 |
| Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images |
In 2017, at just 16 years old, Jacob Schneider landed his very first job at a Chipotle restaurant in Lawrence, Kansas. For someone his age, the position offered what he considered “decent” pay higher than the minimum wage along with thorough, structured training that helped him learn the ropes quickly. “I picked up my responsibilities fast,” he recalls.
At the beginning, Schneider says, nothing seemed out of place. But over time, he noticed the quality of training starting to slip. Break times became shorter. Broken equipment went unrepaired for long stretches in one case, a cooler remained out of service for nearly a year. “Little by little, more corners were being cut,” he says.
The impact was clear. “The morale in the store was basically terrible,” Schneider remembers. In his early days, staff rarely discussed leaving. By last year, the most common topic among his coworkers was how badly they wanted to quit. “It just kept getting worse and worse,” he says.
What Schneider was witnessing was a sharp change in the company’s trajectory. Founded in 1993 by Steve Ells, a former sous chef at a pioneering fine-dining restaurant in San Francisco, Chipotle had grown into a fast casual powerhouse with over 3,700 locations worldwide, going public in 2006. But a series of foodborne illness outbreaks beginning in 2015 including one that sickened 60 people in almost a dozen states tarnished the brand’s reputation. In February 2016, every Chipotle location shut down for half a day to address food safety. Another norovirus outbreak struck in 2017, and later that year Ells stepped down as CEO, replaced by Brian Niccol, who had just finished a stint as CEO of Taco Bell.
 |
| Steve Ells, a former sous chef, founded Chipotle in 1993 and ran the company until 2018. His successor, Brian Niccol, had previously served as CEO of Taco Bell. Glen Martin/The Denver Post via Getty Images; Robin Marchant/Getty Images |
Niccol drove an aggressive turnaround. His efficiency-focused initiatives such as installing order screens, expanding delivery options, and introducing “Chipotlanes” drive-through lanes propelled Chipotle’s annual revenue from $4.9 billion in 2018 to $11.3 billion by 2024.
The company’s stock soared from $6 per share in early 2018 to more than $60 when Niccol stepped down in mid-2024, and its market capitalization ballooned from $9 billion to over $80 billion.
While these changes delighted investors, they marked a much deeper cultural shift for the brand’s 130,000 employees. Many current and former staff say Chipotle, once considered a standout employer in the fast casual space, has taken on the mentality of traditional fast food to the point where, for workers, it feels little different from being at a Burger King or Domino’s.
Over the past few years, warning signs for employees have emerged across the country.
In 2022, Chipotle agreed to pay $20 million to settle accusations of nearly 600,000 violations of New York City’s scheduling and paid leave laws the largest worker protection settlement in the city’s history. In 2024, it ranked second, just behind Amazon, on the New York City Comptroller’s “Employer Wall of Shame,” a list where it still remains. That same year, the company settled with Seattle employees for $2.9 million over claims it withheld premium pay for schedule changes and retaliated against workers who refused unscheduled shifts the largest such settlement since the city’s scheduling law began. A Glassdoor review study of more than 550 large U.S. employers also ranked Chipotle second in employee burnout, behind only Progressive Insurance.
In a statement to Truth Sider, Laurie Schalow, Chipotle’s chief corporate affairs officer, emphasized, “Our employees are our greatest priority, and we are committed to providing a best-in-class work experience that includes robust training and development programs.”
——————————————————————
Truth Sider interviewed eight current and former Chipotle employees from four states, with employment histories spanning from 2012 to today. Four had been involved in union organizing. Each told a similar story: that many of the factors once making Chipotle an exceptional place to work strong training, genuine employee appreciation, and the ability to provide customers with a high-quality dining experience have sharply declined in recent years.
For a fast food chain, Chipotle presents itself with unusually ambitious ideals. Its website declares, “Our purpose is to cultivate a better world,” and the company has long emphasized its commitment to serving only fresh food. Unlike most in the industry, Chipotle restaurants do not have freezers, a point of pride in a sector where frozen ingredients dominate. The company also extends promises to its workforce, with its mission statement asserting, “Being real means treating our people right.”
“Chipotle markets itself as the cool place to work in the fast food world,” says Quinlan Muller, who began working alongside Jacob Schneider at the Lawrence, Kansas, location in 2018.
The brand’s pay structure often surpasses that of its competitors. Data from the Shift Project a research initiative by Harvard’s Kennedy School and UC San Francisco that tracks trends among low-wage workers shows Chipotle employees earning an average of $16 per hour nationwide. In comparison, Burger King and Domino’s workers report an average of $14 per hour.
