40 Fun Facts About Chipotle

Which appliance, standard in most fast-food kitchens, is missing from every Chipotle restaurant?

A freezer has no place in a Chipotle kitchen, and neither do microwave ovens or can openers. Most of the food is prepared from raw ingredients inside each restaurant.

Before the first Chipotle moved in during 1993, its small building had housed what kind of business?

An ice cream shop called Dolly Madison occupied the site first. Most Chipotles hang a photo of that original restaurant, while the original itself displays a picture of the old ice cream store.

Chipotle's founder opened his first burrito shop mainly to raise money for which bigger ambition?

A fine-dining restaurant was the real goal, with the burrito shop meant as a cash cow to pay for it. The burritos sold so well that he dropped the plan and built the chain instead.

Which fast-food giant was Chipotle's largest investor until it sold its entire stake in 2006?

McDonald's put roughly $360 million into Chipotle and took out about $1.5 billion. Under its backing the chain grew from 16 restaurants to more than 500.

The chipotle behind Chipotle Mexican Grill's name is a ripe, dried form of which chili pepper?

Jalapeño peppers left on the plant until they turn deep red are smoked for days to become chipotles. It takes about ten pounds of fresh peppers to make one pound.

Which herb scented the novelty soap that Chipotle put on sale in December 2021?

Cilantro tastes soapy to a small share of people for genetic reasons, a running debate among Chipotle fans. The soap began as a mock Instagram post that the chain turned into a real product.

Sofritas, the vegan filling Chipotle rolled out across the US in 2014, is made from what?

Tofu supplied by Hodo Soy is the base of sofritas. Chipotle tested it in Northern California restaurants in 2013 before taking it nationwide.

On which gaming platform did Chipotle open a virtual restaurant in 2021 to hand out free burritos?

Roblox made Chipotle the first restaurant brand with a virtual location on the platform. Visitors could earn codes from a $1 million pool of real burritos and explore a Halloween maze.

Before apps, Chipotle customers could skip the line by sending orders using which technology?

Fax orders let customers walk to the front of the line and pay for food that was already made. Online ordering only reached Chipotle's website in 2005.

Taquerias in which San Francisco neighborhood inspired the oversized burritos Chipotle sells?

Mission District taquerias wrap rice, beans and meat in one large steamed tortilla. Chipotle's founder ate there while working as a cook in San Francisco, then carried the format to Colorado.

Which Culinary Institute of America graduate founded Chipotle in 1993 and ran it until 2018?

Steve Ells opened the first restaurant on a loan from his father, and the pair worked out that it had to sell 107 burritos a day to turn a profit. Within a month it was selling more than 1,000.

The first Chipotle opened in 1993 across the street from a university campus in which Colorado city?

Denver remained Chipotle's hometown and headquarters for 25 years. The original 850-square-foot restaurant got its first renovation only in 2017.

Brian Niccol, who became Chipotle's chief executive in 2018, had been running which rival chain?

Taco Bell was where Niccol had led a turnaround, and Chipotle's shares jumped 12 percent when his hiring was announced. Some analysts still complained that the move went against what the brand stood for.

A robot Chipotle unveiled in 2023 cuts, cores and peels the fruit for which menu item?

Guacamole takes a crew about 50 minutes per batch by hand, so the Autocado prototype halves, pits and skins the avocados. Staff still mash them and add the other ingredients themselves.

Chipotle was one of the first chains in which restaurant category, also home to Cava and Sweetgreen?

Fast casual restaurants skip table service but promise better food than a drive-through. The concept took shape in the United States in the early 1990s, just as Chipotle opened.

What does Chipotle call its Halloween deal, begun in 2000, for customers who arrive in costume?

Boorito once asked customers to come dressed as a burrito to get a free one. In 2010 the theme was the horrors of processed food, with $2 burritos raising money for Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.

Chipotle's tortilla chips are fried, dusted with salt, then finished with the juice of which fruit?

Lime juice goes on every batch of chips after the salt. When Chipotle tested a chip-frying robot in 2022, it trained the machine to keep the slight variations in seasoning that customers expect.

Which coffee chain hired chief executive Brian Niccol away from Chipotle in 2024?

Starbucks shares jumped more than 24 percent on the day the hire was announced. In six years at Chipotle, Niccol had doubled revenue and moved the headquarters to California.

For its 18th anniversary in 2011, Chipotle swapped the silver foil on its burritos for which color?

Gold foil marked the birthday in 2011 and came back a decade later, when Chipotle wrapped burritos in it to cheer on American athletes at the Tokyo Olympics.

Which item joined Chipotle's menu in 2021 as a digital-only order, its first new entrée in 17 years?

Quesadilla orders are folded and pressed in a custom oven on the digital-order line, which is why they could only be placed by app or website. Fans had been asking for one for years.

Which item, long the most requested thing Chipotle did not serve, joined its US menu in 2017?

