CHILI'S GRILL & BAR

Nation's Restaurant News, May 8, 2000

Lettuce wraps exceed customer expectations

The lettuce wraps at Chili's Grill & Bar follow a theme the company is trying to "stay true to," says Brian Kolodziej, vice president of culinary operations for Brinker International, Chili's parent company. It is "food that you can share and have fun with at the table."

Where is the fun in regard to this year's MenuMasters Award winner for Best Healthy Choice Menu selection? Kolodziej says, "You can pick up the Bibb lettuce, load it with your choice of fillings, add your favorite sauces, roll it and eat it by hand like a taco."

This make-whatever-you-like concept is encouraged by the fact that lettuce wraps come fully plated, with each plate divided into components to promote sharing and creativity. On one side is lettuce, on another is chicken, with the sauces scattered about in separate cups.

Lettuce wraps are positioned on Chili's menu as an appetizer, but they also could work as a salad entree. The $6.99 dish features grilled Asian-spiced chicken with water chestnuts, carrots, green onions and almonds. It is served with sesame-ginger and peanut sauces for dipping.

"Over the last year we've had some success with Asian-themed and Asian-flavored menu items, such as our Southwestern egg roll and crispy chicken salad with Asian flavors," Kolodziej says. "Lettuce wraps were a new way to get in on this early trend."

Once Chili's decided that wraps were an idea worth pursuing, Kolodziej and his three-man culinary team swung into action to bring the dish quickly to market and beat much of the competition. Joining him in the test kitchen were Johnny Law, corporate chef for the corporate-owned Chili's restaurants; Todd Stratton, corporate chef for franchise-owned properties; and John Wamsley, assistant research and development chef.

"We did research to see how other restaurants were using lettuce wraps," Kolodziej says. "We developed the sauces first - a stir fry, an Asian-dipping sauce and a peanut sauce.

"Our sauces are unique," he says. "There's a lot of black-bean chili sauce, hoisin, Szechwan peppercorn and sesame oil in the Asian dipping and stir-fry sauces. For the peanut sauce we use a combination of peanuts, garlic, ginger and soy. We're talking about a lot of ingredients, so when you wrap it with lettuce, the flavors really come through."

With the Asian trend picking up steam and the obvious health benefits inherent in lettuce wraps, Chili's elected to move faster than normal with the product. In the spring of 1999 the decision was made to roll the product out for the summer. "We wanted to hit with freshness, and the raw vegetables were really conducive to light eating in the summer months," he says.

A group of Chili's personnel, including financial, operations, training and marketing, along with operators, typically sit down to taste the product prepared by the culinary team. The group assesses portion sizes, flavor profiles, overall cost, menu category and price and decides whether the product is a nationwide fit or just regional.

Lettuce Wraps represented a significant departure for Chili's, which focuses on meat from the grill with a Southwestern flair. "We've always been known for burgers, ribs and fajitas, but this menu item makes a statement. Chili's may be 25 years old, but we're out there trying new things. This is something that people wouldn't expect to see on a Chili's menu."

As a component-rich product, the wraps took some careful planning. The culinary team considered many types of lettuce, from Bibb to iceberg to romaine. Bibb carried the day because it was more tender and sweeter than iceberg. It was also more flexible and rolled easily. Finally, Bibb was available for a fairly consistent price year-around in all different markets.

Another question was, how spicy should the product be made? "It's a relatively spicy dish, especially the stir fry with chicken tossed in," Kolodziej explains. "So we changed the fresh vegetable components a number of times to get what we wanted. However, the heat factor is countered by the rice sticks, raw carrots and cool Bibb lettuce."

Testing in the stores proved illuminating. Upper-scale markets with more of an ethnic blend had a better understanding of Asian food. Consequently, that group received lettuce wraps with more enthusiasm than did rural areas, where Asian food and wraps were very foreign, especially for a Chili's customer.

Another challenge was educating servers how to sell the wraps. "A luxury we had was that tacos and fajitas were well understood at Chili's, so the correlation to rolled lettuce was understandable," Kolodziej says. "Today, with better understanding, there's more of a comfort level in stores than there was last year.

"Lettuce wraps will open doors for new creative menu items at Chili's down the road," says Kolodziej, who joined Brinker International in 1992. He started as the corporate chef for new concepts for Kona Ranch Steakhouse and Spageddies before moving to Chili's in 1994. One of his pre-Brinker stops was as a line cook and then banquet sous chef at The Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas, where his experience with chef-owner Dean Fearing inspired him to remain in the industry.