{"id":14974,"date":"2015-08-21T13:55:17","date_gmt":"2015-08-21T18:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/burgersdogspizza.com\/?p=14974"},"modified":"2015-08-21T13:55:17","modified_gmt":"2015-08-21T18:55:17","slug":"chi-chis-corn-chips-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/?p=14974","title":{"rendered":"Chi-Chi&#8217;s Corn Chips Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/burgersdogspizza.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/zantigo.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-14977\" src=\"http:\/\/burgersdogspizza.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/zantigo.jpg\" alt=\"zantigo\" width=\"176\" height=\"117\" \/><\/a>For a time, back in the day, Minneapolis (of all places) was a hot bed of Americanized Mexican restaurants.<\/p>\n<p>A local restaurateur, Marno McDermott, founded a fast food chain called Zapata (later Zantigo) which gave Taco Bell a pretty good run for the money,and was eventually assimilated by various Taco Bell parent companies and vanished. There are a half dozen \u201cnew\u201d Zantigo&#8217;s in the Twin Cities these, started by former employees.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>TV Ad for the &#8220;New&#8221; Zantigo<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PRlPZM7A05Q\" width=\"420\" height=\"236\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/center><center><\/center>Amping it up to fast casual, McDermot started Chi-Chi&#8217;s in Minneapolis, which grew to over 200 locations. A few bankruptcies, and a nasty outbreak of Hep A did them in. Hormel bought the rights to the name for restaurant products, and a Belgium company now holds the rights to own and operate restaurants by that name, and they are fairly evident in Europe and Asia.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>TV Ad for Chi-Chi&#8217;s Buffet<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QkUwX2Zrbls\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/center><center><\/center>There was briefly a start-up competitor to Chi Chi&#8217;s in the Twin Cities, called \u201cEstebans,\u201d which developed multiple locations and was eventually purchased by Chi Chi&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p>Our hang out was the local outlet of the California chain \u201cEl Torito,\u201d on Highway 12 in Golden Valley. We hit the happy hour quite often,cheap drinks and a free buffet were the perfect combination for youngsters in the local media biz.<\/p>\n<p>Point is, I purchased some Chi Chi&#8217;s corn chips the other day, hadn&#8217;t had them before, and I quite like them. They are a little easier on the salt than many brands, and have a &#8216;lighter&#8217; taste. They could become a regular entrant to the \u201cAmeri-Mexican\u201d foods in the pantry here \u2013 usually I make my own corn chips, but these are A-OK.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.chichis.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chi-Chi&#8217;s also sells sals<\/a>a and other goodies. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chichis.com\/buy?product_ref=22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Here&#8217;s where to find them<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Chi-Chi&#8217;s Corn Chips Review<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For a time, back in the day, Minneapolis (of all places) was a hot bed of Americanized Mexican restaurants. A local restaurateur, Marno McDermott, founded a fast food chain called Zapata (later Zantigo) which gave Taco Bell a pretty good run for the money,and was eventually assimilated by various Taco Bell parent companies and vanished.&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/?p=14974\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Chi-Chi&#8217;s Corn Chips Review<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,8,16],"tags":[80,2258],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14974"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}