Queso was held back because Chipotle refused to use the industrial additives that keep most cheese dips smooth. Its version relied on aged cheddar, tomatillos, tomatoes and peppers instead.

Which filling did Chipotle pull from a third of its restaurants in 2015 after a supplier audit?

Carnitas vanished from those menus after a routine audit found a pork supplier breaking Chipotle's animal welfare rules. The chain chose to go without rather than serve conventionally raised pork.

Until late 2013, which Chipotle staple was cooked with bacon, putting it off limits to vegetarians?

Pinto beans were simmered with bacon, so vegetarians had to know to ask for black beans instead. A recipe change in 2013 dropped the meat and made them vegan-friendly.

Chipotle opened its first restaurant outside the United States in 2008 in which city?

Toronto got the first international Chipotle 15 years after the chain began. London followed in 2010 as the first in Europe, while Mexico itself had to wait until 2026.

What is the only thing a driver can do at a Chipotlane, which Chipotle began testing in 2018?

Collect a mobile order is all a Chipotlane allows, because nobody can order food at the handout window. More than 500 restaurants had one of the lanes by 2023.

In 2015 Chipotle announced it was the first national restaurant chain to cook entirely without what?

GMOs left the kitchen when Chipotle dropped genetically modified corn and soybeans. Four years later it paid $6.5 million to settle claims that its meat came from animals raised on modified feed.

Why did every Chipotle restaurant in the United States close for part of February 8, 2016?

A food safety meeting for all staff followed a run of 2015 outbreaks, including E. coli cases that shut 43 restaurants in Washington and Oregon. The company also hired a new head of food safety.

In 2018 Chipotle announced it would move its headquarters from Colorado to which California city?

Newport Beach was already home to Chipotle's new chief executive, who had settled there while running another restaurant chain. About 400 jobs were affected by the move.

Which singer covered Pure Imagination for The Scarecrow, Chipotle's 2013 animated short film?

Fiona Apple recorded the Willy Wonka song for a film that follows a scarecrow through a grim food factory. It won two Daytime Emmys and the Grand Prix at Cannes Lions.

Which country star covered Coldplay's The Scientist for Chipotle's 2011 film Back to the Start?

Willie Nelson recorded the cover for a short film about the problems of factory-style animal farming. He kept it as the closing track of his 2012 album Heroes.

ShopHouse, a sister chain Chipotle ran from 2011 to 2017, served food inspired by which region?

Southeast Asia shaped the menu, which drew mostly on Malaysian, Thai and Vietnamese dishes and was developed by a Chipotle marketer born in Bangkok. The chain reached 15 restaurants before closing.

The word chipotle, meaning smoked chili, comes from which Indigenous language of Mexico?

Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, is the source: the word is said to join chilli, the pepper, with poctli, smoke. Spanish speakers reshaped it into chipotle.

Analysts at which bank weighed 75 Chipotle bowls in 2024 to test claims of shrinking portions?

Wells Fargo analysts ordered identical bowls from eight New York restaurants after complaints spread on TikTok. The heaviest weighed nearly twice as much as the lightest, 27 ounces against 14.

Before culinary school, Chipotle's founder earned a University of Colorado degree in which subject?

Art history was his major at Boulder. Cooking came afterwards: he graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 1990 and worked in a San Francisco kitchen before selling a single burrito.

Where in the Midwest did Chipotle open its first restaurant outside Colorado in 1998?

Kansas City, Missouri, was the first step beyond Colorado, taken in the same year that outside investment arrived. The chain then grew from 16 restaurants to more than 500 in seven years.

Chipotle handed free burritos to reporters covering whose 1997 trial, held in the chain's home city?

Timothy McVeigh's trial for the Oklahoma City bombing brought the national press to Colorado, and the young chain fed them for free. Chipotle then relied on word of mouth rather than television adverts.

The stylized Mayan ruler sculpted for the first Chipotle has a face loosely based on which American?

Martin Luther King Jr. was a personal hero of sculptor Bruce Gueswel, a friend of the founder, who also built the restaurant's chairs from wood and metal. He went on to make the art for later Chipotles too.

Which Formula One team carried Chipotle's logo on its cars under a deal announced in 2023?

Haas put the logo on the nose and sides of its VF-23 car, and on the race suits of drivers Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg.

Chipotle paid for free screenings in 2009 of which documentary attacking industrial agriculture?

Food, Inc. got the free showings because Chipotle's founder hoped it would make customers value how the chain buys ingredients. The same year, its makers backed farmworkers pressing Chipotle over tomato pickers' pay.

Tasty Made, a single restaurant Chipotle ran in Lancaster, Ohio, from 2016 to 2018, sold what?

Burgers were one of several attempts to branch out, alongside sister chains selling pizza and soul food. None lasted, and Tasty Made never grew beyond its one Ohio restaurant.