Chipotle's shuttered Tasty Made

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SamSpade
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Chipotle's shuttered Tasty Made

Post by SamSpade »

Right or wrong, it sounds like they are focused on the fast casual Mexican restaurant and bringing back customers and higher stock prices.
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Re: Chipotle's shuttered Tasty Made

Post by storewanderer »

They have enough problems with the Chipotle brand at this point. The one I work near that used to have a line out the door at lunch now rarely has more than 5-10 people in the entire facility at any given time during lunch. They have one cash register and the receipt shows the "transaction number" which starts from zero each day. They used to easily be over 150 transactions by 2 PM. Now, they are usually at around 50-60 customers by 2 PM. The place has a depressing vibe, employees seem lethargic, and it is just not what it used to be before the issues that came up a couple years ago. I don't think the food is any different than it ever was.

They have, also, in the past few months, opened a couple new stores near me. One of them is in a really questionable location and it is dead, as I'd expect it to be. The other, should be a very busy location. It is in front of a new Sprouts that seems to be doing okay (not great, but not struggling by any means), next to a Jersey Mike's that is pretty steady, next to a busy Starbucks, and next to a Panda Express that is packed all day and at night (dine in and drive through).

I thought maybe their Plan B was to come up with other concepts and start to convert the underperforming Chipotles to those other concepts. I guess not.
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Re: Chipotle's shuttered Tasty Made

Post by pseudo3d »

Chipotle needs to fix some core problems before it gets bought by a bigger company (again).

It's increasingly evident that their focus on their "naturally sourced" food has come with major food sickness issues, and major food illness outbreaks are enough to sink a chain in terms of bad publicity and lawsuits. (If the 1994 Jack in the Box advertising campaign with "Jack" had failed, they probably would be gone today). I also think Chipotle's problems in late 2015 indirectly helped out Subway, which had been reeling from poor sales from losing customers to Chipotle and the Jared Fogle incident.
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Re: Chipotle's shuttered Tasty Made

Post by storewanderer »

Chipotle did not do a good job trying to recover from the incidents they have had. They seem to, aside from a few little PR stunts, be trying to act like nothing ever happened. I admire their pride, but something did happen, their traffic has fallen off a cliff, and their reputation is not anything close to what it once was at least in the US. Maybe they are still doing well internationally; I know a year and a half ago in Vancouver the lines were out the door at two locations I visited (it was sure nice to get some food with actual spices/seasonings in Canada).

Though they did some changes to food preparation like more centralized preparation or chopping of certain items, they have not really communicated that to the customer since there is a perception such items are not "fresh."

Jack in the Box in the 90's, it was a different world, and Jack in the Box was not promising "responsibly sourced" or "food with integrity" like Chipotle did.

Jack in the Box had to do a lot of things to rebuild its business. They completely re-designed their food safety and food handling processes. But they did more. Operationally, they pushed harder their "unique" items: more fried foods, the teriyaki bowls, etc. They also started the "open late night" thing at a time when much of the competition closed at 10 PM. I am not sure about other markets but in my market they started to do pretty heavy discounting by way of grocery store receipt coupons, always having an offer on those "discount cards" that high school groups sell to raise money, etc.
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Re: Chipotle's shuttered Tasty Made

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote: March 3rd, 2018, 9:25 pm Jack in the Box had to do a lot of things to rebuild its business. They completely re-designed their food safety and food handling processes. But they did more. Operationally, they pushed harder their "unique" items: more fried foods, the teriyaki bowls, etc. They also started the "open late night" thing at a time when much of the competition closed at 10 PM. I am not sure about other markets but in my market they started to do pretty heavy discounting by way of grocery store receipt coupons, always having an offer on those "discount cards" that high school groups sell to raise money, etc.
A lot of their non-burger items predate the 1990s, like the egg rolls (late 1980s). They usually roll out new and promotional items on a consistent basis with the right advertising, and that usually brings in business. i go to Chipotle from time to time but I almost never see any "promotional" ingredient.
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