The Popular Chili's Appetizer You Can Actually Wear As A Halloween Costume Is Back

Chili's fans can look forward to dressing up for Halloween this year in a clever two-person costume for couples or friends based on a popular appetizer. Last year, the costume sold out in just 20 minutes, so get ready to pounce. The MozzMates costume is made up of two halves of a Nashville Hot Mozz mozzarella stick, with one person as half of the fried stick on each side, and a long cheese pull (just like the one everyone loves to eat) joining them together. The $75 costume will be on sale starting October 1st at welcometochilis.com.

Chili's is adding a fun new component this year, allowing people to enter to win a date with reality star JaNa Craig, who appeared on "Love Island USA" and "Destination X." You can enter by posting on Instagram or TikTok about why you'd be the best date companion for her with the hashtag #ChilisMozzMates. The fan who submits the winning entry will get a chance to go on a date at Chili's with Craig.

The casual chain's Witches Brew Margarita is also making a return for the spooky season as October's $6 Marg of the Month. It's made with Lunazul Blanco Tequila, blue curaçao, Monin Granny Smith Apple, and their own sour mix, garnished with a festive witch's broom swizzle stick.

Mozzarella sticks, like those the costume is based on, are an appetizer on restaurant menus everywhere (including in New York's capital city, which has a tastier dipping sauce for them than marinara), and Chili's has them as a stand-alone option. Even though Chili's Shanghai wings are one of the discontinued chain restaurant appetizers fans want back, and it canceled the Awesome Blossom app years ago, its mozzarella sticks helped another of its appetizers go viral back in 2024. The Triple Dipper lets patrons choose three apps from six choices and sauces. Cheese pull photos of the mozzarella sticks as part of the Triple Dipper helped drive the social media buzz for the mix-and-match appetizer. The draw? Topping sliders with the sticks and demonstrating the cheese pull on each mini-burger.

Once Chili's saw that the Triple Dipper and the mozzarella sticks in particular were taking off, it introduced two new sauced mozzarella stick options for it. One was the Honey-Chipotle mozzarella sticks, and the other was the Nashville Hot fried mozz, which are the ones that inspired the Halloween costume.

The Triple Dipper did so well for Chili's, with the chain saying it sold 41 million of them in the last fiscal year, amounting to more than one every second, that it made the appetizer one of its five core menu items. It joined burgers, crispers, fajitas, and margaritas — little wonder that the cheese pull costume is such a hit.