What is Chipotle?
Company-operated fast-casual restaurants built around customizable burritos, bowls, tacos, salads, digital ordering, and Chipotlanes.
- Category
- Fast-casual restaurants
- Headquarters
- Newport Beach, CA
- Founded
- 1993
- Employees
- 130,000+
- Total funding
- Public company; IPO 2006
- Status
- NYSE: CMG; ~$42B market cap
What is Chipotle?
Chipotle is a U.S.-based fast-casual restaurant company known for customizable burritos, bowls, tacos, salads, and a company-operated restaurant model. As of December 31, 2025, it had 4,056 restaurants and more than 130,000 employees.
Chipotle sells Mexican-inspired meals prepared from a focused set of ingredients, with guests ordering in restaurants, through the Chipotle app and website, and through delivery channels. The company generated $11.9 billion of revenue in fiscal 2025, up 5.4%, and reported 36.7% of food and beverage revenue from digital sales.
The operating model is unusual at Chipotle's scale because the company owns and operates its restaurants in North America and Europe instead of running a heavily franchised system. That gives Chipotle more direct control over food standards, labor model, pricing, site selection, and the rollout of Chipotlanes, its drive-thru pickup format for digital orders.
Growth is driven by new restaurant openings, throughput, menu innovation, loyalty, digital ordering, and international expansion. Management's 2026 outlook called for 350 to 370 new restaurant openings, with roughly 80% of company-owned openings expected to include a Chipotlane.
What does Chipotle offer?
Chipotle offers a focused restaurant menu, digital ordering, catering and group meal options, loyalty, delivery, and pickup experiences.
- Burritos· Menu
- Bowls· Menu
- Tacos· Menu
- Salads and quesadillas· Menu
- Chipotle Rewards· Loyalty
- Digital ordering· Commerce
- Chipotlane pickup· Restaurant format
- Catering and Build-Your-Own Chipotle· Group occasions
How does Chipotle make money?
Chipotle makes money primarily from food and beverage sales at company-operated restaurants, plus a small delivery-service revenue line and partner-operated international restaurants.
Chipotle's revenue is mainly the ticket a guest pays for meals and add-ons. Menu prices vary by restaurant, market, channel, entree, protein, and delivery partner, so Chipotle does not publish one national price tier; its website and app quote the current store-specific price before checkout. In 2025, food and beverage revenue represented nearly all revenue, while delivery service revenue was a small separate line.
Unit economics depend on average restaurant sales, transaction volume, labor, food and packaging costs, occupancy, and digital mix. In fiscal 2025, restaurant-level operating margin was 25.4%, down from 26.7% the prior year, while full-year operating margin was 16.2%.
The growth model is to open more restaurants, add Chipotlanes where real estate allows, use digital and loyalty to lift frequency, and improve throughput and order accuracy with equipment and process changes. Because the company-operated model absorbs labor and commodity volatility directly, pricing power and operational efficiency matter more than royalty rates.
Who leads Chipotle?
Chipotle is led by CEO Scott Boatwright, with Adam Rymer as CFO and Curt Garner leading strategy and technology.
- Scott BoatwrightChief Executive OfficerCEO since November 2024; previously COO/Chief Restaurant OfficerLeads the company after serving as interim CEO and as the operations leader behind restaurant execution.
- Adam RymerChief Financial OfficerCFO since 2025; long-time Chipotle finance leaderOwns financial planning, reporting, capital allocation, and the public-company finance function.
- Curt GarnerPresident, Chief Strategy and Technology OfficerJoined 2015; expanded role in 2025Leads digital platform, technology integration, data security, and strategic initiatives.
- Jason KiddChief Operating OfficerNamed COO in 2025Responsible for restaurant operations as Chipotle expands its unit base and Chipotlane footprint.
How do you contact Chipotle's leadership?
Chipotle publishes investor, media, and consumer contact routes, but it does not publish a verified personal executive email pattern. Use public company aliases or the contact form; do not treat guessed personal emails as verified.
mediarelations@chipotle.com and investor relations/contact forms are public; personal email format not verifiedHow much funding has Chipotle raised?
Chipotle is a public company, not a venture-backed startup profile: it went public in 2006, trades on the NYSE as CMG, and had a market capitalization of roughly $42 billion in June 2026.
For Chipotle, the useful capital history is public-market status and balance-sheet capacity rather than private funding rounds. McDonald's was an early strategic investor before Chipotle's 2006 IPO, and Chipotle has since funded expansion primarily through restaurant cash flow, public equity access, and disciplined capital allocation rather than recurring venture rounds.
In fiscal 2025, Chipotle generated $11.9 billion in revenue and $1.54 billion of net income. It also repurchased $2.4 billion of stock during 2025 and had $1.7 billion remaining under repurchase authorizations at year-end, signaling a mature public-company capital structure rather than a capital-starved expansion model.
Seller signal: Chipotle has the scale to buy enterprise technology, supply-chain systems, food-safety tooling, restaurant automation, workforce systems, and digital commerce products, but vendors should expect formal procurement, security review, pilot discipline, and a strong bias toward measurable restaurant throughput or guest-experience impact.
How did Chipotle get here?
Chipotle grew from a single Denver restaurant into a global public restaurant company with more than 4,000 locations.
- 1993Founded in DenverSteve Ells opened the first Chipotle restaurant in Denver, Colorado.
- 1998McDonald's investmentMcDonald's became an early strategic investor, helping fund national expansion.
- 2006IPO on the NYSEChipotle became a public company under ticker CMG.
- 2018Headquarters move announcedChipotle announced plans to relocate headquarters from Denver to Newport Beach, California.
- 2024Scott Boatwright becomes CEOBoatwright was appointed permanent CEO after serving as interim CEO.
- 2025Passes 4,000 restaurantsChipotle ended 2025 with 4,056 restaurants and $11.9B in annual revenue.
Who are Chipotle's competitors?
Chipotle competes with fast-casual Mexican chains, quick-service restaurants, and digital-forward restaurant brands fighting for lunch, dinner, catering, and delivery occasions.
- QdobaFast-casual Mexican chain with franchised restaurants and a similar customizable entree format.
- Taco BellValue-oriented Mexican-inspired QSR with a heavily franchised global footprint and late-night strength.
- CavaFast-casual Mediterranean chain with a comparable assembly-line ordering model and high-growth public profile.
- SweetgreenDigital-forward fast-casual salad and bowl chain competing for health-oriented urban meals.
- Shake ShackPremium fast-casual burger brand competing for higher-check quick meals and urban real estate.
Chipotle — frequently asked questions
