Inside: Chipolte

Movie Title--  Inside: Chipolte

Release Year--  2013

Runing Time--  21 Minutes

Film Type--  Documentary

A quick paced look at Steve Ells, the founder of Chipotle and it's 20 year history.

Steve Ells graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and his dream was to open an upscale restaurant.  With a $80,000 loan from his father, he started Chipolte to generate the income to be able to follow his dream.  In 1993, Steve opened the first Chipolte in Denver, Colorado.  With-in 5 years he had established 16 Chipolte restaurants.      

In 1998 McDonalds started investing in Chipotle and over a 7 year span invested $350 million in the company.  In 2006 McDonalds decided to put more focus on their core business and customers and parted ways with Chipolte, making over $670 million in the deal.  When Chipotle went public in 2006, they already had over 500 locations on the map, causing the stock to double in one day, making it the 2nd best restaurant IPO in history and today (as of 2013 when this was released) is worth over $12 billion.  As of 2013 there are more than 1400 Chipotle restaurants worldwide.

Chipotle, along with other restaurants such as Panera Bread, Qdoba Mexican Grill and Subway, are known as "Fast Casual" restaurants, which is currently the fastest growing category in the food sales industry, the sales growth being more than 13% in 2012, which was higher than fast food growth. 

Steve Ells keeps a hands on business approach, keeping involved in everything from hiring processes to the design of the furniture inside the restaurant.  He uses locally grown food when he can and only buys naturally raised meat after it upset him to see how the animals were treated at industrial farms.  He tries to keep Chipotle at high standards in all aspects of business and promotes employees from with-in.  

1/3 of Chipotle's sales goes to it's ingredients.  The main menu has hardly changed in 20 years.  Keeping a simple and barely unchanged menu helps keep the focus on the food instead of teaching employees new preparations and using money on marketing.  Although, in June 2013 a new ingredient was added to California restaurants; Sofritas.  Sofritas are made with tofu, bringing a whole new customer base into the restaurant.

The Cultivate Festival that Chipotle hosts every year is one way they market their product with cooking demos, eating drinking and booths to educate consumers on stuff like sustainable agriculture and the dangers of industrial farming.  It is "Food with Integrity" by way of an all day party.  They are also currently shooting a web series called "Farmed and Dangerous" about industrial farming.

Steve has also started a new chain called "Shophouse" that focuses on Southeast Asian food.  There are currently 2; one in Washington D.C. and one in Hollywood with plans for 6 more by 2014.

If you are looking for quick and informative, look no further than this.  The Netflix series "Inside" skips all the long drawn out explanations and cuts right to the core of things.  I found myself interested in this and not being bored with tons of facts that I can do nothing with or don't really care about.

For anyone with a love for Chipotle or anyone who has tried it a few times, it is really interesting to see where all the concepts have come from for the restaurant, this documentary is worth the 21 minutes it takes to watch it.  Watch this one and look for more documentaries from me from the "Inside" series and Don't Forget the (organic?) Popcorn!