Chi-Chi's Restaurant
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This 2001 photo shows Chi-Chi’s Restaurant
in the middle of Huntington’s downtown Superblock.
The restaurant was closed and demolished in 2003 to make way for
construction of Pullman Square.
File photo | The Herald-Dispatch
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HUNTINGTON — The
Chi-Chi’s Restaurant chain, popular for its Tex-Mex food, was founded in 1975
in the unlikeliest of places for a Tex-Mex food chain: downtown Richfield,
Minnesota, a suburb
of Minneapolis. Chi-Chi’s expanded rapidly. By 1995, the chain had grown to 210
locations.
After months of speculation that the chain
might be interested in locating on Huntington’s downtown
Superblock, ground was broken March 14, 1990, for construction of a Chi-Chi’s on
the
long-vacant tract. When construction was completed the restaurant
became the first business to open on the Superblock.
The new restaurant was an immediate hit.
Interviewed by The Herald-
Dispatch in March 1991, Assistant Manager Robin Hayden
said it was serving about 4,000 people a week — far
more than the chain had anticipated.
But the days ahead would prove numbered
for both the
Huntington restaurant and the Chi-Chi’s chain.
When plans were completed for what became
the Superblock’s Pullman Square
development, the planners said Chi-Chi’s didn’t fit in with the plan and would
have to go. The restaurant chain initially balked at selling out but after
lengthy negotiations, agreed to do so. The restaurant closed in
April 2003 and was demolished a month later.
The Chi-Chi’s chain filed for bankruptcy
in August 2004 and a month later
was hit with the largest hepatitis A outbreak in U.S. history, with
at least four deaths and 600 other victims sickened.
Within a month, the chain was out of business.
Note: This Article and picture appeared in the Herald-Dispatch Newspaper on Mar. 29, 2022.
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