There Is Only One Burrito in America Now, and That Burrito, Unfortunately, Is Chipotle

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Consider the chipotle.

It’s an icon of Mexican food, renowned for its chameleonic charms. Its dexterity in the kitchen outshines that of its pepper peers, and inspires cooks to create salsas, soups, rubs, and desserts. Its flavor, while not the showiest among capsaicins, is sturdy and steady — it will never disappoint. That’s why, although it’s perhaps more exalted than it should be, the chipotle is a prince among its peers.

It is also a phony. The term “chipotle pepper” is a misnomer. A chipotle is just a sleek, green jalapeno baptized by fire into a shrunken curlicue. The dried product bears no hint of what it once was. Where the jalapeno is tangy and spicy, a chipotle’s taste is smoky and almost sweet. But the chipotle comes out better for the burn: a pepper that died so it could live.

Now, consider Chipotle.

It’s an icon of Mexican food in the United States, renowned for chameleonic charms. Its kitchen’s dexterity outshines that of its peers and inspires fans to create endlessly customizable meals. Its flavors, while not the showiest, are sturdy and steady. That’s why, although it’s perhaps more exalted than it should be, Chipotle remains a prince among its peers.

Or, it once was. Because Chipotle has turned out to be a phony. And its once-zealous fan base is disappointed.

Or, it once was. Because Chipotle has turned out to be a phony. And its once-zealous fan base is disappointed.

For nearly 25 years, the second-largest Mexican restaurant group in the United States proclaimed to anyone who would listen that it was the Mexican Chain Different, gracias to its much-ballyhooed “food with integrity” mantra — the idea that Mexican food was cheap in terms of quality, nutrition, price, and philosophy until Chipotle came along.

Yet the past couple of years have shown that maybe Chipotle is not so different. Outbreaks of foodborne illnesses at outposts across the country made international news, sunk profits, tarnished the company’s luster, and led to the departure of founder Steve Ells as Chipotle’s CEO.

Ells’s replacement, Brian Niccol, came from Chipotle’s supposed antithesis, Taco Bell. He promptly relocated the company from its Denver home base to Orange County, California, the fast-food safe space for the corporate headquarters of In-N-Out, El Pollo Loco, and — yep — Taco Bell.

Chipotle is now just any other NYSE-listed behemoth. But a cursory look at Niccol’s strategy indicates that he’s keeping Chipotle alive. Last year was the chain’s best since 2013, as its stock price rose nearly 50 percent and is inching back up toward previous heights. Today, even with Chipotle’s recent troubles, it employs more than 64,000 workers and opened its 2,500th location this February — and Niccol is aiming for 5,000.

The newish boss seems to be doing to Chipotle what people do to make a chipotle: roast it so that it can transform and live. When I interviewed him for this story, he was pleasant, if prone to corporate-speak, assuring me that plans for a digital push, continued expansion, and new menu items meant the chain’s brightest days were still to come.

He knew his script, and no way was I going to trip him up. Except for my last query, when I asked him to explain how Chipotle is like a chipotle. Both he and the PR spokesperson who listened in on our interview immediately laughed. Loud. Not only had no one ever asked him that, Niccol had never even considered it.

“You win, Gustavo,” he said, before talking his way into an answer. “I think it’s a complex, delicious flavor that you’re able to take into a lot of different directions. That’s what happens at Chipotle. You get to create the flavor experience that becomes your burrito, your bowl, and taco.

“It makes you smile when you say ‘chipotle,’ and [our] food makes you smile,” he concluded.

His answer was fine, if saccharine. But I was surprised that he had never considered comparing Chipotle with a chipotle. If he had, Niccol would have known that Chipotle can learn many lessons from its namesake’s history in the United States, lessons he can apply in the company’s fight to survive.

Consider the chipotle.

