The Simple Reason Chipotle Will Probably Never Serve Breakfast Burritos

It's a risky proposition for a fast food restaurant to try and join the breakfast market. While Egg McMuffins may be an early morning favorite for many, not all restaurants have had the same luck. For example, Wendy's has attempted breakfast several times, and the restaurant most recently relaunched its morning meal in February 2020. It seems to have been a success this time though, as it has survived the pandemic long enough to cash in on the post-pandemic return to the office. Now that office workers are looking for a quick morning meal, fast food breakfasts have taken off yet again.

In a report by The Association for Convenience & Fuel Retailing, restaurant analyst Lauren Silberman says that breakfast has now become the most profitable time of the day for many chains. Wendy's itself saw a 10% to 20% growth in its breakfast sales between 2021 and 2022, while Burger King has seen a similar year-to-year increase in breakfast sales. 

With all of the money being made in the early hours of the day, it might seem odd for many that one of the most popular chain restaurants hasn't gotten in on the trend yet. While there have been rumors over the years, Chipotle has never committed to offering breakfast burritos, and it might be for the best that the restaurant continue to sit this one out.

Folks have been dreaming about starting their day with a Chipotle breakfast burrito for nearly a decade now. Once Chipotle restaurants started opening in airports, they were allegedly required to operate in the early hours of the day. While they did test proper breakfast options in several of those airport locations, the company found that these new offerings were mostly unsuccessful. Many customers simply continued to pick out their favorite items, ignoring the unique offerings completely. Because of the failure of this test, the breakfast menu was scrapped at these locations.

According to CNN, in 2019, Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol was again forced to wave off rumors that the famous chain would be adding breakfast burritos to its menus. It seems that while breakfast may be a lucrative offering once the ball is rolling, the initial costs and challenges are preventing the chain from capitalizing on this new fast food trend. Adding more items to their already crowded lineup of toppings might also slow things down too much and affect performance on other items.

As the old saying goes, if it's not broken, don't fix it. In fact, this piece of wisdom appears to be a key reason that Chipotle is leaving itself out of the breakfast burrito market.

Another reason it's likely that Chipotle won't be offering breakfast items anytime soon is due to the food's handcrafted nature. Chipotle has often bragged about the fact that none of its ingredients contain preservatives, artificial colors, or other additives. As much as the chain is able to prepare its ingredients fresh every day, it strives to do so. 

A California Chipotle employee told Mental Floss that this means while the doors don't open until 11 a.m., employees are arriving at the restaurant to start prepping ingredients at 7 a.m. This approach is fairly rare for most fast-food or fast-casual restaurants. A revelation as simple as the fact that all Chipotle's grate their own cheese caused a stir earlier this year because this type of handmade preparation seems so rare in the industry.

That also means that to have food ready to go in time for the first customers of the day, Chipotle would have to dramatically alter the ways it does its business by either preparing ingredients the night before, or bringing employees in during the pre-dawn hours. Understandably, some customers may think it's just a matter of menu expansion, but in fact, maintaining Chipotle's standards for an entirely new category of menu item would be a major undertaking for the main.