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Top 15 Chipotle Competitors & Alternatives

Ava Abbott
November 14, 2022
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10 min read

Founded in 1993, Chipotle Mexican Grill has expanded to become the top restaurant chain with over 2,650 restaurants spread across the US, Canada, the UK, France, and Germany. It has 83,000 employees and stands out as the only restaurant company of its size that owns and operates all its restaurants.

In 2019, its annual revenue was $5.7 billion and $338 million in profits. In Q3 2020, Chipotle reported quarterly revenue of $1.6 billion and net income of $80.2 million.

Over the years, Chipotle’s market value has increased to $38 billion. The Mexican restaurant chain has to fend off strong competitors to maintain its market share. According to a study by Technavio, the fast-casual restaurants market in the US is projected to grow by $ 150.10 billion between 2020 and 2024, progressing at a CAGR of over 12%.

Chipotle is perfectly positioned to capitalize on this growth but first has to overcome its top competitors. It competes directly against restaurants that offer Mexican foods, as well as other fast-casual chains like McDonald’s.

Here is an in-depth analysis of Chipotle’s top competitors and alternatives:

1. Qdoba Mexican Eats

Founded in 1995, Qdoba focused on building its reputation as an authentic Mexican establishment and growing a strong and loyal customer base. The fast-casual chain has eateries in over 700 locations, which it either operates directly or franchised. Its size and variety of Mexican foods on its menu make it Chipotle’s top competitor.

Qdoba operated all its restaurants for 15 years until it was acquired by Apollo Global Management and adopted the franchise model in 2019. For 15 years, Qdoba instilled its culture and quality standards in each eatery. Serving high-quality food in each restaurant is a major competitive advantage. It is expanding steadily and was on target to open 30 new restaurants by the end of 2020 or early 2021.

2. Moe’s Southwest Grill

With more than 725 locations, Moe’s Southwest Grill has positioned itself as the guardian of Mexican cuisine in the US. Moe’s and Chipotle engage in food wars regularly. After Chipotle announced that it will be introducing queso on its menu in 2017, Moe’s issued a public warning about queso imposters. The queso war lasted for several months.

In 2020, Chipotle announced a new queso recipe and Moe’s responded by offering customers free queso under the slogan “Free Queso is Better than Some New Queso Recipe.” Moe’s stands out among Chipotle’s competitors as a fierce and strong rival.

3. Baja Fresh Mexican Grill

Baja Fresh is operated and franchised by MTY Food Group along with its sister company La Salsa Fresh Mexican Grill. Both Baja and La Salsa operate as a single entity, which increases their market share and competitive advantage. It was originally known as Baja until it revamped its menu and placed a bigger emphasis on flavor and freshness. Using fresh farm produce is a major advantage over Chipotle.

4. Rubio’s Coastal Grill

Ten years before Chipotle was founded, Rubio’s was fully operational with a strong customer base. But the entry of Chipotle, Qdoba, Moe’s, and Baja into the market poached Rubio’s customers. Its challenges worsened further in 2020 due to the crisis. It had restaurants in over 200 locations at the start of 2020 but now operates in 167 locations.

In Oct 2020, Rubio’s filed for bankruptcy after it failed to repay roughly $82.3 million in outstanding funded debt obligations. The company completed its restructuring at the end of 2020 and is ready to compete more fiercely for Chipotle’s market share in 2021.

5. Taco Bell

Taco Bell is the biggest fast-food chain that competes directly against Chipotle. With over 7,300 locations, Taco Bell is a giant that towers over Chipotle waiting for the right opportunity to grab its market share. The Irvine-based fast-casual chain offers a variety of Mexican foods, including nachos, burritos, tacos, and quesadillas.

But the crisis forced the company to drop several items from its menu, including Mexican Pizza, the 7-Layer Burrito, Nachos Supreme, and the Beefy Fritos Burrito. Dropping these popular items has decreased its competitive advantage over Chipotle.

6. Freebirds

Freebirds is a quirky Mexican restaurant that is very similar to Chipotle but offers some of the most unique and highly demanded items. It is one of a few fast-casual restaurants that offers burritos made from grass-fed steak and free-range chicken. Chipotle and other chains use only the cilantro-lime rice, while Freebirds uses traditional Spanish rice.

But these ingredients are scarce, and their price is always increasing, which undercuts the bottom-line. In the recent past, Freebirds has struggled with high costs leading to the closure of several locations.

7. McDonald’s

Founded in 1940, McDonald’s is a household across the world. It is synonymous with the fast-food business and recognized globally. McDonald’s and Chipotle have a long history. 15 years ago, McDonald’s spun off Chipotle Mexican Grill and enticed big investors and consumers to embrace the burrito chain.