It’s a “pepper” that’s been used in central Mexico since antiquity. The name comes from the Nahuatl for “pepper” (chili) and “smoked” (poctli). But chipotle was virtually unknown in the United States outside of the borderlands until the 1980s, when it was popularized by the Southwestern cuisine movement, a short-lived phenomenon that saw chefs apply classical training to the foodways of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona, changing how Americans perceived Mexican food.

Until that fad, Mexican food was considered, well, “Mexican”: cheap, unhealthy, basic. But Southwestern cuisine’s disciples passed themselves off to the American public as pioneers: They alone saw the potential in border foodways to be “elevated.”

And their muse was chipotle. It was “smoky and sweet in flavor,” wrote Mark Miller of Santa Fe’s Coyote Cafe, Southwestern cuisine’s most famous advocate, “with tobacco and chocolate tones, a Brazil nut finish, and a subtle, deep, rounded heat.”

Miller included chipotle in his Great Chile Poster, which featured glam shots and studious descriptions of chile peppers fresh and dried. The poster, which is still in print, served as the Port Huron Statement of the Southwestern movement. But other chefs who had nothing to do with the scene also made chipotle part of their palette. Wolfgang Puck put dates and chipotle in an Austrian sausage dish for a pub concept. Bradley Ogden used chipotles in a barbecue sauce; Jeremiah Tower put some in corn chowder at his Santa Fe Bar and Grill in Berkeley.

The chipotle became a media darling. The Chicago Tribune listed it as one of the “trendy sauces” of 1989; that same year, the Los Angeles Times opined that “it’s difficult to figure out why all the fuss about the chipotle chile.”

Everyone acknowledged Miller as the spark behind chipotle’s rise — especially Miller. “You do books, you do posters, you do stores,” he told the Washington Post in 1992. “You need to put your name out and get recognition. You need to constantly do new things to keep the attention going because the public’s attention span is very short.”

The chipotle was a known commodity for Mexicans that suddenly turned trendy in the hands of white Americans, for white Americans. It was the gateway that piqued Americans into learning about other peppers.

The chipotle was a known commodity for Mexicans that suddenly turned trendy in the hands of white Americans, for white Americans.

Now, consider Chipotle.

It’s a company that goes back to only 1993, but relied on an older culinary tradition: the Mission burrito of San Francisco.

The first such documented burrito was made at El Faro in the city’s Mission District barrio in 1962. There, Febronio Ontiveros took a challenge from firefighters at a nearby station and made a burrito out of two flour tortillas, laid edge to edge. The experiment proved so popular that Ontiveros had to get a tortillería to custom-bake tortillas big enough for his innovation.

Nearby taquerías soon copied El Faro and added the characteristics that came to define the Mission burrito: made in open kitchens that stretched from the front of a restaurant to the back; meat-and-veggie trays set up so that customers could pick their stuffing rather than choose between menu options; a toss on the grill or panini press for a quick toast; and, finally, a swaddle in foil.

This style remained a regional phenomenon until Ells swooped into San Francisco in the 1980s, armed with a degree from the Culinary Institute of America and a job at Stars, the Towers-run hot spot near San Francisco City Hall. Ells eventually discovered the Mission burrito at Zona Rosa, a taquería located on the outskirts of Haight-Ashbury.

After his Stars stint, Ells returned to his native Colorado and opened the first Chipotle near the University of Denver in 1993. He and his spot became media darlings. “If ever an Anglo man was born to make burritos, it is Steve Ells,” Nation’s Restaurant News wrote in 2004. “Who else could take a Mexican food staple, Americanize it to his own tastes, fill it with the freshest gourmet ingredients, and sell it thousands of times over?”

Competitors enlarged their burritos to mimic Chipotle — Qdoba, Moe’s Southwest Grill, and more. But everyone acknowledged Ells as the spark behind the Mission burrito’s rise — especially Ells. “I knew I could improve on the quality and taste of the food,” he told Nation’s Restaurant News in 1997 about his initial encounter with the Mission burrito. “Although it’s Mexican food, [my version] had a fresher taste and broader appeal.”

