Chipotle Mexican Grill Essay

Chipotle Mexican Grill is a chain of restaurants that first opened in 1993 in Denver, Colorado by Steve Ells. With a culinary degree, experience as a sous chef, and a $85,000 loan from his father, Ells opened the first Chipotle Mexican Grill. Originally Ells estimated to sell 107 burritos per day in order to turn a profit but within the first month the managed to see more than 1,000 burritos per day,1 this only confirmed that the Chipotle brand to be a success right from the start.

By 1996 the store opened two more locations and Ells’ father invested an additional $1.5 Million. Ells then created a board of directors and raised an additional $1.8 Million.1 After two years the company attracted bigger fish, McDonald’s made a small investment in the company. In 2001 that commitment makes McDonald’s to be Chipotle’s largest investor.2 However, by 2006 McDonald’s fully divested from Chipotle because of a larger initiative for McDonald’s to focus solely on the main McDonald’s chain.3

The first 12 years of the brand saw

Chipotle practices having fresh ingredients and that means not having freezers in their restaurants.13 That makes having a plentiful stock hard but it also bring an issue on always keeping vegetables fresh when they're not refrigerated. This problem became an issue for over 40 restaurants in the Washington and Oregon area after they were closed due to an E. coli outbreak the last couple of months of 2015.14 52 people were struck with the illness over six states.15 Chipotle handled the news by closing down all of the Washington state stores and a few Oregon ones as well but also promised a deep cleaning and sanitization of the restaurants in the affected areas.16 They also released a statement about tightening the food protocol on locally sourced food that comes in which could jeopardize things in the long run for the company as some things might not be locally sourced as they state