A few weeks ago, I went to Chipotle during lunch and the man in front of me had never been to a Chipotle before. In fact, he had apparently never eaten a burrito before. The general confusion this caused felt very familiar, so I decided to keep track of my visits there. It had been happening for some time, but I wanted to make sure I collected the data in a way that would leave my memory out of it. I found a couple of interesting things:

1. I eat way too much Chipotle. I need to stop.
2. The past 8 times I have visited, either the person directly in front of me or two people in front of me was paralyzed in fear, stated “I have never eaten at Chipotle before – how does this work?” I documented this via a spreadsheet. Visits were on 9/24, 9/25, 9/29, 10/1, 10/6, 10/8, 10/13, 10/16 (today).

This has me thinking – is the reported growth of Chipotle dependent on new customers? I wonder how a ubiquitous chain can find new people after all this time. I can’t imagine someone walking into a McDonald’s struggling so mightily.