The CEO of Chipotle Brian Niccol isn't buying that his restaurants are skimping on your burrito bowls.
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Niccol finds himself on defense lately as consumers are taking to social media to voice their displeasures about the restaurant's portions. Naturally, the CEO scrambles to tell his side of the story. Speaking with Fortune, he promises that they aren't serving you less. He tells you that you need to give the workers a secret look.
As prices have gone higher, customers grow increasingly frustrated and the employees take the brunt of the dissatisfaction. This is what the CEO suggests you do, "One of the things I think is great about Chipotle is if you come into the restaurant and you want a little more rice or you want a little more pico [de gallo]," Niccol tells the interviewer, followed by a silly stare and nod, "usually our guys and women give them a little more scoop."
This. Sounds. Ridiculous. For starters, this incentivizes a lack of communication between customer and employee. If the answer is speaking in code, nobody is going to understand each other. Additionally, this all strikes me as a deceptive way to rope people in and charge customers for double meat. Whether they're trying to cut costs or trick people, they're not transparent about the issues. It's only going to continue making customers angry.
People Are Fed Up With Chipotle's Food Portions
Niccol himself admits that a massive part of the Chipotle appeal is that you never have to worry about how much they're serving. He continues, ""We always want to give people big portions that get them excited about the food." "If you want to double the amount of meat, you gotta pay for it, but our goal is to get people really excited about what I believe is really delicious food."
Clearly, this isn't the case and consumers are trying to find a way around this. On top of voicing their anger on Reddit and TikTok, many are resorting to filming workers make their food. This acts as a means to harass and guilt workers into coughing up more food. There is where I detract from the crowd. The issue lies in corporate greed. The workers are just following instructions, desperately trying to make a living. They are not the direct cause of you getting less. Have empathy for your food workers.
