DALLAS — Norman Brinker, a restaurant mogul who popularized the salad bar and built a worldwide casual dining empire that includes Chili’s Grill & Bar, died Tuesday at age 78.
Brinker died at a hospital in Colorado, said Robin Rymer at Swan-Law Funeral Home in Colorado Springs. She did not know the cause of death.
Before retiring as chairman of Dallas-based Brinker International in 2000, he had built the chain of more than 1,000 casual-dining restaurants. The company now has 1,700 restaurants in 27 countries, according to its website.
While Brinker wasn’t necessarily a household name, Americans have enjoyed his eatery concepts that fit somewhere between fast food and fine dining.
A former Olympic equestrian who competed in the 1952 games, Brinker grew up poor on a New Mexico farm. He moved to Dallas in the 1960s and started a coffee shop before developing the concept for Steak & Ale restaurants — a chain he established in the mid-1960s where he’s credited with popularizing the salad bar and casual dining.
He sold Steak & Ale to Pillsbury Co. in the early 1970s and went to work for Pillsbury’s restaurant division. During his time at Pillsbury’s restaurant division, he created the Bennigan’s chain and became known for creating a “fern bar” chain concept of upscale eateries intended to attract single people.
Brinker later purchased Chili’s, which had started as a single restaurant in Dallas, and took the chain public in 1983 under the brand Brinker International.
