Chipotle 2012 Annual Report Download - page 7

customers an hour at some locations. The natural flow of our restaurant layout, including the floor plan and the
design of our serving line, are designed to make the food ordering process intuitive and, we believe, more
efficient. And we constantly strive to improve the speed of service in all of our restaurants, so that we can
accommodate more customers and larger orders without disrupting restaurant traffic. For instance, our
restaurants accept orders by fax, online or through an iPhone ordering application in order to provide a more
convenient experience by allowing customers to avoid standing in line. By emphasizing speed of service without
compromising the genuine interactions between our customers and our crews, and by continually making
improvements to our restaurants, we believe that we can provide a high quality experience to more and more
customers.
Quality Assurance and Food Safety. We are committed to serving safe, high quality food to our customers.
Quality and food safety is integrated throughout our supply chain and everything we do; from the farms that
supply our food all the way through to our front line. We have established close relationships with some of the
top suppliers in the industry, and we actively maintain a limited list of approved suppliers from whom our
distributors must purchase. Our quality assurance department establishes and monitors our quality and food
safety programs for our supply chain. Our training and risk management departments develop and implement
operating standards for food quality, preparation, cleanliness and safety in the restaurants. Our food safety
programs are also designed to assure that we comply with applicable federal, state and local food safety
regulations.
Restaurant Management and Operations
Culture of Top Performers. In addition to our focus on the food we serve, we have a similarly focused
people culture with an emphasis on identifying, hiring and empowering top performing employees. We are
committed to creating a performance based culture that leads to the best restaurant experience possible for our
employees and our customers. The foundation of that culture starts with hiring the best people in our restaurants.
We make an effort to hire employees who share a passion for food and who will operate our restaurants in a way
that is consistent with our high standards, yet allows each of their unique personalities and strengths to contribute
to our success. We believe we provide attractive career opportunities to crew and managers who are committed
to work hard, provide great customer service and have the ability to lead and empower a team of top performers.
We provide hands on, shoulder-to-shoulder training to develop the full potential of our restaurant employees. We
are committed to developing our people and promoting from within, with about 96% of salaried management and
almost 99% of hourly management coming from internal promotions. Our best general managers, who run great
restaurants and develop strong, empowered restaurant teams, are promoted to Restaurateur and in that role can
earn bonuses for developing people. We’ve leveraged our outstanding Restaurateurs’ leadership by giving many
Restaurateurs responsibility for mentoring one or more nearby restaurants. This provides an opportunity for
Restaurateurs to develop field leadership roles one restaurant at a time. Restaurateurs who have shown they can
successfully run four restaurants by developing teams of all top performers (including at least one Restaurateur),
thereby creating a culture of high standards, constant improvement and empowerment in each of their
restaurants, can be promoted to apprentice team leaders.
Importance of Methods and Culture. Although we have many restaurants, we believe that our departure
from the automated cooking techniques and microwaves used by many traditional fast-food and fast-casual
restaurants helps to set us apart. Our crews use classic cooking methods: they marinate and grill meats, hand-cut
produce and herbs, make fresh salsa and guacamole, and cook rice in small batches throughout the day. They
work in kitchens that more closely resemble those of high-end restaurants than they do a typical fast-food place.
Despite our more labor-intensive method of food preparation, our focused menu creates efficiencies which allow
us to serve high quality food made from ingredients typically found in fine dining restaurants.
The Front Line is Key. Our restaurant and kitchen designs intentionally place crew members up front with
customers to reinforce our focus on service, and our open kitchen design allows customers to see that we prepare
our food fresh, each and every day. All of our restaurant employees are encouraged to interact with customers no
matter their job, whether preparing food or serving customers during our busiest period. We focus on attracting
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Annual Report