Colorado's Most Popular Chain Restaurant Might Shock You

Everyone's always talking about how much Coloradans love their green chile, but it seems like no one's talking about how much Coloradans love their Chilis, too - until now.

Colorado apparently loves Chili's so much, that the casual dining restaurant was just named the most popular restaurant of its kind in the state.

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Chili's Ranked Top Casual Dining Restaurant In Colorado

Like many other industries, the restaurant industry took a big hit during the COVID-19 pandemic; particularly speaking, restaurant operations - including in-person dining - were completely altered.

While the country saw an overall decline in dine-in traffic at the beginning/during the peak of the pandemic, in the last year - from 2021 to 2022 - casual dining has seen an 8.4 percent increase.

Marketing firm TOPAgency analyzed each state’s consumer tracking data from 12 million Americans to see how states bounced back from COVID-related dips in dine-out spending.

As per collected data via Top Data, the state of Colorado bounced back slower than most; the number of dining out visits rose 3.8% from 2021 to 2022, which marks the 16th slowest recovery rate of all 50 states.

To put that number into better perspective, as per the study, Maine, in contrast, recovered 34.4% of its 2021 dine-out visits within the same amount of time.

Colorado's Top 5 Most Popular Casual Dining Restaurants

As per the study conducted by TOPAgency, the following restaurants are the top five most popular casual dining spots in our state:

1. Chili's

2. Texas Roadhouse

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3. Red Robin

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4. Noodles World Kitchen (better known around here as Noodles and Company)

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5. Olive Garden

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What's your favorite casual dining restaurant in Colorado? Sound off on our free app!

37 Food Trucks of the 2022 FoCo Food Truck Rally

One of the best outdoor events in the Choice City is the annual FoCo Food Truck Rally at City Park.

With so many food trucks and so many different kinds of foods to try at the Fort Collins Food Truck Rally every summer, it could feel overwhelming to decide which food truck to check out during your visit.

Here's a look at those that attended in 2022. And here's hoping they'll all the there again this summer or setting up at a corner near you (soon).

Gallery Credit: Maxx