Chipotle took a known commodity among Mexicans that suddenly turned trendy in the hands of white Americans, for white Americans. But Chipotle proved no gateway to pique Americans into learning about other types of burritos. Instead, the Mission variety came to dominate burrito culture in the United States — and endangered other styles in the process.

Consider the chipotle.

It opened America’s palate to the idea that peppers didn’t necessarily have to burn. That there could be complexity and diversity to Mexican food, and that it could fuse well with other cuisines — an idea that American consumers have embraced ever since.

Now, consider Chipotle.

It opened America’s palate to the idea that burritos didn’t have to be one of two ways. Before Ells, two styles dominated burrito culture in the United States. The most widespread was the fast-food variety sold by Taco Bell, Taco John’s, and smaller regional outlets, or served at school cafeterias and convenience stores (sometimes as chimichangas, the fried burrito of Arizona). They were slender and long, with simple fillings: beans and cheese, or ground beef. Sometimes chiles. They were direct descendants of the original burritos from the borderlands: lengthy but never big, always simple, made from a regular-sized flour tortilla.

The other burrito was bigger, covered in red or green sauce, and eaten with a fork and knife. Known as a “wet” burrito throughout most of the United States, it was a staple of sit-down restaurants, whether chains or independent. In New Mexico and Colorado, those burritos are described as “smothered” — and it was a tradition that Ells didn’t particularly care for.

“Being from Colorado, I always put [a burrito] on a plate and smothered it with green chilies,” he told Nation’s Restaurant News in 2004. There was no excitement in his description, no enthusiasm. It was just Mexican food. His conversion came when he finally ate a Mission burrito, Ells told the interviewer. “Wow,” he remembered thinking, “what an opportunity to put sexy food inside this tortilla.”

Chipotle’s introduction of the Mission burrito, however, didn’t open America’s palate to other burrito legacies. Instead, it became a gastronomic Galactus that devoured rivals — especially those in San Francisco and Denver, Chipotle’s spiritual homelands. Its edible bricks are now the default burrito for most Americans. When Sarah Silverman jokes about having burrito abortions, she’s not talking about the tiny, stew-filled types sold in El Paso.

As early as 1996, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a story headlined “The Brutalized Burrito,” which lamented, “even in Hispanic neighborhoods like San Francisco’s Mission district, ‘old-fashioned’ burritos — especially the ‘super’ sizes — have achieved a heft ... that would have weighed down any cowboy.”

That Brobdingnagian expectation has even seeped into Chipotle’s former home base of Denver, which historically had one of the most vibrant burrito cultures in the United States. By 1993, when Ells returned to Colorado from San Francisco to open his first Chipotle, the city boasted several distinct burrito genres. One was called the Mexican hamburger — filled with beans, a beef patty, and chicharrones, then smothered in Denver-style green chile (which is orange in tint, and a stew rather than a sauce), and topped with melted cheese.

Denver also had food vendors unlike any others in the United States: not taco trucks or street carts, but men and women who made their burritos at home, put them in coolers, and traveled the city, from office to office, to hawk them, or sometimes stood on street corners. “Burrito vendors are like Denver’s 300 days of sunshine,” opined a writer in a 2005 article for Westword, the city’s beloved alt-weekly. “An amenity many notice yet take for granted.” Those entrepreneurs sold Denver’s most popular type of burrito: not smothered like Ells remembered, but sluiced inside with green chile and cheese, medium-sized and wrapped in foil. And best eaten for breakfast or an early lunch.

They remain the preferred burrito of longtime Denverites. Two years ago, Mayor Michael Hancock proclaimed the second Saturday in October to be known as “Santiago’s Breakfast Burrito Day,” to honor a chain that had opened in 1990 and now has 28 locations across Colorado. It was a noble gesture, but also an unconscious rebuke of Chipotle, and what the homegrown giant wrought upon Denver’s burritos.

