Shit, I discovered Izzos Illegal Burrito and it’s much better at a fraction of the cost!
But but but…
That’s why it tastes so good.
I remember when Chipotle was still a Colorado-only thing. Better than Subway or Quiznos and the price was right. You could get in, get lunch, and get out relatively quickly.
I don’t know that things went pear-shaped the very instant they started their massive expansion everywhere, but it’s been different for quite a long time. Like a lot of brands, I’m sure they sputtered along on their reputation mostly and the place made money even if consumers started to get disillusioned.
Used to be that Qdoba and Chipotle seemed to be pretty decent options, but I’m always kind of disappointed in both these days. Qdoba offered Impossible Meat as an option for a while, but seemingly no longer does…
Qdoba by me is one of the few that does breakfast. $5-7 for a breakfast bowl/burrito, and it’s Qdoba so you get all the queso, salsa, guacamole, cheese, etc toppings for free.
Better than Subway or Quiznos and the price was right.
Yes I literally remember when a meatless chipotle bowl was only $6.45.
I’m pretty sure I haven’t eaten there since those good old days.
When was Qdoba ever a decent option? Their best has always been “disappointing” for me.
I am not being snarky, I just don’t ever remember them being good.
As for Chipotle, I don’t go there very often but even the last time I was in and saw chicken going on the grill and they said fresh avocados are used every morning to make the guacamole, that was how I remembered them. And how I always figured the differentiation was: Chipotle made their food, but Qdoba was just put together Sisco truck food.
When I first started going (maybe late 90s, early 00s) they had more salsa options, which I was keen on.
IIRC, their hottest was at least hotter than Chipotle, even if neither really dialed up the spice all that much.
Qdoba was pretty good in the early to mid 00’s.
Yup. And in more recent times, they had Impossible Meat options for a while. Then they stopped. Now, as a vegetarian, I feel like I’m getting ripped off, especially if I place an online order…quite a lot for essentially rice and beans.
I ate at Qdoba once. It made my butt explode.
Quiznos had the same effect.
I eventually learned how to eat clean, now my digestive system has been calm & happy for years. My rule of thumb is no restaurants. Ever. Control every ingredient that goes into my mouth.
Haha. Yeah, if you have a sensitive system, it’s hard to have much control over anything if you eat at a restaurant.
seems like your sensitive to beans and rice, i almost never get that reaction. the fiber helps bowel movement though from the beans.
I think it’s just a classic case of profit maximization. Chipotle felt pressure from shareholders to continue increasing profit every quarter, and that inherently involves cutting costs and increasing prices
Yeah, it’s pretty annoying - publicly traded companies must constantly be growing. Something like a restaurant cannot just be successful in making a mere profit, oh no, it has to be compared to last quarter/last year…even if it means endangering everything that made the restaurant successful in the first place…
I distinctly remember when Qdoba started phasing out the Impossible. My local one held onto it a bit longer and was one of the later locations to lose it.
I like Impossible, but it’s a hard sell for many because it was the most expensive of the regular protein options. I say “regular” because they sometimes had limited-time specials that were more expensive. Chipotle took a better path with the sofritas because it is its own thing rather than a fake meat, and it is the lowest tier of pricing. From my own observation, it is at least somewhat popular with meat-eaters, but only a vegetarian/vegan is likely to get Impossible due to the higher price.
Is Chipotle still doing the sofritas?
Yes
Who’d see this coming, when the population has no money to spend and the top 0.1% is taking all the money, so there’s nothing to spend? Not the billionaires, that’s for sure. I really cannot wait for the fall when they will realise how much they fucked up. I’m definitely not going to help them, no matter how much money they offer. They did this to themselves, and I’ll be happy when the population starts eating ^the rich^.
It’s actually been this way for a while. The top 10% of American earners do half of all consumer spending. A massive amount of the economy has shifted to reflect this. Businesses are often targeting business to business sales rather than business to customer. Pay to win video games use free players as content for whales to play through. And if you’re selling physical goods, you’re probably either doing it as cheaply as possible, or absolutely gouging the assholes you’re selling to (think ikea vs Kohler’s premium brand, for which a lamp costs 5 figures and the website doesn’t gave prices listed).
I always thought whales were actually middle class or even poor people that have essentially a gambling addiction.
no, they are usually well off or come from wealthy family. all these streamers, influencers are often from rich families.
Nope, it’s mostly nepo babies just like any other high cost hobby.
