10 Things You Didn't Know About Chipotle

No, there's no secret menu. But the game-changing burrito chain still has plenty of ways to surprise you. #factsonly

Alison Herman

You know Chipotle. You’ve definitely eaten at Chipotle. In fact, you probably had lunch at Chipotle sometime in the past week. But how much do you really know about America’s preeminent burrito vendor?

There’s a lot more to the Denver-based chain than just tin foil and giant tortillas. From its origin story as a side project for founder Steve Ells, to how it picks the music that plays in its 1,400 plus locations, we’ve tracked down some of the most interesting facts about the chain that taught us all how to pronounce the name of a certain previously obscure Mexican chili. Here are ten things you didn’t know about Chipotle, including the latest addition to its strictly limited menu.

Chipotle founder Steve Ells originally wanted to go into fine dining.

The very first Chipotle in Denver, CO was actually meant to be a cash cow for owner Steve Ells to open his own fine-dining establishment. Ells, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, got the idea for a very profitable burrito store from his time in San Francisco, where he worked at Stars for a few years after graduation. The rest is history, and Ells currently has no plans of leaving the burrito business for haute cuisine anytime soon.
Chipotle has some pretty strict hiring criteria.

There are 13 qualities Chipotle managers look for in their employees: Workers ought to be "polite, hospitable, smart, ambitious, curious, happy, respectful, honest, presentable, conscientious, motivated, infectiously enthusiastic and have high energy," according to Ells. We're not sure how one evaluates a prospective hire's general happiness in a job interview, but Chipotle has famously low turnover, so we guess its HR folks have some secrets up their sleeves.
The chain takes its soundtrack seriously.

Chipotle commissions ex-DJ Christopher Golub to create its "musical identity" through his Brooklyn-based company, Studio Orca. Golub creates 500-song playlists for the restaurants about once a month to avoid excessive repetition, standardized across its 1,400 plus locations. Golub says his selections for his largest client are informed by the "texture of sound" that works best with its concrete-and-steel stores, meaning absolutely no Thom Yorke.
“Food with integrity" is no joke.

The chain's tagline refers to its famous commitment to local, organic produce and ethically raised meat, inspired by Ells's visit to an industrial farm shortly after he opened the first location. It took Chipotle nearly ten years to reach its goal of serving almost entirely natural, hormone- and antibiotic-free meat, including pork from Niman Ranch; now, its sour cream and cheese come from cows free of rBGH, almost a third of which are open pasture. Chipotle currently purchases more antibiotic-free meat than any other restaurant on Earth.
The chain has a very punk rock approach to advertising.

Chipotle loves nothing more than to bill itself as an outsider in the fast-food industry, as is evident from its 2010 ad campaigns featuring slogans like "Our ad agency insisted we show a burrito in this ad" over a picture of a chopped-up cilantro leaf, and "At CHIPOTLE, we like to talk about why meat raised without hormones TASTES so DELICIOUS, but the ad agency insisted we be direct." The chain's first TV ad in 2012 was similarly unorthodox, soundtracking a two-minute short on the virtues of small-scale farming with a Willie Nelson cover of Coldplay's "The Scientist." Impressively, the "Our ad agency" campaign was done entirely in-house.
Same with giveaways.

If you live within a ten mile radius of a location, you're probably aware of Chipotle's legendary Halloween giveaways, where any costume involving so much as a scrap of tin foil wins customers a discounted burrito. But the initiative actually began as a takedown of processed food in collaboration with Jamie Oliver; visitors dressed as any kind of unnatural food matter scored $2 Chipotle, the gist being that Frankenfood is scarier than any amount of fake blood. And then there was the time Chipotle gave out free food to reporters during the Timothy McVeigh trial (it took place in Denver, back when Chipotle was still a local four-year-old minichain).
But at the end of the day, they still used to be owned by McDonald's.

The cash for that massive national expansion had to come from somewhere. Ironically enough, the fast-food corporation to end all corporations was a partial owner of the pioneer in nontraditional, high-quality fast casual from 1998 to 2006. Of course, Ells and Chipotle remained autonomous and McDonald's has been fully divested for years, but the cognitive dissonance is still pretty amusing.
One dude is responsible for all of the interior decor.

Every chair, table, and Mayan-inspired sculpture at every Chipotle location was designed by Denver-area sculptor Bruce Gueswel. A college buddy of Ells', Gueswel has been involved with Chipotle from day one, outfitting its very first location in Denver (there's a photo of the store in all subsequent locations). Gueswel has plenty of non-Chipotle work, of course, but fans of his in-store decorations can purchase one of their very own wood-and-metal dragon-type things for just $350 to $900.
There's finally a vegetarian option that isn't a burrito sans meat.

It's currently being tested only at stores in the Pacific Northwest (where else?), but customers nationwide may soon get a chance to try tofu-based "sofritas," Chipotle's first stab at a vegetarian protein option to rival chicken or steak. It's vegan-friendly, made of tofu seasoned with chipotle and cooked with poblano chiles, and it's gotten reviews already. For a chain that's notoriously averse to expanding its menu, it's a big move.
Its corporate chef is actually legit.

Next to Ells, Chipotle's most public face may be "culinary manager" Nate Appleman, the former Pulino's chef who won a James Beard Award for Rising Star Chef while at A16 in San Francisco. Although most of Appleman's efforts are currently focused on Chipotle's pan-Asian spinoff restaurant ShopHouse, his first tour of duty as a Chipotle employee included cooking at the chain's Chelsea location, where he even whipped up specials like tofu and chorizo from time to time. Since then, he's been installed in Chipotle's semi-secret test kitchen near Union Square.

10 Things You Didn't Know About Chipotle

Chipotle founder Steve Ells originally wanted to go into fine dining.

Chipotle has some pretty strict hiring criteria.

The chain takes its soundtrack seriously.

“Food with integrity" is no joke.

The chain has a very punk rock approach to advertising.

Same with giveaways.

But at the end of the day, they still used to be owned by McDonald's.

One dude is responsible for all of the interior decor.

There's finally a vegetarian option that isn't a burrito sans meat.

Its corporate chef is actually legit.

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