In a piece for GQ in 2016, Daniel Riley explored the cult of hyper-enthusiastic Chili’s employees tasked with training new employees and teaching them the core values of the Chili’s brand. That story, “Inside The Church Of Chili’s,” is now being adapted into an NBC sitcom by Veep executive producer Sean Gray, Condé Nast Entertainment, Sony Pictures TV, and Olive Bridge Entertainment. This comes from Deadline, which implies that the show might not specifically be about Chili’s, but it will be about “super trainers” who travel around the country and work with the employees of “a popular casual dining restaurant chain” while also “filling the hole in their own souls one perfect onion ring at a time.”
Basically, it sounds like a take on The Office where everyone is a diehard follower of Dunder Mifflin, except it’s about a restaurant that is clearly Chili’s even if it’s not called Chili’s. Also, The Office had a thing about Chili’s in one episode, so maybe this can actually exist in the Officeverse. The show doesn’t have a name yet, but we’d like to suggest that they call it The Office But A Chili’s.