Steve Ells, chairman and co-chief executive of Chipotle, has revealed that the group’s latest site in the UK, at London Wall has been breaking peak hour throughput records across its seven-strong UK estate.
He said: “Our seventh restaurant in London, is a small five-day-per-week location in the financial district, which is intensely lunch-driven, like our first stores inside the Loop in Chicago. It is off to a solid start and has been breaking peak hour throughput records in the UK. Additionally, just last week, we opened our fourth restaurant in Paris, entering a new neighborhood for us. Our growth seeds in Europe continue to build brand recognition and are at the frontend of developing a loyal customer base.”
Ells was speaking as the group reported third quarter revenue of $1.2bn, an increase of 12% on the previous three months, with comparable restaurant sales growth of 2.6%. Year-to-date revenue stood at $3.5bn, with comp sales growth of 5.5%. He said that the group was “well on track to deliver another strong year”.
Earlier this year, the company said it had plans to open its first regional sites in the UK in the next two to three years while continuing to grow its London estate. Jerome Tafani, executive director for European business development, said that there is potential to open 200 sites in the UK over next 10 years.
Monty Moran, co-chief executive, secretary & director, said: “Our unique people culture also continues to gain traction within our growth seeds. As Steve mentioned, during the third quarter, we opened our seventh restaurant in London and I recently visited the fantastic team there and was pleased to be able to sign them off as Restaurateur. Our European operations team, which is led by Jacob Sumner, a team leader and Restaurateur, has been building outstanding teams to ensure the customer experience we are providing in these new markets meets our high standards and he continues to develop Restaurateur cultures in these restaurants quickly.
“To help us better plan for future growth, we recently hired Jerome Tafani as our Head of European Business Development. Jerome has decades of restaurant industry experience in Europe and is spearheading our planning process, including navigating the nuances of operating a new restaurant brand across several countries and identifying lower-cost real state options in markets that are very expensive. As European customers continue to discover and turn into repeat customers at Chipotle, we are excited for the leadership and insight that Jacob and Jerome bring and we look forward to great things to come from this team.”
During the quarter, Chipotle opened up 53 new restaurants for a total of 150 restaurants through the first nine months of this year.
Moran said: “This is the fastest that we’ve ever added new stores and we’re not done yet. Our teams have been working diligently and we are increasing our guidance for the full year 2015 to a range of 215 to 225 new Chipotles.”
