Brown rice at Chipotle

Hello, August!

Though it doesn’t affect me anymore, it’s hard to believe it’s already almost back-to-school time. Summer always flies by.

Now … a story.

Chipotle

I’m sure it’s no secret by now that Chipotle is our official we-need-food-right-now restaurant. It’s pretty much the only fast food place we go and it’s just a few minutes from our house. Plus, who doesn’t love a huge scoop of guac?

Erik made us an awesome homemade “Chipotle” salad version the other day, it was delicious! It consisted of:

• Salad mix
• Brown rice
• Black beans
• “Fajita” mix – bell peppers and onions, sautéed
• Homemade salsa
• Homemade guacamole

Looks pretty legit if you ask me!

Now to the story.

There are many things we like and appreciate about Chipotle. It’s fast, delicious, and they use local organic ingredients whenever possible. For fast food, that’s certainly not commonplace and they get major Lesley Lifting Life props for that. There’s just a few things I wish they could improve.

On the way home from St. Louis last weekend we were talking about the fact that the only grain option is white rice, and that everything is so high in sodium. I never used to contact companies or give my opinion on things until I started blogging. It’s made me realize that companies really do like hearing feedback, because it’s what makes them better. Thus, I whipped out my handy iPhone and emailed them.

Since I was in the car and on my phone I simply said,

“Ever thought of having a brown rice or quinoa option and cutting the sodium a little? Chipotle is the only fast food place we ever eat at and we do love it!! But it would be awesome to have a better carb option than white rice, and ingredients that didn't equate to a full days' (or more) worth of sodium! Please? :)”

I didn’t really expect to hear back but just a few days later I receive a very lengthy reply that said as follows:

Lesley,
Thanks for taking the time to write to us. We have been testing out brown rice for some time now in some of our restaurants around the country. Because the testing has been so popular and successful, I am happy to announce that we will be implementing brown rice to our menu as a full-time fixture. That being said, there is no current timeline for when the brown rice will be available in all of our restaurants however we are hoping it will be everywhere sometime this fall. I ask you to bear with us as we implement brown rice to our menu around the nation and stay tuned for more information to come.
As for sodium, we are always looking for ways to improve our food and certainly appreciate the feedback we get from our patrons. It is difficult to find a happy medium with all of our customers’ personal preferences and dietary needs; however that does not mean that our salt content cannot be reduced for the future. In fact, we have recently decided to reduce the amount of salt used in our carnitas as we have found that doing so is not only a healthier option, but also helps to bring out the flavor of our other seasonings. We are additionally looking for ways to improve our tortillas by incorporating low-sodium flours that can contribute to a more enriched flavor. We are hopeful that we can find a solution for this. In the meantime, I will also pass along your suggestion for ways to further reduce our sodium content to the appropriate folks for consideration.
Thanks for the suggestions and we hope to see you again soon.

Sincerely,
Austin

And if you didn’t feel like reading through all of that it basically said that all Chipotles are going to be offering a brown rice option soon, possibly this fall. I thought that was exciting! I didn’t know some Chipotles were already testing the brown rice option either. Has anyone been to one of these Chipotles already offering brown rice?

I know most of my readers really like Chipotle too, so it seemed like worthy info to pass on! Hope Monday treated everyone well!