Pros
- Chipotle professes to do it's best to use only meat and dairy products in their from farms that raise their animals ethically and in their natural environment, without antibiotics, hormones, etc. They also profess to do their best to use all organic, non-GMO grown vegetables in their burritos. This is an excellent reason to check them out as a possible employer, and the reason I give the restaurant 3 stars out of 5 stars, instead of just 2 stars. - Chipotle recruits it's management largely from within.
Cons
- The training is fun, but in the end, there is too much hype and not enough practical training. - Managers need more training in how to run a restaurant and, more specifically, in how to supervise. - Crew members do not receive enough training and the training amongst all employees is not evenly distributed. - While good customer service and friendliness is encouraged extensively during training, it is almost nearly discouraged in favor of speed of the line once training is over and actual work begins - Crew members can not receive a decent number of work hours. They are only allowed a maximum of 25-30 hours/week, though near full-time hours are implied in the training schedule. Work hours decrease rapidly within the first two weeks of employment, getting as low as 15-17 hours/week. - There is a "dog-eat-dog" mentality on the "line" and in general, and not enough attention is paid to who is actually doing what. Since the managers use other crew to assist them in assessing fellow crew members, this leads to evaluations that are far from even-handed and fair. This, in and of itself, is not the problem, except that too many of those crew members helping in this area are afraid of losing their own jobs or losing the already too few hours they have. This makes them less likely to give the best evaluation of their co-worker. - Quality suffers as a result of trying costs to pay employees, because they are encouraged to do too much with too few employees. - There is very little diversity, with a large percentage of employees being Hispanic/Latino. - Chipotle seems to favor younger employees to older employees. Most of the older hires, were practically gone by the time I left. - Far more attention needs to be paid to possible Department of Public Health concerns, i.e., in terms of cleanliness, how/where food is stored, how/where food trays, utensils are stored, trash disposal and, specifically, the habit of reshelving food, napkins, bowls, etc, whether packaged or unpackaged, that have fallen to the ground, back with other items to contaminate them, or storing food, food, containers, utensils, napkins, etc., too close to the ground or too close to unsanitary items, like floor mats, mops, garbage cans, etc.