With around 3,200 locations in the U.S., Chipotle Mexican Grill Incorporated has announced plans to build more of a presence in the nation’s rural areas.
Several new studies have shown that the Newport Beach, California chain restaurant has increased facility construction in towns well beyond the suburbs, some with populations numbering only in the tens of thousands.
A report put together by the publication Consumer Edge notes that Chipotle’s growth rate in rural areas has been anywhere from 1% to 5% greater than its growth rate in metro area in the last two years.
The report notes that Chipotle’s management team “has their eyes on an additional 700 to 800 small town locations,” comprising around 20% of all new planned restaurants in the next several years.
The company itself has said that those rural locations will go up in areas with populations of 40,000 people or less.
The publication Marketplace targets Chipotle’s rural strategy to the early months of the Covid 19 outbreak and national economic shutdown. The advent of hybrid work “created a lot of communities where per-capita the number of restaurants is low. Plus, for businesses, labor and rent cost less in small towns.”
The company “typically goes big when it comes to town,” reports the Wall Street Journal, which additionally noted that the chain “often puts up banners advertising its restaurants is coming soon and invites freshly recruited employees to bring their family and friends inside for free food.”
Altogether, Chipotle has said that it plans to open anywhere from 255 to 285 new locations during this calendar year, although how many will be located in rural areas has not been revealed.
The 10th largest restaurant chain in the U.S., with revenue of around $8.6 billion last year, Chipotle has seen its physical presence expand by bounds and leaps nearly every year of the last decade. In 2013, the company had just over 1,500 locations. But by the year 2000, the count was up to nearly 2,800.
The typical Chipotle outlet measures around 2,000 square feet to 3,500 square feet and sits on anywhere from half an acre to an acre of land. The restaurants’ design places an emphasis on the use of stainless steel, corrugated metal, and plywood.
The company has a heavy presence in California with 466 locations, followed by Texas with 289 and Ohio at 234.
By Garry Boulard