For some, the higher wages were a significant draw. Arrow Smith joined the Augusta, Maine, franchise after leaving a role at Dollar General, where the pay was insufficient to cover basic living costs. At Chipotle, they could earn a dollar or two more per hour, plus tips.
 |
| For a fast food brand, Chipotle has lofty values. "Our purpose is to cultivate a better world," its website states. Brian Snyder/Reuters |
Anna, who began at a Chipotle in Ohio in 2012 earning minimum wage, quickly advanced to a salary exceeding $60,000 a year. Her pay increases and bonuses for surpassing sales goals came with “excellent” health and dental benefits. Remarkably, she now earns less in her current marketing job. (She requested a pseudonym for this article, as her husband still works for the company.)
But the higher wages came with strict performance standards. “You had to be near perfect on everything,” Anna recalls. If produce was cut incorrectly, it would be discarded, and she would have to start over. “I’ve never worked at another fast casual or fast food restaurant with such a high level of standards,” she says. “It was a great environment.”
Former and current employees told Truth Sider that these standards were upheld through a training program more reminiscent of the Culinary Institute of America where founder Steve Ells once studied than a typical fast food chain. Muller joined Chipotle after a short stint at another fast food brand where training was minimal. In contrast, Chipotle’s approach allowed her to master multiple roles, which she found far more fulfilling.
For new hires, the process began with training videos for each position, followed by reviewing manuals that detailed every aspect of the work. New team members would then observe experienced staff performing the tasks before attempting them under the supervision of a trainer, who would provide immediate feedback. “It was a really in-depth process,” says Brandi McNease, who started as a crew member in Augusta, Maine, in 2016. Employees were cross-trained in various positions, from operating the tortilla press to grilling meats in the kitchen.
——————————————————————
The program also built in a clear pathway for advancement, enabling motivated employees to rise from crew members to management positions. “They wanted to grow people and bring them up,” McNease says. Smiling Estrella, who joined a New York City Chipotle in 2016, was promoted from crew member to kitchen leader within three years.
After the initial wave of foodborne illness outbreaks, Chipotle saw both its sales and stock price plunge. Steve Ells stepped aside as CEO, stating at the time that the company needed someone who could “execute better to ensure our future success.”
That someone was Brian Niccol, a leader with a distinctly fast food–oriented mindset a sharp departure from Chipotle’s earlier brand philosophy. “His background and approach lean toward processed, profitable, and not particularly organic foods,” says Columbia Business School professor Michael W. Morris. “He’s an MBA-driven, quantitative marketing strategist, skilled at cutting supply chain costs.” Niccol brought in senior executives from Bloomin’ Brands, the parent company of Outback Steakhouse and Carrabba’s, as well as from Panda Restaurant Group, which owns Panda Express.
 |
| CEO Brian Niccol espoused a fast-food mindset that Chipotle had previously eschewed, adding things like LCD screens and "Chipotlanes" drive-throughs. CC Photo Labs/Shutterstock |
Niccol exited Chipotle in the summer of 2024 to become Starbucks’ CEO. His successor, Scott Boatwright, shares a similar operational background. Boatwright, who joined Chipotle in 2017, had spent the previous 18 years at Arby’s.
Ells’ departure marked more than a leadership change it ushered in a shift in the company’s internal culture. “You can’t operate with the culture of a typical fast food restaurant and still maintain a brand image built on organic, sustainable ideals,” Morris explains. Such a model, he says, “doesn’t leave room for craftsmanship or for employees to express genuine passion for food.”
Chipotle maintains that it still delivers comprehensive “real culinary training.” On its recruitment site, a worker named Ryan appears in a video recalling how, when he started, “they had so many step-by-step processes on how to learn everything.” Laurie Schalow, Chipotle’s chief corporate affairs officer, adds, “We have always provided training for new employees, and we continually re-evaluate and adjust our programs as needed.”
But the employees Truth Sider spoke with insist that training quality has sharply declined. Leslie (a pseudonym), who began working at a New York City location in 2019, says she never watched a training video or received hands-on instruction before being put to work. “For each task, they might explain it once, and that was it,” she says. It took her four months to learn how to wrap burritos properly something she figured out only by asking coworkers for tips and watching videos during her own time.
In Augusta, Maine, Brandi McNease says it was obvious that the store was in a “transition period” heading in the wrong direction. New hires were placed on the floor with little to no training. “You were lucky if you even got to watch videos,” she says.
 |
| Last year, after a chorus of customers accused the company of skimping on portions, a Wells Fargo analyst ordered and weighed 75 iterations of the same item, and found a lot of variation. Shannon Stapleton/Reuters |
The same issues surfaced in Kansas. Muller recalls that new employees frequently didn’t know how to perform key tasks. Thomas (a pseudonym), who started at the same location in 2022, says that by the time he left in late 2023, he was regularly correcting coworkers on basic food safety practices. Schalow maintains that the company’s current program includes food safety, workplace policies, and operational training for multiple roles.
