Steve Ells Quotes

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Steve Ells

Profession : Businessman

Birth : September 12, 1966

When I told my friends and family that I was leaving Stars to open a burrito shop in Denver, they thought I was crazy, but not long after the success of the first Chipotle, I knew I had to open just one more, so I opened a second one on Colorado Boulevard, which turned out to be even busier than the first.

Steve Ells

Think about the systems at McDonald's. It's a very mechanized world, where you take out a highly processed patty.

Steve Ells

We can teach people how to run a Chipotle.

Steve Ells

People were asking me all kinds of questions about the business, and I was initially put off. I was like, 'Just invest if you want to invest. Don't bother me.'

Steve Ells

The economic model was formed by the constraints that I had: a small space, relatively inexpensive building materials, relatively inexpensive investment, a very efficient service line or assembly line.

Steve Ells

If I had taken money from, say, venture capital, they would have wanted a certain return in a certain time period. McDonald's, on the other hand, seemed very interested in my passion about creating this brand. I trusted them, and they did not really interfere with the brand.

Steve Ells

I remember looking to McDonald's, and, my God, they have 13,000 restaurants in the United States. Well, we have almost a couple thousand Chipotles. What if Pizzeria Locale is a few thousand, and Shod. All of a sudden, we're bigger than McDonald's in the U.S. I mean, that's not an unreasonable way to think about this.

Steve Ells

The earliest recollection I have of being in the kitchen and cooking was in the third grade, and we lived in Germany. And I remember cooking scrambled eggs.

Steve Ells

The idea for Chipotle is a sort of combination of food borrowed from Stars and sort of a technique and a service format borrowed from the taquerias.

Steve Ells

Stars was really good training. You know, we would come in at noon, and, you know, we would learn at that time what we were going to cook that evening. And, you know, there wasn't a set menu per se.

Steve Ells

I am incredibly proud of Chipotle and our people - and grateful to our loyal customers - and while we are continuing to make progress, it is clear that we need to move faster to make improvements.

Steve Ells

Chipotle is based on a very simple idea: We start with great ingredients, prepare them using classic cooking techniques, and serve them in a way that allows people to get exactly what they want.

Steve Ells

I'm very much looking forward to relentlessly focusing on ensuring an excellent guest experience, removing unnecessary complexity from our operations, championing innovation, and pursuing our mission of making better food accessible to more people.

Steve Ells

To eat chicken that was raised with antibiotics is safe, right? But long-term, relying on antibiotics as part of our livestock production is probably not the right thing to do. To not serve chicken means that there's not an economic engine that's making it possible to build up a supply of antibiotic-free meat.

Steve Ells

We have two day-parts, lunch and dinner. We don't have breakfast. We don't have drive-thru. We don't have late night. We don't have 24-hours.

Steve Ells

From the very beginning. I didn't know what the fast-food rules were.

Steve Ells

We're not best in the world at burritos and tacos. What we're best in the world at is building a people culture, sourcing really great ingredients, cooking according to classic cooking techniques, understanding the corresponding economic model and how to tweak that and drive that and provide this really great, new fast food experience.

Steve Ells

Chipotle is really showing that there's a better way to do fast food.

Steve Ells

For too long, great food has really only been available in high-end restaurants and specialty food markets, but Chipotle is making the same gourmet quality food available and affordable so everyone can eat better.

Steve Ells

We keep the menu of burritos, tacos, and salads simple so we can make it using high quality fresh ingredients that are actually prepared and cooked on site rather than re-heated.

Steve Ells