The middle class or less well off with gambling addictions are usually reported on so it looks like a regular person problem
Sometimes. The only real difference is earnings. There was the rumor that a saudi prince kept a couple mobile games alive solely based on his own spending for a while. Anecdotally I know of at least one person making six figures who was spending five figures a month on mobile games (and eventually declared bankruptcy) and another spending a grand a month that fit it into his budget. The point remains, games designed to extract thousands from individual players have grown very popular among industry execs because it’s more profitable (and often easier) to squeeze an inordinate amount out of one player than to get $10 out of 100 players. Marketing for that top 1% spender is definitely exploiting addiction, but they’re making it for the ones who will continue to afford it, and thus continue to fund the game
Millionaires are part of the problem, too.
They shouldn’t get a pass from swaths of never-millionaires.
spoiler
Unless we’re idiots. 🤔
The closest Chipotle to me is 45 minutes away and has a < 3 star rating - i think I’ll go literally anywhere else and be content.
I just go to Cava instead these days. Way better
This is the way. I buy a CAVA bowl once a week. The way I have it made will feed me three times. That’s three dinners for less than $14.
Lol same. I get a Cava bowl and will pick at it for like two days straight.
I’m just waiting for the time I go in and find out that they’ve all been told to make the bowls smaller to save money. Only a matter of time.
Cava is so expensive though, I think it’s like $4-5 more than a burrito bowl by me.
Yeah but I get like 3 meals out of it so it’s worth it to me
I could get two out of cava, but I can also get two meals out of Chipotle so a bit of a wash from my perspective.
CAVA is doing the exact same business strategy as Chipotle. They’re working on rapid expansion, but once they either reach market saturation, or stall out, they’ll reduce quality and increase prices
It’s the model for every fast-casual chain. I really wish people would support local restaurants more. You get better food at a cheaper price when you don’t have corporate taking a 30% profit margin
You get better food at a cheaper price when you don’t have corporate taking a 30% profit margin
No we don’t.
I go mostly to local restaurants, but sometimes I’m in the mood for Cava. And yeah I’m waiting for them to drop in quality and/or portion size
I paid 16$ for a bowl the other day of the new steak. Ya. That was a hard pill to swallow. 16$. I could have gone to Applebee’s for that price, or Chilli’s!
Uh, the food at both those restaurants is considerably worse. It’s all just microwaved crap as far as I can tell. You CAN get a beer as either tho, which has them generally winning in my book tho.
Are you trying to tell me that many restaurant chains have premade food they heat in a microwave?! Wheres Gordon Ramsay’s kitchen nightmares when you need it?!
Most of the time Chipotle’s “new” is just an old protein with a new exotic-sounding seasoning on it.
the best taco place in town (current opinion fluid, we just lost the previous best taqueria and we’re in mourning and search mode) has $2.50 tacos. I have the appetite of a teenager and three satisfy me, plus they’re delicious. i have trouble justifying going elsewhere
Yeah, my favorite taco place is in the back of a gas station. The cashier doesn’t speak a single word of English, but you can get by with some pointing at the menu, hand gestures, and “más queso por favor, y extra picante. Limón apardo.” Tacos are $2.50 each, a giant cup of refried beans is another two dollars, and he’ll usually slide you some extra tortillas to go with the beans for free if you’re a regular.
Sadly, I changed jobs and haven’t been there in a long time. I still occasionally think about making the trek across town, just to get some tacos. I hope he’s okay with all of the ICE raids… People that are pro-ICE shouldn’t be allowed to eat seasoned food.
“todos por favor” is my favorite phrase in spanish
I miss my old spot. Only place that did chicken like I like. Dry and overcooked. They had 3$ tacos and 3 would hit the spot.
We’re picking up speed now. Economic doom is imminent!
Millenials killed chipotle too, huh?
Hey! They said young people, that’s gen-z. 😭👴
Don’t stop the guac, don’t stop the guac.
Guacamole? In this economy?
Is that a backyardigans reference? Love it!
Their food has gone downhill and also they changed the chips recently which now suck. That’s the only reason I still went, the chips. Rip.
also the shrinkflation too.
If I still lived near one (and also had money) I’d probably go to them still.
Title should read:
#Chipotle goes under after last willing customer cratered pants after eating Chipotle
10+$ for a mostly rice burrito? hard pass
rice and beans mostly, almost non-existent “lettuce”
That’s probably a good thing, don’t want to be ground zero for another round of food poisoning.
Chipotle is on it’s way out. When they first opened, at least by my work, the food was fresh and decent and could be had for a little more than fast food but not by a lot so it was easy to go there. I wouldn’t say it’s Mexican or TexMex but it wasn’t bad. Changed jobs and hadn’t been there in a while but I was on a road trip and thought what they heck, there aren’t too many options and this seemed like it would be good. The food was not fresh the meat was over cooked, you didn’t get a lot of food and it was kind of over priced… I haven’t been back since.
If I want cheap food, Chipotle is out. If I want good food Chipotle is out. Maybe if I hate myself and want to spend a lot of money for shitty food?
