion — with core menu items, LTO beverages, and a co-branded apparel drop.
The beverage program at the pop-up includes two golf-exclusive margarita LTOs: the Transfusion Marg and the Tee Time Marg, neither of which carries over to Chili's standard restaurant menu. The Triple Dipper, one of the chain's highest-profile social-media-driven menu items and a 2025 MenuMasters Award winner in the Best New Menu Item category for its Nashville Hot Mozz addition, anchors the food side of the activation.
The Rhoback Collab
Paralleling the physical pop-up, Chili's partnered with Rhoback, the Charlottesville, Virginia-based active-lifestyle apparel brand, on a nine-piece limited-edition collection sold exclusively at rhoback.com/chilis while supplies last. Items range from a $54 Poly Hat to a $158 Horizon Block Performance Q-Zip, with men's and women's performance polos anchoring the assortment at $96 to $132. The collection carries a custom Chili's Golf Club crest and is positioned at Rhoback's premium price tier, consistent with the brand's existing performance polo lineup.
George Felix, chief marketing officer and executive vice president of Brinker International, framed the activation around the casual-participation end of the golf market rather than the competitive touring tier. "Chili's is the people's clubhouse, so it only made sense to bring that spirit to the course by building the Chili's Golf Club on a public muni," Felix said. The choice of a public municipal course — rather than a private club or tour-adjacent venue — is consistent with Chili's ongoing positioning as a value-accessible casual dining brand.
Brand-Marketing Context
The golf pop-up fits a broader pattern of experiential LTO marketing that casual dining operators have leaned on to drive earned media and social engagement as traditional daypart traffic remains uneven across the segment. Chili's, which earned Ad Age's Brand of the Year honors in both 2025 and 2026, has used menu virality — particularly around the Triple Dipper — to sustain guest frequency outside of traditional promotional discounting. The Rhoback collaboration extends that strategy into branded merchandise, a channel that generates incremental revenue and functions as ambulatory advertising at minimal marginal cost to the operator.
Rhoback, which launched in 2016 selling from a wooden camper and has grown into one of the faster-scaling performance apparel brands in the U.S. direct-to-consumer market, is in the process of adding wholesale partners and its own retail footprint alongside its core e-commerce business. For Rhoback, the Chili's co-brand reaches a mass casual dining audience unlikely to overlap heavily with its existing golf and active-lifestyle customer base. A campaign film promoting the activation features cameos from Wesley Bryan, Caleb Pressley, Jena Sims Koepka, Chaz Bowker, Josh Kelley, and JaNa Craig, distributed across both brands' social channels. Chili's operates across 29 countries and two territories with more than 70,000 team members.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
