Developer Of Chili's Chain Brinker Dies

ANABELLE GARAY

DALLAS (AP) — Norman Brinker, a restaurant mogul who popularized the salad bar and built a worldwide casual dining empire that includes Chili's Grill & Bar, died Tuesday at age 78.

Brinker died at a hospital in Colorado Springs, Colo., said Robin Rymer at the Swan-Law Funeral Home. He suffered complications related to pneumonia while on vacation visiting family, Brinker International, Inc. spokeswoman Stacey Sullivan said.

Before retiring as chairman of Dallas-based Brinker International in 2000, he had built the chain of more than 1,000 casual-dining restaurants. The company now has 1,700 restaurants in 27 countries, according to its Web site.

While Brinker wasn't necessarily a household name, he had a high profile in Dallas and Americans have enjoyed his eatery concepts that fit somewhere between fast food and fine dining.

"My goal is to wipe out dining room lights across the country," he told The Associated Press in a story published in 1996.

A former Olympic equestrian who competed in the 1952 games, Brinker was born in Colorado and grew up poor on a Roswell, N.M., farm. He attended New Mexico Military Institute, joined the Navy and later graduated from San Diego State University, paying his way through college.