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they were on downward spiral once they started charging more and shrinkflationed thier product.
Chipotle has been shit ever since their data breach years ago. Fuck 'em.
I live twenty minutes from a Qdoba and they have yet to fuck up my order or skimp on toppings.
Fuck, the chipotle skimping was such a load of bullshit.
Glad I don’t go there, or any restaurant, any more.
The Qdoba near me is garbage at folding burritos, and I’ve rarely seen anyone else in there. I wonder if it’s a money laundering front. Still better than Chipotle 😅
garbage at folding burritos
Please enjoy your fancy taco, sir.
More of an ill formed sphereoid than a taco.
Man, I am crushed by how badly my local Qdoba prepares their proteins. It’s not like that at other Qdobas.
Do you boycott every company thats had a breach?
Only after they fuck up my order nearly half a dozen times with a drastic reduction in quality AND quantity.
Yes.
Yes I do.
Ah I gotcha, fair enough!
It wasn’t the multiple ecoli scares?
So that means Chipotle will lead by example and start paying all their employees a livable wage, right? … Right??
higher wages are not the solution; universal basic income is. higher wages just mean it’s even more difficult for companies to higher employees, which means there will be fewer jobs overall. also, you’re excluding people who are unable to work that way.
If you think inflation is bad now, wait until the government starts handing out free money. I’m no economist, but some of y’all are dumb as hell.
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The government hands out free money all the time to people taking us for a ride.
Welfare queens aside, Americans don’t know true horror yet. Wait until food gets scarce and your priorities will shift faster than a naked twelve year old running through a GOP bath house.
I think you mistakenly posted this instead of your usual conversation with the mirror.
Inflation depends on the resource people are chasing after and the timeline of the cash infusion. Most resources can be provisioned at greater quantity without price increases if given enough time (years to decades). If everyone poof had double their normal income, and immediately tried to spend it all, there would be supply chain constraints and inflation, sure. Any UI scheme would need to have a gradual rollout to avoid that.
inflation is kinda irrelevant. what matters is people’s real buying power, and that would increase.
Overall job loss is not what happened the last thirty-odd times the federal minimum wage was raised, or any of the times individual states raised minimum wage, but go ahead and believe it will happen the next time for sure.
What has happened is the newly higher-paid employees spend that money, and the new demand creates new jobs, enough to offset the losses from the old employers deciding to manage with a smaller staff. As long as the size of the increase is in the same range as all the previous ones, there’s every reason to believe the effect would be the same.
I wish the federal congress would just do several years of catch-up increases, then tie it to inflation so we can stop arguing about it.
Higher wages also just translates to higher rent for their landlords.
Shame poor people can’t connect these dots, but that’s why we are where we are.
that’s just factually not true. i’ll explain it slowly so you can follow:
rent is determined by two things: cost of construction and profit of the landlord.
cost of construction is more or less constant and wouldn’t change if people have more money to spend. profit of the landlord is subject to the free market, i.e. if renting out apartments becomes overly attractive (as in, landlords make more money with it), then new people will enter the market to also become landlords and rent out apartments. since these landlords are all competing against each other, they try to be more attractive to potential customers by lowering their rent, which means lowering their own profit. that’s how the free market works.
The way it actually works is that all the landlords outsource their paperwork to a rental management company like RealPage, which then algorithmically fix prices to be as high as possible.
as high as possible
as high as possible without losing customers to competing landlords
There are homeless people. They’ve already priced out millions of people. They don’t give a shit about “losing customers”. RealPage is the default service in the US, meaning everyone’s rent in each city is in the same ballpark and gets the same rent increase every year.
They’ve already priced out millions of people.
yeah because construction costs alone are higher than these people can pay in rent.
Not everywhere. Shockingly to many, cities with higher rates of apartment construction have falling rents.
https://www.redfin.com/news/rental-tracker-may-2025/
“Apartment construction in America has been hovering near a 50-year high, and even though renter demand is strong, it’s not keeping pace with supply,” said Redfin Senior Economist Sheharyar Bokhari. “Many units are sitting vacant for months, which means renters have power to negotiate concessions and landlords have less leeway to keep rents high.”
Yeah, you’re an actual idiot.
Keep being taken advantage of accordingly.
I’m all for higher employees!
*hire
They do tend to mess up my order, but they are at least super chill and nice when I kindly ask them to fix it.
It’s funny how companies just don’t get it.
Fast food has been historically cheap. Chipotle worked because it was fast, it was cheap, and you didn’t feel like you were as much of a fat ass compared to grabbing a giant bacon burger and a bucket of fries.
Now you go to chipotle and pay $20 for a burrito and a soda. Still fast, still decent enough (at least the one near me), but $20 is highway robbery.
