Last week Chipotle had major canned food drives at many of their stores. It wasn't at 100% of the stores, but it was at a lot of them. This was hugely beneficial to their public image and also brought in lots of new people who had never tried Chipotle before. I'll bet that this will make a huge impact in same store sales starting in June.

Chipotle Free Burrito Coverage Online

From other blogs - Katies first post about Colorado included this nice tidbit:

2) chipotle: there are 7 within 10 miles of my house. the other day i waited over an hour in line with a can of green beans in hand....all for a glorious free burrito (and to make a donation). nothing tastes better than free chipotle.

I've read similar reports on lots of other sites. personally my free chipotle burrito that day didn't take very long in line to receive, but I went at 11:20.

Other folks were not so lucky - microgirl writes of her tale

Last Tuesday, Chipotle was giving away free burritos if you brought in canned goods. ellipsesbandit and I made plans to go get free food, but the line was loooong. We said, "to hell with that," and went to Wendy's. Later that night, the guys went up to Chipotle to get free food, and they offered to get me a burrito . I said if they could that would be great, but if not that was okay too. Just before I went to bed, I find a coupon on my desk for a free burrito. The restaurant ran out of food, and ended up giving coupons. The guys each got two ('cause they drove to different places) and Brad gave one of his to me.

The store ran out of food. ran out of food. That's kind of crazy. I imagine they stocked up prior to the day and still "sold" so many burritos that they ran out of food. if that kind of broad exposure doesn't bring in lots of new customers I don't know what will.

Chipotle Underwear Run

In other marketing-related news, Chipotle is sponsoring an underwear run. That's hilarious. It's not quite the same as the burrito mile though it looks similarly fun.

hat tip to jupa for blogging it.