Now McDonald’s is one of Chipotle’s top indirect competitors. Even though McDonald’s is not known for offering burritos, it has over 14,200 restaurants across the US. So, it can entice consumers and poach them before they get to Chipotle.

In 2020, McDonald’s was one of the few food chains that grew its earnings in the third quarter. Chipotle performed better than expected and nearly completed its turnaround in Q3 2020.

Image credit Shahbaz Ali on Unsplash

8. Chick-fil-A

Chick-fil-A is a unique restaurant brand that specializes in chicken. Its business model is built around customer satisfaction, which is why the chicken chain has emerged as the top restaurant brand for six consecutive years.

American Customer Satisfaction Index restaurant report announced that the top restaurant brand for 2019-20 is Chick-fil-A. In FY2020, Chick-fil-A’s annual revenue was about $11.3 billion and increased by 13% year-over-year.

To understand the popularity of Chick-fil-A, Taco Bell has about 4,300 more units but generated just under $11.3 billion. The popularity of Chick-fil-A makes it a worthy, indirect Chipotle competitor.

9. Wendy’s

Founded in 1969, Wendy’s is a leading multinational quick service food restaurant based in Ohio. It is one of the leading fast-food chains in the US. Wendy’s has over 5,500 franchised restaurants in the US and operates more than 1200 quick-service restaurants.

Its experience in the fast-casual food sector and extensive market presence makes it one of the strongest Chipotle competitors. Between March and September 2020, Wendy’s tripled in value and is among five stable quick-service restaurants with immense growth potential.

Image credit Michael Form from Pixabay 

10. Burger King

Burger King is renowned globally and is second to McDonald’s in terms of reputation. In October 2020, it opened several locations with its new off-premise-focused restaurant design features. The innovative designs make it easier for customers to order online using their mobiles and pick them up on the curbside.

Burger King will roll out the first restaurants with these design features in 2021 in Miami, the Caribbean, and across Latin America. The stores will be 100% touchless and 60% smaller than a standard Burger King location. Burger King’s new restaurant design features give it an upper other over Chipotle and other competitors in the industry.

Image credit Kseniia Ilinykh on Unsplash

11. Shake Shack

Shake Shack is an American burger chain that operates in urban areas only. The crisis and national beef shortage across the US lead to a 39% decline in its sales in Q2 2020. In August 2020, the company came back stronger.

Its operating profit jumped to 14.8% in Q3 2020 compared with only 2.2% in Q2. Despite the challenges, Shake Shack opened 33 new locations in 2020 and plans to open 35 to 40 Shacks in 2021. Shake Shack is the competitor to watch in 2021.

12. KFC

Kentucky-based KFC is renowned globally for its fried chicken. It has over 4,000 restaurants in the US alone and more than 20,000 worldwide. In 2020, KFC tested a new chicken sandwich and found that the item can bring nearly double its original sales projections.

The fast-food chain started offering the sandwich in select restaurants from January 2021 and will be available in all 4,000 KFC’s in the US by the end of February 2021. The new sandwich on KFC’s menu increases its competitive advantage over Chipotle.

Image credit Ziyang Hsiung on Unsplash

13. Starbucks

The iconic Starbucks is synonymous with freshly-brewed coffee worldwide. It also offers other food items that can attract some customers from Chipotle. Starbucks’ revenues have grown by 18% from $22.4 billion in FY2017 to $26.5 billion in FY2020.

In comparison, Chipotle’s revenue has increased by 25% over the same period. But Starbucks’ profit margin is always larger and was about 14% in FY2020 compared to 6% for Chipotle. As of June 2020, Starbucks had more than 320,000 restaurants across 83 markets globally.

Chipotle has 2,700 restaurants, with more than 98% in the US. Starbucks’ geographical diversification and the number of restaurants makes it a strong Chipotle competitor.

Image credit TR on Unsplash

14. Pizza Hut

Pizza Hut’s first location opened in 1962 and went public in 1984. But, it became a private company again in 2001. Pizza Hut is owned by NPC International, the largest franchisee of Yum Brands. NPC operates more than 1,200 Pizza Huts.

It has expanded to become the largest pizza chain with over 7,000 restaurants worldwide. Pizza Hut is one of the top Chipotle competitors.

Image credit Saumya Rastogi on Unsplash

15. Domino’s Pizza

Founded in 1960, Domino’s Pizza is a specialist in pizza delivery and operates over 14,000 stores worldwide. It is the second-largest pizza chain store in the world behind Pizza Hut and has a large cult-like following among pizza lovers.

In 2020, Domino’s reported double-digit same-store sales compared to 2019. But Chipotle is stronger than Domino’s in digital sales and more than tripled its online business sales in Q2 2020.

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Ava Abbott

She is a data scientist and serial marketer, she brings a unique analytical perspective and extensive knowledge in marketing from her years of experience working for tech giants and starts ups.

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