Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc.
Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, owns and operates Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants. It sells food and beverages, such as burritos, burrito bowls, quesadillas, tacos, and salads, as well as kids's meals, chips, and sides. It offers Mexican-inspired meals using responsibly sourced meats, such as chicken, beef, and pork branded as Responsibly Raised. The company also provides digital ordering through its website, mobile app, and third-party delivery platforms. It has operations in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Newport Beach, California.
What does it do?
Chipotle is a fast-casual restaurant chain where you build your own Mexican-inspired meal — choose a burrito, bowl, tacos, or salad, then pile on rice, beans, meat, salsa, and guac. There are over 3,700 locations mostly across the US, with a small but growing presence in Canada, the UK, France, and Germany. Unlike McDonald's or Taco Bell, Chipotle doesn't franchise — it owns and runs every single restaurant itself. Think of it as the premium end of fast food: faster than a sit-down restaurant, but more expensive and fresher than a drive-through.
Chipotle has become a benchmark for whether Americans are still willing to spend on 'affordable luxuries' — a $12 burrito bowl is a small treat that holds up even when budgets tighten, making it a useful signal for consumer health. It's also one of the most-watched examples of a restaurant chain successfully going digital, with roughly 35% of its sales now coming from its app and website. At a $41 billion market cap, investors are paying a premium price for what they expect to be years of steady growth — so every earnings report is closely scrutinized.
How does it make money?
Chipotle makes virtually all of its money one way: selling food and drinks directly to customers in its restaurants and through digital orders. In its latest full year, it brought in $11.9 billion in revenue, up from $11.3 billion the year before — that's about 5% growth. Because it owns all its restaurants (no franchising), every dollar of revenue flows through Chipotle itself, but so does every cost — rent, staff wages, food ingredients, and utilities. Net income (the actual profit left after all expenses) came in at $1.5 billion, which means roughly 12 cents of profit for every dollar of sales.
Why do investors care?
The core growth story is simple: build more restaurants. Chipotle has said it believes the US alone can support 7,000 locations — nearly double what it has today. Each new restaurant is relatively cheap to open compared to the cash it generates once running, which creates a self-funding growth engine. International expansion into Europe and Canada is still early-stage and represents a second runway if the US growth story ever slows. The thing that has to go right: new restaurants need to keep performing well, food costs need to stay manageable, and customers need to keep choosing Chipotle over cheaper or newer alternatives.
Deep Dive
MemberA full investor briefing on Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. — history, leadership, risks, and outlook.