The “Chipotle is owned by McDonalds” canard
I’m not really the largest fan of Chipotle Mexican Grill. However, I do stop by from time to time to enjoy a fresh burrito. Some of my friends and acquaintances, when faced with the apparent specter of being taken out to a Chipotle Restaurant, offer up the somewhat roundabout excuse that Chipotle Mexican Grill “is owned” (which variously is implied or expressed to mean that they were completely bought out by) the McDonald’s Corporation. This is usually followed by some vague accusations about McDonalds food or attitudes toward consumers, or some kind of anti-big-business sentiment. More recently, I heard the excuse “I don’t want any McDonald’s Mexican food.”
After hearing this a few times, I decided to gloss over some google search results and see if I could substantiate the rumor. Quite simply, I couldn’t, other than it was being repeated over and over — all over. Wikipedia’s article on Chipotle Mexican Grill, specifically the History section, has a good overview of what the real low down is. The article doesn’t specifically cite a source for its information on the investments by McDonalds, but the first source does contain some information about it. Since I first wrote this article, I have received a (comment) reply which comes directly from Chris Arnold @ Chipotle. Chris basically repeats what the Wikipedia article states, but with his comment comes the authority of Chipotle itself, and I can safely say… “I told you so.”
December 6th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
How’s the official Chipotle mouthpiece as a source. That’s me. And I can tell you that McDonald’s invested in Chipotle in 1998, became the majority investor in 2001, and was fully divested in October 2006. During that time, McD’s didn’t run Chipotle; we ran very much based on our original vision and philosophy. McDonald’s really funded our growth from the time we had about 15 restaurants to about 500. But throughout the relationship, we ran quite autonomously. Hope that helps.