Today, Chipotle CEO Steve Ells and head of marketing Mark Crumpacker are unveiling Chipotle NEXT Kitchen at 504 6th Avenue, the company’s only public-facing test kitchen. It will serve Chipotle’s newest dishes and drinks and test updated ordering technology, like the digital screens that display new menu items.

Chipotle NEXT Kitchen (unrelated to Grant Achatz’s Next in Chicago, the experimental restaurant that changes its menu every four months) will offer dishes like salad greens with an avocado citrus dressing as well as two kinds of frozen margaritas — one virgin strawberry and a classic margarita with blanco tequila. But the most anticipated new item is queso, which can be ordered with an entree, on the side, or with chips.

Queso, as it turns out, has been the most requested dish that’s not on the Chipotle menu. “All of our competitors sell queso, and we know some customers don’t come to Chipotle because we don’t offer it,” says Ells in an internal memo sent to the company’s approximately 65,000 employees today. “But because we refuse to use industrial additives, added colors, flavors or preservatives in our food, it’s very difficult to make queso that meets our standards,” until now.

The debut is part of a $50 million marketing plan to shape the what the future of the restaurant looks like, says Crumpacker; NEXT Kitchen is part of an internal “NEXT Team” — Chipotle employees from real estate, architecture, technology, operations, and menu development dedicated to exploring the future of the company.

NEXT Kitchen is also a strategic move as the burrito chain faces increased competition from other fast-casual restaurants and as it continues trying for a turnaround following flagging consumer confidence that started with the 2015 E. coli and norovirus outbreaks that sickened hundreds of people and continued through 2016.

This location follows the Chipotle concept kitchen in Chelsea back in 2011, led by then-culinary director Nate Appleman, who used the location to test suppliers, food prep systems, and production. NEXT Kitchen, led by culinary director Tim Wildin, is primarily about rolling new menu items and implementing staff training for how to create new dishes.

Queso is Chipotle’s most requested dish that’s not on the menu

The location also has new equipment — the frozen margarita machine, for example, that according to Ells, allows staff to serve drinks more quickly than early versions of margarita that were shaken as customers waited. An engineer who made the built-to-last tortilla maker several years back is building a new rice cooker that allows smaller batches to be made more often, among other things.

New menu items are relatively unusual for Chipotle: For a company that debuted in 1993, the first ones didn’t appear until 2014 with sofritas, followed by chorizo in 2016. In May, the company added buñuelos, fried tortillas topped with honey, sugar, and cinnamon, served with an apple caramel dipping sauce — with chocolate now available at this location today.

If a dish is super popular in this “very controlled setting” and if all things are in place in terms of staff training, new items will be rolled out to one or several markets, from 20 locations to “a couple hundred” restaurants, says Ells. The rollout of new items is easier now than, say, before 2015, since “training has never been more sophisticated,” he says.

Counting all the items on the menu, Chipotle uses only 60 ingredients total, with the company ordering products from big and small farms like Niman Ranch, a standard-setter in raising animals humanely, one of the values in Chipotle’s “food with integrity.”

Chipotle NEXT Kitchen follows the closing of 15 locations of ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen in March. ShopHouse opened in 2011 when Appleman and Wildin rolled out the concept in Washington, DC.

In April, first-time, same-store sales were up, due to a combination of improved customer service and streamlined digital orders, the Wall Street Journal reported. The company has also renewed its focus on food quality, eliminating remaining additives and preservatives in February.

The April turnaround reverses the downslide following outbreaks and the chain is on track to open between 195 and 210 locations in 2017. ”We could feasibly double the locations in the US,” says Crumpacker, “and we would not saturate the market.” He says that fans prefer Chipotle but frequent other fast-casual places, especially when the nearest Chipotle is over two miles away.

In 2016, the company was walloped by a 95 percent decrease in profits, and yet Chipotle still opened 240 locations last year.

New items are not yet available for delivery, though they soon will be.