Other long-standing rules also began to shift. Schneider remembers when employees under 18 were not allowed to use knives a policy that later relaxed to include workers as young as 16. Schalow says the company complies with all state laws governing the employment of minors. Thomas notes that the emphasis moved away from crafting high-quality food and toward controlling portions. “Managers really started hammering that into us,” he says.
Scheduling has also been a pain point. Shift Project data shows that 75% of Chipotle workers receive their schedules less than two weeks in advance, with over one-third getting less than a week’s notice. Three-quarters have had shifts changed in the previous month, and 22% experienced canceled shifts. “Chipotle is really at the bottom of the heap when it comes to scheduling,” says Daniel Schneider, a principal investigator at The Shift Project. Fellow investigator Kristen Harknett calls last-minute cancellations “extremely disruptive,” especially when workers arrive only to be sent home unpaid.
In Kansas, Schneider and Muller say schedules were posted on paper once a week, late Saturday night or Sunday, with no online access. Missing that day meant not knowing if you were scheduled for the next. At the Maine store, McNease says some weeks schedules weren’t ready by Sunday at all, and staff were told simply to work the same shifts as the prior week until further notice.
Staffing shortages made the situation worse. Workers describe shifts so thinly staffed that they couldn’t keep up with customer demand, leading to chaotic service. In Augusta, Arrow Smith says the store went from “awesome and well-staffed” to a skeleton crew within a month. McNease recalls being asked to work longer hours and cover extra positions without additional pay. Tasks that normally required six people, like chopping large quantities of ingredients, were reduced to just two a setup that led to repeated injuries. Smith says one coworker cut his fingers seven or eight times trying to prepare meat quickly enough to keep up with the lunch rush. “Every day brought a new set of small disasters,” Smith says. “We were begging for more help, and they just wouldn’t send anybody.”
 |
| In 2016, Chipotle's employee turnover rate was 130%. By 2021 it had swelled to 194%. It fell to 131% last year. Joe Raedle/Getty Images |
McNease adds that food was sometimes left out too long and dirty dishes piled up. Muller says that at the Lawrence location, there were shifts where one person worked the front line while the shift manager cooked in the back. At times, the rush was so intense that dishes and bowls went unwashed between uses. During an April 2025 earnings call, Boatwright admitted that internal audits found some stores were unclean during peak hours.
Many employees point to high turnover as a root cause of these operational breakdowns. Company figures show a turnover rate of 130% in 2016, rising to 194% in 2021 before declining to 145% in 2023 and 131% in 2024. Schalow says Chipotle is committed to predictable scheduling and adequate notice for shifts. “Our staffing levels are the best they have been in recent years, and we continue to see record low turnover rates,” she says.
The problems have inevitably reached customers. Workers say guests often face long waits or find certain ingredients unavailable because they weren’t prepped in time. In 2024, after TikTok users accused the chain of reducing portion sizes, a Wells Fargo analyst ordered and weighed 75 identical items from eight New York City locations, finding significant variation. Niccol denied any directive to shrink portions and introduced new training to ensure consistency though not before a shareholder lawsuit was filed.
Schalow insists, “We have not changed our portion sizes, and we have reinforced proper portioning with our employees. If we fall short on value, we encourage guests to reach out so we can make it right.”
 |
| In response to portion-skimping allegations, customers have taken to filming workers as they make their burritos. Alexandra Buxbaum/Sipa USA |
Interactions with customers have also become more hostile. “We’d get yelled at, screamed at,” says Anna. In the wake of portion-size complaints, some customers began filming employees as they assembled orders. “It was really uncomfortable to have cameras in our faces while we were working,” says Thomas. “People were extremely rude about it.”
Schalow responds, “We do not condone guests who mistreat our teams and fail to give them the respect they deserve.”
“A lot of people would lash out,” says Smith. “It became really dehumanizing.”
Anna, who once planned to stay with Chipotle for as long as possible, says the job eventually became so disorganized and overwhelming that she quit after eight years.
——————————————————————
During April’s earnings call, Boatwright acknowledged that employees were “not as friendly as we probably should be in restaurant.” His proposed fix was straightforward: encourage staff to greet guests with a smile. “The fact is,” he said, “smiles down the line don’t slow us down.”
In recent years, more and more Chipotle employees across the United States have taken steps to organize. In New York, Leslie who had previously been in a union while working at a nursing home was approached by SEIU 32BJ, a labor group that primarily represents low-wage workers such as cleaners and food service staff. She liked the idea of having similar representation at Chipotle, but she says the company did not share that enthusiasm.
