Chipotle Mexican Grill gets back to its roots with plans to open in Mexico

Chipotle Mexican Grill announced Monday it volition unfastened its archetypal edifice successful Mexico by aboriginal 2026, partnering with Alsea, which operates brands including Starbucks, Domino’s, Burger King and Chili’s crossed Latin America and Europe.

For the archetypal clip since its founding 32 years agone successful Denver, Colorado, Chipotle volition grow its operating exemplary into the homeland of the cuisine that inspired its menu, with plans to research further markets successful the region.

Some are speculating the enlargement volition statesman successful Mexico City, since that’s wherever Alsea is headquartered, but thing authoritative has been stated.

The fast-casual edifice is named aft the chipotle chili pepper, a smoke-dried mentation of a ripe jalapeño capsicum that Mexico News Daily gave a 3 connected the spiciness scale. In the Nahuatl (Aztec) language, chil means “chili pepper” and poctli means “smoked” — and it definite is bully successful galore recipes.

But portion Mexicans emotion chipotle peppers, volition they emotion Chipotle the restaurant?

“We are assured that our responsibly sourced, classically-cooked existent nutrient volition resonate with guests successful Mexico,” Nate Lawton, Chipotle’s main concern improvement officer, said successful a property release. “The country’s familiarity with our ingredients and affinity for caller nutrient marque it an charismatic maturation marketplace for our company.”

The determination comes arsenic U.S.-Mexico commercialized tensions stay high, with President Donald Trump’s tariffs connected Mexican imports impacting proviso chains.

Chipotle, which imports astir fractional of its avocados from Mexico, has expanded its sourcing to countries specified arsenic Colombia, Peru and the Dominican Republic to mitigate risks, institution officials said.

Adam Rymer, a main fiscal serviceman for Chipotle, said 2% of the restaurant’s paper offerings are sourced from Mexico, including avocados, tomatoes, limes and peppers, with little than 0.5% sourced from Canada and China.

“If the precocious announced tariffs spell into afloat effect, it would person an ongoing interaction of astir 60 ground points connected our outgo of sales,” Rymer said during a Feb. 4 net call.

Chipotle presently operates much than 3,700 restaurants worldwide and plans to unfastened betwixt 315 and 345 caller locations this year, with a semipermanent extremity of 7,000 successful the U.S. and Canada.

Chipotle’s planetary enlargement has accelerated successful caller years, with 58 restaurants successful Canada, 20 successful the United Kingdom, six successful France, 5 successful the Middle East and 2 successful Germany.

Chipotle is betting Mexicans volition similar its monolithic Tex-Mex burritos arsenic overmuch arsenic Americans. (Eric CC BY-NC 2.0)

However, analysts caution that American interpretations of Mexican cuisine person faced challenges successful Mexico — arsenic evidenced by 2 erstwhile failed attempts by Taco Bell to grow into Mexico.

Nonetheless, Chipotle and Alsea are optimistic astir the brand’s prospects successful Mexico, betting connected the entreaty of fresh, high-quality ingredients and a beardown operational partnership.

“Through this improvement agreement, we volition proceed to leverage our immense cognition of the Mexican user and edifice manufacture expertise to bring our customers the champion nutrient experiences and brands from astir the world,” said Armando Torrado, Alsea’s main enforcement officer.

With reports from Milenio, El Economista, Reuters and CNBC