PROUD MEX FLEX

Chipotle shares up on strong Q1

Chipotle has its mojo back.

The burrito chain had a Kumbayah moment on Tuesday after reporting first-quarter results that beat Wall Street’s expectations and sent its stock up in the 3-percent-to-5percent range in afterhours trading — hitting a new 52-week high.

Customers are back, employees are happier, sales are up and the restaurants are cleaner than ever, Chipotle’s executive team crowed on a conference call.

“Since December, we’ve implemented sweeping changes” aimed at improving the customer experience, said founder and Chief Executive Steven Ells, who became the sole CEO in December when Monty Moran was ousted.

Ells credits improvements to the company’s management program, which has resulted in lower staff turnover.

The company earned a profit of $46.1 million, or $1.60 a share, as sales rose 28.1 percent, to $1.07 billion, in the period. A year ago the Denver-based chain lost $26.4 million.

Same-store sales — a key metric that had been redder than uncooked beef for more than a year — rose 17.8 percent.

“Chipotle can continue to recover, but it will still be years before they get back to their pre-crisis level of $16 EPS,” said John Gordon, principal of Pacific Management Consulting. “There is some implicit feeling that this is still a special company.”

Emboldened, Chipotle is even raising prices by 5 percent in certain markets.

For the first time, it began running TV spots — and plans to advertise through- out the year to keep its momentum going.

Not everyone has forgotten the company’s E. coli problems, though.

Stores on the West Coast and in the Northeast are still trailing those in the rest of the country, Ells said.

And some customers may have a new reason to complain about Chipotle.

The company disclosed that it’s investigating “unauthorized activity on our payment systems” that occurred at its restaurants between March 24 and April 18 this year.

“We anticipate notifying any customers and the restaurant locations that might have been affected,” said Chief Financial Officer John Hartung.