“Let me tell you something Chipotle hates the union,” says Smiling Estrella. After appearing on the news for attending a protest in New York, Estrella says the company accused him of forcing someone to work during his unpaid break and of making employees clock out before completing closing tasks. He denies these claims, calling them “lies.” In early 2023, he was fired. “That was really, really hard,” he says. “I went into a deep depression.” He came close to losing his apartment, struggled to pay rent, and had his phone service cut off twice.
 |
| In 2023, Chipotle was hit by seven unfair labor practice charges in New York City. Karla Ann Cote/NurPhoto |
That same year, Chipotle faced seven unfair labor practice charges in New York City more than any other employer and four additional open cases with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), alleging threats, intimidation, and unfair discipline toward workers.
One organizing effort did succeed at least partially. In 2022, employees at a Chipotle in Lansing, Michigan, voted overwhelmingly to join the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to address complaints of chronic understaffing and erratic scheduling. Workers said they endured frequent captive-audience meetings and anti-union messaging. The NLRB later ruled that Chipotle had violated labor law by attempting to deny raises to unionized staff. However, more than two years later, that location remains the only unionized Chipotle in the country, and it still has no finalized contract.
No other campaigns have made it across the finish line. In March 2022, Brandi McNease in Augusta, Maine, says the “wheels started to fall off” at her store. She was trying to uphold proper training standards but found it nearly impossible as turnover worsened. A gas leak in the restaurant made people ill, yet it took weeks for the company to address it. That’s when she contacted a friend with union experience to learn more about organizing. After discussing the idea with her coworkers, support grew quickly.
“We were just tired of corporate ignoring us. We were literally begging for help,” says Arrow Smith.
On June 15, McNease sent an email to the restaurant’s team director outlining worker demands. The letter stated that the store had gone without training for new or current employees since the previous December. It detailed that two workers were “routinely expected” to handle prep work normally done by six, and that three or four people were opening the store work that required seven. These conditions, she warned, endangered both employees and customers, with food safety being “compromised.” The workers said they would not return until proper staffing and training were provided.
The result was a two-day walkout. Less than a week later, they became the first Chipotle location in the country to file for a union election with the NLRB. McNease says management responded immediately, calling workers into mandatory anti-union meetings, hiring new employees to dilute the voting group, and singling out pro-union staff for extra work or disciplinary action. Some were sent home for minor uniform violations; others were fired for what she describes as “petty reasons.”
Then, on the very morning of their NLRB hearing to set an election date, Chipotle announced it was permanently closing the Augusta store. “It was like the rug had been pulled out from under us,” McNease says. The workers later settled with the company for $240,000 in back pay. “We fought so hard,” she reflects, “but in the end, they were able to just walk away.”
Chipotle spokesperson Laurie Schalow responded, “We respect our employees’ rights to organize under the National Labor Relations Act and remain committed to a fair, just, and humane work environment. We closed our Augusta, Maine, restaurant because of location-specific staffing challenges and other factors, not due to any union activity.”
Around the time McNease’s campaign collapsed, Quinlan Muller began discussing unionization with coworkers. She quickly collected signatures for a petition to the NLRB. But when management found out in October 2022, she says the company deployed similar tactics to those used in Maine. High-level managers many of whom employees had never seen before appeared in the store, conducting lengthy one-on-one meetings with anti-union talking points. Workers say discipline became more aggressive, with people written up or terminated for small infractions that previously would have been overlooked.
In December, Muller gave a friend a free order of chips at the end of the day before they were due to be discarded a practice she says other managers allowed. She was written up and then fired for theft. The termination came just days before the deadline for Chipotle to reimburse her semester tuition, costing her $2,600. She remained unemployed for six months. “It was emotionally devastating,” she says. “That job was part of my identity.”
Muller filed complaints with the NLRB, which found the company had punished employees involved in unionizing and attempted to deter the effort. Chipotle agreed to post notices in the store affirming workers’ rights to organize, but no one was reinstated or awarded back pay. The union campaign dissolved. “Everyone was scared,” says Schneider.
Nearly a year into Scott Boatwright’s tenure as CEO, Chipotle continues its aggressive expansion plans, aiming to open over 300 new locations in 2025. Yet signs of strain are visible: same-store sales have fallen for two consecutive quarters, marking the first such declines since the COVID-19 pandemic. The company’s stock price now sits at $41.44, down 37% from a December 2024 peak of $66.16.
After more than seven years at Chipotle, Jacob Schneider left in 2024 after graduating from college. He even accepted a pay cut to take a graphic design job. But for him, the trade-off was worth it. In his new role, he says he feels respected, valued, and treated “like a person” by his boss.
“I’ve never been happier,” Schneider says.
