Has Chipotle’s time in the UK finally come?
The menu at Chipotle comprises just 53 ingredients. Not dishes, ingredients; and two of those are salt and pepper (to put this context, McDonald’s fries in the US are said to contain 19 ingredients alone). The US-based Mexican grill band, which was originally founded in Denver, Colorado, in the early 90s, bills itself as being committed to ‘food with integrity’ that’s free from artificial colours, flavours or preservatives.
As such, unlike most of its competitors operating in the QSR space, everything on Chipotle’s menu of burritos, bowls, quesadillas, tacos and salads – from the guacamole and tortilla chips to the meats and dressings – is prepared and cooked daily in house at each of the group’s restaurants. There’s no central kitchen and, as the group states, there are no freezers, microwaves or can openers in any of its sites.
Ensuring consistency in the food across Chipotle’s growing UK estate is one of the many tasks overseen by Ben Williams, managing director of the group’s European operations. “It’s a challenge,” he says, frankly. “We work with real ingredients and on the one hand there are the changes in the seasons we have to consider, so it’s all about getting ahead of that and working with the right suppliers and setting those standards down the supply chain.
“In the restaurants, though, consistency is down to making sure we’ve got the right training in place, and that our staff care about the food they serve.”
To that end, shift managers at each Chipotle restaurant conduct regular line tastings throughout the day, every day, checking the flavour, appearance, colour and texture of the various menu options being served. On top of that there are dedicated tasting stations in each kitchen, where staff will check and taste the food before it goes out onto the line.
“Everything about Chipotle as a brand is about fresh, healthy and delicious.
And if it’s not those things then it’s not going on the menu”
When Restaurant meets Williams on an unseasonably warm autumnal morning at Chipotle’s new London restaurant on Gloucester Road, the kitchen has a full brigade in overseeing the food prep ahead of opening time. Chicken is being grilled on the huge plancha; someone is mashing a giant bowl of avocados for the guacamole; from the back comes the whizzing of a machine mixing the honey vinaigrette.
“Buying stuff in is not who we are,” Williams continues. “Everything about Chipotle as a brand is about fresh, healthy and delicious. And if it’s not those things then it’s not going on the menu.
“Inevitably there are occasional differences between restaurants, but we’ve worked hard to make sure we have the necessary tools and systems in place to ensure consistency in the food across our estate.”
An expanding footprint
Gloucester Road is Chipotle’s 20th site in London and a significant milestone for the brand on these shores. The group, which has more than 3,000 sites worldwide and claims to be the only company of its size that owns and operates its restaurants globally (only its recent expansion into the Middle East is run under franchise), made its UK debut on London’s Charing Cross Road back in 2010. A flurry of additional openings in the centre of the capital followed, but its growth soon stalled.
Unlike most US chains that try their luck this side of the pond, Chipotle has always maintained a note of restraint in its discussions about growth. Speaking to Restaurant in 2012, Chipotle’s director of European operations, Jacob Sumner, said the brand was targeting a more gradual expansion in the UK compared to the US, citing hyper-growth as ‘very risky’.
Still, it’s clear that London has been a tough market for the burrito brand to crack, with its first decade in the UK defined by lengthy gaps between openings and encompassing a handful of closures. By 2020, Chipotle operated an estate of just eight UK sites, all based in the capital.
Then, in early 2021, the group’s then-chief executive Brian Niccol revealed he was considering plans to further grow the UK portfolio. The following year, Williams, who has worked for Chipotle for more than 20 years, relocated from the US to the UK to oversee the expansion.
Since Williams arrived, Chipotle’s UK expansion has been more rapid, with the group opening 10 new sites in the past 18 months. While the majority of its growth has remained concentrated in the capital, it has established a foothold just outside of London in Watford.
“We knew that the opportunity to grow our footprint has always been great,” says Williams. “At the same time, though, because we’re company owned, we’ve had to take time to ensure our overall strategies are aligned internationally.”
Cracking the market
Williams admits that the group’s UK arm made errors in the years prior to his arrival. “It was Chipotle, but there were some aspects where we had strayed. We hadn’t kept up menu development; and the operation needed some guidance.”
To get ‘everything moving in the same direction’, he began implementing a plan focused on aligning Chipotle’s UK operation more closely with that in the US, where the group opens more than 300 new sites every year. This included adding new items to the menu, including quesadillas and freshly fried tortilla chips (previously the group ordered them in already fried) and working with suppliers to ensure consistency across all ingredients (“we don’t have much, so we need it to all be perfect”).
