Selling burritos back to Mexico: Chipotle’s bold expansion
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 8 hours ago
- 4 min read
By JAMES WAGNER
The line of nearly 200 customers for the restaurant’s recent grand opening stretched on both sides of the main entrance, with some patrons arriving four hours early despite the heat. Many had been anticipating this day for months.
When the workers pressed a button meant to look like a burrito wrapped in aluminum foil, the facade of the restaurant was unveiled and confetti shot into the air.
In the homeland of tacos, burritos and quesadillas, a new competitor has entered the market: Chipotle, the Mexican-inspired fast casual chain that is ubiquitous in the United States.
“What pride that the first one in Mexico and in Latin America is here,” said Gaby Rodríguez, 44, a lawyer from Monterrey who was the first person in line, in an affluent suburb of that city. The first 100 customers got a free Chipotle tote bag, T-shirt and hat.
But after another American chain, Taco Bell, failed twice south of the border, can Chipotle successfully sell its version of Mexican food to Mexicans in Mexico?
Mexicans take enormous pride in their cuisine, which is widely recognized as one of the world’s best. It has reached all over the globe thanks, in large part, to Mexican migration.
As it traveled, Mexican food evolved to fit the available local ingredients and tastes. Chipotle, named for a smoked and dried jalapeño pepper, is a prime example of this adaptation, inspired by San Francisco’s taco and burrito shops in the early 1990s. It has since grown into a massive chain with over 4,000 locations, primarily in the United States.
Many of Chipotle’s first customers in Mexico were people nostalgic to eat it again after having visited or lived in the United States. One couple met through Chipotle in the United States years ago before moving to Mexico. A good chunk of customers were in their 20 and 30s, wearing trendy clothing or caps featuring U.S. professional sports teams. One woman filmed herself eating, like an influencer.
Tomás González Bolado, 51, who runs a renewable energy company, noticed the Chipotle across the street from his son’s private school and remembered that his brother-in-law, a Mexican in the United States, said it was his favorite restaurant.
Bolado lived in the United States for four years, but said he had never eaten at Chipotle because he tried Taco Bell and didn’t like it. His review: Chipotle’s steak burrito was “nothing special,” but the chicken in the bowl (not the rice, though) was “spectacular” and the prices were “very good.”
Jesús Guzmán, 35, a trader, said he liked eating at Chipotle when visiting Houston for work and was curious to try it in Mexico, so he brought his fiancee for lunch. But Karla Téllez, 31, an engineer, was less thrilled. The first time she had a Chipotle burrito in the United States, she said, “What is this atrocity? Why do they put rice in it?” She said she planned to take a few bites and give her fiance the rest.
For at least five years, Mexico had been a target of Chipotle, said Pablo Marcelo de Brito, the managing director of new brands for Alsea, the Mexican restaurant operator partnering with Chipotle in Mexico. It also runs Starbucks, Domino’s, the Cheesecake Factory and other American brands in the country.
De Brito said the Monterrey metropolitan area, with a population of 5 million, was chosen as Chipotle’s initial foray because the two countries’ cultures are so heavily intertwined here.
Monterrey, known as Mexico’s industrial capital, is roughly three hours by car from the Texas border. De Brito pointed to the purchasing power per capita of the area, the highest in Mexico, and specifically San Pedro Garza García, one of the richest municipalities in Latin America, where Chipotle opened its first restaurant in one of the higher-end shopping malls.
In Mexico, where the average person lives five minutes from a taqueria, de Brito said Chipotle hoped to offer an option between cheap street food and expensive fine dining. Because the average Mexican earns less than the average American, de Brito said, Chipotle’s prices are roughly 25% lower here.
After recently eating at a longtime local taco and burrito chain called Tacos Leal in downtown Monterrey, Arturo Medrano, 50, who works in finance, said he had seen Chipotle in the United States but never tried it.
Unlike Chipotle, Tacos Leal serves dozens of different tacos and burritos — from potatoes with eggs to red or green chicharrón. The most popular burritos have only carne asada, cheese and maybe refried beans. The tortillas are seared until lightly blistered, while Chipotle’s are heated swiftly in a press.
Priced between $3.70 and $6.30, Tacos Leal’s burritos are smaller and simpler. Toppings are kept to a minimum with onions, cilantro and limes, while the salsas bring significantly more heat.
Medrano said he rarely eats Mexican food north of the border because the tortillas don’t quite taste the same, and dishes often come with yellow cheese (rather than the typical Mexican white cheese) plus sour cream, lettuce and rice.
“If I want my Mexican food,” he said, “I live in Mexico and I’ll eat my Mexican food here.”
De Brito, the restaurant executive, said Chipotle hoped to open six to eight restaurants in the Monterrey area within the next year before expanding to the rest of the country. Chipotle said it has an expansion into Mexico City planned for 2027.
Asked if he had heard of Chipotle, Ignacio Juárez Aparicio, 59, an art dealer who lives in Mexico City but visits Monterrey regularly, said “the pepper, yes.”