Back in the Mex
Chipotle grills up holiday sales gain
Santa Claus gave Chipotle Mexican Grill a nice, shiny gift for Christmas — more customers.
The burrito chain said Tuesday same-store sales in December rose an impressive 14.7 percent, its first sales increase in about a year — since its food illness fiasco.
“I’m optimistic about 2017,” said Chipotle chief executive and founder, Steve Ells, at the ICR Conference in Orlando, Fla.
To be sure, same-store sales sagged in October and November, but showed improvement in the period, which produced a preliminary 4.8 percent drop in same-store sales, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Profits in the period are expected to come up short — 50 to 58 cents a share, compared with analyst es- timates of 96 cents.
On the strength of steadily improving sales, Chipotle shares gained 4.9 percent on Tuesday, to $414.48 — pushing its oneyear stock performance back into the black.
“The path to restoring our economic model is not complicated,” Ells said.
Ells placed the blame for Chipotle’s food crisis on the company’s elaborate hiring process — Chipotle would vet 17 job applicants on average for one position — and on inadequate employee training.
Instead of focusing on customer service, employees were more concerned with becoming so-called “restaurateurs,” the highest status within the stores, Ells said.
“There were 27 steps [to become a restaurateur] and our teams lost their focus on the customer,” Ells conceded.
Ells and his team are looking to boost business by expanding and sweetening the menu. This year, it will add its first dessert.
Management was vague on details, but said the dessert would be available in the spring and would not overburden stores as it would add just one ingredient to Chipotle’s kitchens that it does not have now.