The US burrito brand confirmed to Restaurant that the site on Watford High Street closed in late December.
Laurie Schalow, chief corporate affairs officer for Chipotle, said: “As part of our ongoing operations, we reviewed the performance of our Watford restaurant and made the difficult decision to close the location.
“Our employees were offered opportunities at other Chipotle restaurants in the London area.”
Chipotle Watford marked the group’s first UK restaurant outside of London when it opened back in June 2022.
The brand made its UK debut on London’s Charing Cross Road back in 2010, but only in recent years has it begun expanding at pace.
In July 2023 it opened a site in Guildford, its second outside of London, as part of an expansion drive that saw Chipotle double the size of its UK estate over an 18-month period.
It now operates 20 UK restaurants in total.
Chipotle positions itself as serving ‘food with integrity’ that’s free from artificial colours, flavours or preservatives.
It operates more than 3,000 sites worldwide and claims to be the only company of its size that owns and operates all of its restaurants globally.
Speaking to Restaurant at the end of last year, Ben Williams, managing director of Chipotle’s European operations, said there’s plenty of space in London and across the UK for the group to grow.
“Taking the time to understand what works and what doesn’t have been important to our strategy,” he said.
“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.”