OR, I can go across the street to a sit down restaurant, have a first generation Thai guy (who started his American dream restaurant) whip up the best damn drunken noodles I’ve ever had for $12. AND he does this FASTER than chipotle (seriously how does he do it? Must be a magic wok).
Guess where we grab lunch these days.
We pre-cook as much as we can in Asian restaurants. The wok isn’t magic, the chicken/beef/pork is already 75% cooked.
and it almost always tastes fucking great, unlike fast food nowadays
That’s (probably) the oil and magic salivary granules doing mystical things
Magic salivary granuals is a wonderful turn of phrase/euphemism.
Thanks! I spent an embarrassingly long time trying to figure out something for G and then I immediately felt like an idiot for needing to use a thesaurus when I found it it
The problem is that Chipotle was never really fast food, they were one of the pioneers of the Fast Casual concept, where it was good food, served quickly, but not necessarily cheap. They never really intended to compete against McDonalds head to head. They wanted to be something different.
it used to be 7$ for a giant burrito, now its almost half the size and more than double the cost.
My issue with chipotle has always been that the food is lukewarm.
I’m not paying 20 dollars for a lukewarm, lightly seasoned burrito.
And whoever rolls those burritos hears “roll” and thinks "roll of bread"and doesn’t understand that a burrito is supposed to be long.
It’s the same problem as burger makers making their burgers TALL. Like bro, that’s the wrong shape for the format of fitting in my mouth.
Say no to chode burritos.
I’ve always had an issue with how people roll burritos at Chipotle. Some get it, but some literally have no fucking clue and it falls apart as soon as I open the aluminum wrapper
I hate this so much. Like they roll it, wrap it, then make it into a football shape. I laughed so hard the last time I got a burrito from there. It tried to mush it back into an appropriate shape but eventually I gave up and put the innards on a plate
A longer cylindrical burrito means that they didn’t put the maximum amount of filling inside.
The more stuff you put in, the rounder the burrito has to be. That’s why you couldn’t reshape it to be a cylinder.
Next time get a fork and eat about a third of the filling, then you’ll be able to rewrap it.
I think the ideal hand burrito from an aesthetic perspective is around 3x long as diameter.
Place near me (Mucho Burrito) will straight up use a second tortilla if you get too much filling.
Chipotle used to do that too.
Chipotle wasn’t that fast. They were locally blacklisted by a lot of doordash drivers due to the wait.
Doordash is part of the reason it’s not fast anymore. Chipotle, like everywhere else that makes your food on an assembly line as you order it, should take like a minute per person with overlap. Know what you want, have your card ready to pay, enjoy your lunch. But then a driver cuts straight to the register to grab an order of six burritos and a salad that is only half ready because most places wait until the last second to put take-out orders together (fewer complaints about cold/soggy food) which delays the whole process. Repeat every five minutes.
I mean, even like 2018 it wasn’t uncommon to stand in line at my local Chipotle for 15-20 minutes. No DoorDash orders, no online orders. Just really slow workers, but also understaffed, and somehow always waiting for something (rice, veggies, anything from the grill). I mean I can talk that up to poor management.
We stopped going after giving them 3 chances. There was a location by us that I literally would wait almost an hour extra for the food that I ordered on the app. The crazy part was I was already like 10 min past the pickup time. People who walked in would get the food way quicker, and when people were complaining and told them to cancel our orders, they just smirked and said oh we can’t do that. The first time we figured, ok places have bad days, but after the 2nd time, which was like 6 months later, and it was basically the same, we were done. The 3rd time was like a year later, and a new closer location to us opened. Figured cool, let’s do it. Nope, same shit. The only good news was 2 of the orders were refunded after complaining, and the 3rd, they just gave us a coupon, but it expired since we were done with them.
That sounds like bad management/ownership trying to shave the operating costs as much as possible (without considering the potential losses involved)
this pre-doordash days.
Now you go to chipotle and pay $20 for a burrito and a soda. Still fast, still decent enough (at least the one near me), but $20 is highway robbery.
Chipotle Burrito and a small fountain soda is $14 in my area. Its certainly risen in price over the last 6 years.
Sometimes I’m just out with coworkers but not starving. I used to get a cheese and chicken quesadilla. It used to cost $4 and change. Then they started charging burrito prices - $15 and change for a tortilla, a handful of shredded cheese and 1/4 of a chicken breast. I get there is regional pricing differences - but their costs (at least here) are out of control.
Yeah I think the sofritas burrito or bowl is like 10.99 or 11.99 where I live. The meats more expensive though.
They do get it, better than most customers.
The entire point is maximizing profit. If you can charge fewer people more for the same product, you’re doing less while making more.
This is just the result of crapitalism. It will never be a system where everyone can afford Chipotle.