All the styles are now endangered. Burrito-cooler culture is almost gone as the city has gentrified; the Mexican hamburger’s popularity is declining. The city has seen a demographic explosion in the past decade, growing by more than 100,000 people, most of whom arrived in Denver knowing nothing about Denver’s indigenous burritos, and not caring to learn. “I don’t think people are acclimating to Den-Mex food,” says Mark Antonation, the food and drink editor for Westword. He says that people in the city “don’t appreciate the uniqueness of our burritos, let alone the outsiders that say, ‘What is this? It sucks. It’s not like where I’m from.’”

“What they mean,” Antonation adds, “is, ‘It’s not like Chipotle.’”

Consider the chipotle.

It’s unassuming. Its squat, dun shape and color don’t match the dark-red, baroque beauty of an ancho, the smooth menace of a guajillo, the desiccated, inky wonder of a mulato. On the first edition of Miller’s chile poster, the chipotle appeared in the upper-third tier. In the latest printing, it occupies the third-to-last rung, below a bevy of New Mexican, Oaxacan, Peruvian, and even Italian peppers.

The cool set left the chipotle long ago. Yet the pepper endures. It’s in no danger of disappearing. Its switch from a jalapeno to its evolved state ensured its survival — because they’ll rot away if you don’t fundamentally alter them.

Now, consider Chipotle.

Humility is not its forte — not under Ells, not under Niccol. Ells commissioned stop-animation movies scored by Willie Nelson to tout the chain’s virtues. He hired writers like Jonathan Safran Foer, Toni Morrison, and Malcolm Gladwell (but no Mexican-American authors) to write short stories and essays to be printed on the sides of its bags and cups.

Niccol, meanwhile, got Chipotle into this year’s Tournament of Roses parade, that hoary New Year’s Day tradition in Pasadena, California, where corporations try to pass themselves off as Americana with flower-festooned floats. Chipotle’s entry featured a gigantic tractor colored red with chipotle flakes, with a license plate that read “FORREAL,” the company’s latest marketing slogan. Some of the farmers it sources produce and meat from stood on the float and waved to the crowd, as hipster-rock darlings Portugal. The Man played “Feel It Still” and “Live in the Moment.”

The latter song, particularly, rang true to anyone who has eaten Chipotle: “Might be over now, but I feel it still / Might’ve had your fill, but you feel it still.”

Despite its financial and cultural weight, Chipotle is in danger of disappearing.

Despite its financial and cultural weight, Chipotle is in danger of disappearing.

The course of Mexican food in the United States has seen dozens of similar stories: companies who bedazzled American eateries, who changed the Mexican-food game, who stuck around for years, even decades, but then were ground up by competitors and changing tastes and thrown away like a moldy batch of refried beans.

Because once they reached the mountaintop, these former kings and queens refused to alter themselves in any substantial way to meet the challenges presented by changing consumer tastes or corporate snafus. When the reckoning came, their responses fell short, and these businesses either perished or shrunk into anonymity.

Anyone remember IXL Tamales? Ashley’s Mexican Food? Chi-Chi’s? The Original Mexican Restaurant? All were titans of Mexican food in the United States, multimillion-dollar companies that changed the industry forever — and are now relegated to historical footnotes, if remembered at all.

Market analysts don’t seem concerned about Chipotle. CNN Business named Niccol 2018’s CEO of the Year. In January, Time published a prominent story about the company titled “Inside Chipotle’s Plan to Make You Love It Again.” Niccol isn’t worried, either. He’s happy with what Chipotle accomplished before him and with his plans for the company’s future.

“We just elevated it to a place where people can get this flavor and meats, the salsas, the freshness,” Niccol said when asked to describe Chipotle’s legacy for Mexican food in the United States. “I don’t know if prior to Chipotle, people thought it was a fresh experience.” Nevertheless, Nicoll felt Chipotle needed a “cultural reset ... based on some level of humility and creativity” as the company tried to move past its recent troubles. “The bigger we get, the bigger impact we can have on food with integrity,” he said. “I think it’s important to have people energized about the journey of Chipotle 2.0.”

