For more than 20 years Chipotle Mexican Grill, or simply, Chipotle, has been serving customers burritos and tacos made from high quality organic ingredients. Since the company introduced its first location outside of Kansas City, Missouri in 1993, Chipotle has expended to more than 1,600 restaurants and has made billions of dollars in revenue. Chipotle, which borrows its name from the Mexican Spanish word for a smoked and dried Jalapeño pepper, also prides itself on serving more naturally raised meat than any other restaurant chain. The company serves around 750,000 customers a day, and in 2011 Consumer Reports dubbed Chipotle as the best Mexican fast-food chain. This year, Chipotle has also had its share of noteworthy stories; here is a list of Chipotle’s top news stories of 2014.
5. Chipotle employees in Pennsylvania walk out.
Employees at a Chipotle restaurant in State College, Pennsylvania decided to walk out of the restaurant after announcing that they had been working in “borderline sweatshop conditions.” The group of workers hung a sign on the door explaining why the location was closed, noting that “almost the entire management and crew have resigned,” and asking people to spread awareness to the situation.
4. Man eats 100 Chipotle burritos to help sick fraternity brother.
In May, after learning that his friend and frat brother had been diagnosed with stage four brain cancer, Joe Gallo came up with a GoFundMe campaign to help raise money. Gallo announced that he would eat 100 burritos “instead of doing a 5k,” and by August he had raised more than $3,000 dollars.
3. Chipotle still won’t franchise.
Chipotle, which has never franchised its restaurants, announced again this year that they were still not interesting in choosing that path. In a statement, Chipotle’s communications director, Chris Arnold, said “We believe that companies franchise for two reasons…Either they need money to grow or they need operators to run restaurants.” Apparently Chipotle doesn’t need help with either of those things.
2. Chipotle stock skyrockets.
2014 was a great year for Chipotle’s stock. Even at a time when many company’s saw their value decrease, Chipotle continued to grow and saw a 27% stock increase this year alone.
1. Chipotle raises menu prices.
Earlier this year, Chipotle announced that they would be raising their prices for the first time in almost three years. The company said that the higher prices were necessary due to the increasing costs for ingredients.
(Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Chipotle Mexican Grill)
