Who Owns Chipotle?

Steve Ells was a 28-year-old Culinary Institute of America graduate when he opened the first Chipotle in a former Dolly Madison ice cream shop near the University of Denver on July 13, 1993. He had worked as a line cook at Stars in San Francisco, where he watched taqueria assembly lines serve Mission-style burritos, and he adapted the format with restaurant-grade ingredients and an open kitchen. The store needed roughly $114 a day to break even. It cleared that many times over within weeks.

Ells had planned to bankroll a fine dining restaurant with the proceeds. Instead he opened a second location in 1995 and kept building, funded by an SBA loan and his father. McDonald's arrived as an investor in 1998 and by 2001 was the largest shareholder. Its capital took Chipotle from 16 locations to more than 500, but the relationship strained over franchising, breakfast service, and drive-throughs, all of which Ells resisted. McDonald's exited around the January 2006 IPO, which priced at $22 per share and more than doubled on day one.

The next decade made Chipotle the defining fast casual brand. It pioneered the premium positioning between fast food and casual dining, built its Food With Integrity sourcing identity around naturally raised meat and local produce, expanded to Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, and watched its stock rise into the high $700s by 2015.

Then the model broke. Between October 2015 and 2016, a series of foodborne illness outbreaks, including E. coli O26 cases across a dozen states, a norovirus outbreak near Boston College, and salmonella in Minnesota, sickened hundreds of customers. Comparable sales fell more than 20% and the stock lost about half its value. Ells stepped down as CEO in late 2017 and left the company.

Taco Bell CEO Brian Niccol arrived in March 2018, moved headquarters from Denver to Newport Beach, California, and rebuilt the brand around digital ordering, pickup shelves, and the Chipotlane drive-through lane. Digital sales grew to roughly a third of revenue. Scott Boatwright, the chief restaurant officer, succeeded Niccol in November 2024 after Niccol left for Starbucks.

FY2025 delivered the brand's first annual comparable sales decline since 2016, down 1.7% as inflation pressured its younger, lower-income customer base. Revenue still grew 5.4% to $11.9 billion on 345 new openings, and the company launched its Recipe for Growth strategy in February 2026. In 2026 the brand entered Mexico through operator Alsea and opened its first Asian restaurant in Seoul, South Korea, in September through a joint venture with Sangmidang Holdings, with Singapore planned for 2027.