I asked him about Chipotle’s impact on burrito traditions, specifically the issue of how Ells appropriated the Mission District’s heritage. He paused. “I think we’ve represented food with integrity and demonstrated to people that you can have flavors you love, and you can afford it, and it’s appropriate,” he said. “And there’s no reason why anyone can’t participate in this type of food.”

Niccol wants to have his burrito and eat it, too, but that’s impossible. If he thinks the solution to Chipotle’s problems can be found in snarky new commercials that butt up against the chain’s historical earnestness, then he doesn’t understand why people loved Chipotle in the first place.

Now, with the chain just any other Mexican feedbag, the cool set left Chipotle long ago. If Niccol knows this, and figures his best bet for survival is to make Chipotle even more mainstream, then he’s going up against his old master, Taco Bell. It’s the Mexican-food company that has staved off death longer than any other. Their trick has been to cast the chain as post-Mexican: something that shook off its ethnic roots — like chili, salsa, and margaritas — to become an essential part of the American diet, and therefore it can’t just disappear.

In other words, Taco Bell has acted like a chipotle.

Chipotle’s ultimate legacy, said Westword’s Antonation, is that “they made burritos so big that it changed their purpose. They were supposed to be something to take to work as a meal. Instead, it kills your motivation to do anything else for the rest of the day.”

He lives two miles from the original Chipotle and patronized it because he considered them a local company. Now, he refuses to eat there, “because the money is going” outside of Colorado. “I watch them and think, ‘How soon is it going to be before they become Jack In The Box, where the bottom line is important enough that they drop the food-with-a-conscience or whatever,’” he said. “It’s going to go by the wayside once their shareholders realize that Steve Ells isn’t here anymore, and they’re going to say, ‘We just want more money.’”

I’ve considered the chipotle.

It’s not my favorite pepper. The flavor is pleasant, but I still roll my eyes whenever I see a menu boast that it uses them — because I now associate chipotle with gringos who try too hard. I hear “chipotle,” and I think, “Bobby Flay.”

But I’ve tried to like it, and I respect its legacy.

Now, consider Chipotle.

It was never my favorite burrito. Its flavors are pleasant, but I’ve always rolled my eyes whenever friends have invited me to eat it — because I’ve always associated Chipotle with gringos. I hear “Chipotle,” and I think, “cultural-appropriating pendejo.”

But I’ve tried to like it, and I respect its legacy.

I interviewed Ells for my 2012 book, Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, because the chain is important in the history of Mexican food in the United States. Last year, I toured Chipotle’s Denver offices a few months before the company announced its relocation plans. I also visited the original Chipotle, which is marked with a commemorative plaque. I haven’t been able to drop in on their new Orange County headquarters yet, so instead I settled for a meal at the Chipotle nearest their offices in Newport Beach.

Business was brisk on a recent weekday, but not slammed. The servers were nice and fast — but the food confirmed everything I now feel about the company. I ordered an avocado tostada, an item the chain may eventually offer nationwide but which is currently available only at select locations. I took three bites before giving up, mostly because the tostada shattered under the weight of all the cold guacamole and clammy cheese that topped it.

But I had also lost my appetite out of principle. American demand for avocados has made them a dangerous crop in Mexico, one that has led to deforestation in the prime growing state of Michoacán, the harassment of farmers, and the infiltration of cartels. “Food with integrity?” Not here.

I did finish the burrito: cilantro-lime white rice, pinto beans, tomatillo-red chile salsa, steak, sour cream, and white cheese. The first bites were good and juicy. But the more I ate, the more I noticed how the steak was salty, the rice too tart, the tortilla bland. None of the flavors harmonized in my mouth like a good burrito should; instead, they all fought for attention, leaving my palate bored in the process.

I was full halfway, but powered through. It weighed me down most of the day. And I tasted no chipotle whatsoever.

Gustavo Arellano is a features writer at the Los Angeles Times and author of Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America .

Naya-Cheyenne is a Miami-raised, Brooklyn-based multimedia illustrator and designer.