today marks the “analyst call” for chipotle’s quarter 1 2007. the numbers were pretty darn good. yahoo has a piece on it and so does bizjournals. i’m sure the local denver press will cover it tomorrow morning (and then wonder why their circulation is down 1% in the last 6 months while chipotle’s same store sales are up 8.3% in “same store” sales).

There were two things I thought were worth noting from the call:

Food With Integrity - Changing the Way Americans Think about Fast Food

About the food with integrity mission, Ells said:

We recently introduced naturally raised chicken in one of our largest markets, Colorado, and now two-thirds of the chicken we serve is naturally raised. As we advance Food With Integrity, we move closer to our goal of changing the way Americans think about and eat fast food.

Think about that for a minute. It’s not just a burrito join. The mission of Chipotle is Food With Integrity that changes the way you think about and eat fast food. Ok. That’s nice.

Valuing Their People

From my meeting with Houman Iskandani that was inspired by his appearance on their soda cups, it’s clear that chipotle wants to make Rock Stars out of their employees.

Our restaurant managers are the strongest they have ever been, as more of them are being promoted from our talented crew people. By preparing their crew to become future leaders, our best managers are creating a strong and sustainable culture of opportunity and people development.

the day started like any other day - ordered my burrito, filled my cup of water, sat down at the bar, started reading forbes. pretty standard.

then i noticed some folks talking with the store manager about recipes. they were discussing the finer points of the barbacoa shredding process, whether it should be more or less like the process for the carnitas and how much salt should be in different parts of the food. i looked at the guy a couple times and though, he looks familiar.

really familiar, though without the smile it's hard to tell. so i got an opportunity to ask one of the other people working there if it were, in fact, steve ells. "yeah, you recognized him, huh" was the response. well, of course i did.

i wanted to get a photo with him and perhaps an autograph, but didn't want to interrupt their lunch. unfortunately, they wrapped up lunch and went into the kitchen too quickly for me to get in a word. my chance lost.

enter Houman Iskandani

just then i noticed a gentleman walk in who i had seen before at this store, but it never really registered with me. when he came in he said to one of the workers "is steve still here?" and the person responded "yeah, houman, he's back there." oh, ok. so this is Houman Iskandani that they have profiled on their drink cups. two brushes with fame in one day.

so, a little later i got an opportunity to meet him, chat with him, and get a photo with him. he's a real nice, ordinary guy. and seemed to be enjoying the slight celebrity status that he has now. in case you don't know him, here's the text from the cup:

People We’re Pleased to Know, Part 1

photo of steve ells from a businessweek face time article.

So, did he?

Some call it into question. On their blog they claim Steve and point out that he won an Alumni of the Year award. I’d say that’s pretty good proof that he went there.

It’s not as good as seeing the diploma, but it’s pretty good.

businessweek did an interview with chipotle founder steve ells. it’s a pretty interesting read though most of it was stuff that i knew already. interesting new nuggets:

chipotle’s size and growth

the 573-unit company is opening a new location every four days…Today, Chipotle employs more than 15,000 people

so, that’s pretty fast growth of stores for a company that doesn’t franchise. it’s almost 100 new stores a year. not too shabby. having 15,000 employees seems crazy because i’ve seen their corporate offices and they were small. i imagine that each store has around 20 employees, so that’s about 11,000 people in the stores themselves. i could see having another couple thousand supporting the stores (like regional managers, transportation of ingredients, and such).

percent of organic or natural foods at chipotle mexican grill

We’ve certainly got enough all-natural pork. Today, more than 60% of our chicken is naturally raised, and we’re well on our way to having enough all naturally raised chicken. We’re 40% all-natural on beef. Almost 30% of our beans are organic.

again, that was mostly stuff i knew was either completely done or under way, but it’s nice to have hard numbers on the subject. if you’ve read much about patagonia’s own quest to use organic cotton and sustainable products in its clothing then you are familiar with this process. the company gets a small number of its suppliers to begin walking towards the eventual goal (be that organic, hormone free, or whatever) and then slowly as the price of that ingredient goes down you can integrate more and more of it into your stores. it’s really really neat to see. congrats to chipotle for slowly continuing this walk one ingredient at a time.

chipotle’s inspiration