A change to the brand’s positioning was also introduced. For years, Chipotle’s signage in the UK included the tagline ‘salads, bowls and burritos’, which frustrated Williams when he saw it. “The reality was that the salads were not focal to our offering compared to the burritos, so it didn’t make sense to list them in that order.” The argument was that not enough UK diners knew what burritos were, which may well have been the case when Chipotle first arrived in 2010, but certainly isn’t now.
Indeed, in the years since Chipotle launched on Charing Cross Road, the appetite for Mexican cuisine has grown exponentially in the UK. In the QSR market this has been driven primarily by the success of Tortilla, which was launched by San Francisco natives Brandon and Jen Stephens in 2007 and has now grown to more than 80 sites across the UK.
Recently, the space has seen the arrival of another major player in the form of Ireland-based Mexican restaurant brand Boojum, which was acquired by ASK Italian, Zizzi and Coco di Mama owner Azzurri last year. Since then, the group has opened sites in Leeds and Nottingham, with outposts in Birmingham and Liverpool due imminently. In total, Boojum is aiming to open 25 sites in the UK within the next five years.
Is the prospect of a second nationwide chain muscling in on Chipotle’s territory a worry for Williams as he looks to grow the business further? On the contrary: “The competition doesn’t concern me,” he insists. “I’m excited by it as it encourages me to keep focused on what we do, which is staying authentic to ourselves and true to our brand values.
“There’s plenty of space in London and across the UK for us and our competitors”
“There is a demand in London and across Western Europe for more options in the Mexican food market. It’s still very untapped. I lived in Southern California for years, where taco shops are as populous as pubs are in the UK. There aren’t a lot of options here, and even though they appear similar on the outside the brands we do have are different to each other.
“There’s plenty of space in London and across the UK for us and our competitors.”
Building brand loyalty
The impact of Chipotle’s recent evolution in the UK can be measured not only in the increasing speed of its expansion, but also in its financials. Turnover rose to a record £26.2m in the year to 31 December 2023, up from £17.9m the previous year.
Writing in the report, Williams said that the group’s further development in the UK would partially depend on its ability to increase sales and drive brand awareness. “Specifically, due to the lower consumer familiarity with the Chipotle brand, sales at restaurants in the UK may take longer to ramp up and reach expected sales levels,” he wrote.
To that end, Chipotle became the latest in the growing number of UK restaurant brands to launch its own loyalty app earlier this year. Like many similar apps in the fast-casual space, Chipotle’s one allows customers to make click-and-collect orders and thus skip the queue at its restaurants; collect rewards; and take advantage of special offers, such as ‘free guac’ Mondays in September.
“The response to the app has been phenomenal,” says Williams. “It’s important as it allows us to engage with our customers directly, which is key to building the brand and growing our business.”
Finding the correct site also plays into this. Its Gloucester Road restaurant, for example, is housed in a former HSBC bank. It’s a big, impressive space with a bright, contemporary design that includes a trendy art fixture (in the shape of a chilli, naturally). The site holds around 50 seats and features a huge skylight that covers nearly the entire dining area. “When the site came up, we saw an opportunity to make something special and highlight what we can do from both a food and design point of view,” says Williams.
In terms of size, Chipotle’s UK estate features a broad range of smaller and larger sites, with the group primarily guided by location when choosing where to open. “There’s no set footprint of what we must have. As we make food fresh, we need a suitably sized back of house, but beyond that it’s about the location and community.
“We look for restaurants that can serve the multiple day parts. We try to be near universities and student hubs as we perform well with young people; but we also target areas with high tourist and office footfall.”
Organic growth
So where does Chipotle hope to go next? Willams says the focus remains on central London where it is still building brand recognition, but as that awareness grows it will give the company space to expand outside of London and across the UK.
In terms of how big Chipotle could eventually get in the UK, he is tight lipped. His focus, he says, is on ensuring Chipotle in the UK mirrors that in the US. “One thing I did when I moved over here was look at other US brands and see what they’ve done is stay true to who they are.” He singles out Five Guys as having successfully aligned its branding on both sides of the pond.
“We’re not trying to recreate the wheel over here. Chipotle has almost 3,500 restaurants globally. For us it’s about adjusting when we need to in order to adapt to a market, while staying true to the brand and its ethos.”
He adds that the benefit of Chipotle’s company-owned business model protects it from the ‘outside pressures’ that can come from franchising and allows for organic growth.
“Taking the time to understand what works and what doesn’t have been important to our strategy. We haven’t been perfect, but we’ve learned from the mistakes we’ve made. We have more understanding about what works and what doesn’t now. We’re in a place where we can look to accelerate our growth.”
