Is Chipotle A Fast Food Restaurant?

Chipotle upended the restaurant business when it rose to popularity in the 1990s and 2000s, leading the way for a new type of dining experience: fast casual. Fast casual could be defined as a self-service restaurant (meaning there is no waitstaff) that offers made-to-order meals. The phrase, which was coined in the '90s, has also come to imply more elevated decor than a fast food establishment, as well as a healthier menu. With all this in mind (as well as all of the recent changes Chipotle has made and its eye toward the future), can this chain actually be considered a fast food restaurant these days?

Chipotle falls under the fast casual umbrella of restaurants, along with Panera and Five Guys, but it's on a slippery slope; and it has started to bridge a gap between fast casual and fast food. This is in contrast with a time when (during its surge in popularity in the 2000s) it was seen to bridge the gap between fast food and casual dining. Chipotle: Always on the cutting edge. The chain has taken incremental steps toward embracing more aspects of the fast food dining experience, but seems to pull itself back from the brink before crossing the boundary entirely.

The parts of Chipotle that are fast casual still remain: premium prices (a meal consisting of a burrito, chips with salsa, and a soft drink is about five dollars more than a Big Mac meal at McDonald's) and premium ingredients that are assembled right in front of you when you order in-restaurant. But after an E. coli blip in 2015, the chain did change up aspects of their supply chain in order to make food safer for customers, which included some pre-prepared ingredients shipped into stores that formerly got prepared on-site. (At least their tasty tortilla chips are still tossed behind the counters.)

There was also the introduction in 2019 of Chipotlanes, drive-thru windows for orders that were placed digitally via the app or Chipotle website. While stopping short of going full fast food and offering ordering at these windows, they are nonetheless reminiscent of that process, even if their purpose (to get people their pre-ordered food more quickly) is different. And it's not just Chipotle that is blurring the lines by embracing aspects of fast food. Fast food chains are upping their game and incorporating elements of fast casual (and even casual) dining into their business models. Like in 2016 when McDonald's introduced ordering kiosks and even table service to some of their restaurants.