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Chili’s Issues Response To Steve Carell’s Outback Steakhouse “Decision”

The NBA is intense, especially when you throw mega-hyped free agent courtships into the mix. But now we know what might surpass the passion of basketball at the highest level: moderately priced bars/grills and their battles to win the patronage of high-profile funnymen.

We’re talking, of course, about Steve Carell, who revealed at the ESPYs that he was taking his appetite to Outback Steakhouse, spurning Chili’s despite having “five doubts” about the choice. It was goofy fun, they got their laughs, and everyone was happy – except Chili’s president Wyman T. Roberts.

Roberts, like a certain other top executive, was left feeling betrayed and made his feelings known – can you see where this is going? – in a letter to Chili’s customers in a wacky font.

Roberts’ letter is especially noteworthy for the abundance of words put in quotation marks for no reason, which is a reference to Gilbert doing the same in his own letter. In an added bonus, however, putting words in quotes for no reason is always a guaranteed recipe for hilarity – and all in Chili’s red and green. View an excerpt below:

Take that to the smoker, indeed. Trey Kerby at Yahoo! was a fan, and so are we. Really, how can you not like such a good-spirited, fun-loving attempt to play along with the joke?

The cynic in us says it’s just smart marketing – which it is, Kerby said it tempted him to eat at Chili’s – but the lover of fun things in us can’t get enough of it. If it happens to be positive branding for Chili’s, well, that’s fine with us. Take that to the smoker.