Food Theory: How to Get More Food at Chipotle… for FREE!

🎉 *Celebrate Style Theory’s One Year Anniversary!*

Ah, Chipotle, the mecca of organic Mexican food, the kings of guac, and the purveyor of protein bowls. It truly is the holy grail of fast casual dining… or is it? You see, loyal Theorist, we doubted whether Chipotle was ever giving us the correct proportions in our braised beef barbacoa burrito bowls, so we decided to put them to the test. And through our learnings we found a few Chipotle hacks to actually INCREASE the food on your plate. Get ready for one MEATY episode!
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#Chipotle #Burrito #BurritoBowl #Barbacoa #FastFood #FastFoodReview #MexicanFood #MexicanFoods #Quesadilla #Queso #Challenge #Theory #FoodTheory #Matpat

[FoodTheory]

🌯 What is YOUR craziest Chipotle ordering story?

[CZsWorld]

Imagine being the Chipotle worker and seeing Mat Pat and theorist team roll in, not knowing how you're going to be experimented on.

[Wunba]

Once we got an entire meal for $0.54 at Chipotle cause the dude working there thought we were chill.

[micahhebert]

I work at chipotle. If it’s really busy the best thing is to be polite and try not to take up too much time because we do have numbers we have to hit. If it’s empty and you’re the only one in there we love it when you talk to us. It makes my day and I would be more inclined to be generous.

[Katzarecoolz]

As someone who works in retail, I love when people are polite, being able to have short conversations is what makes doing my job worth it. However, there is a difference between a short conversation and a full on one. If it is during the busy time of the day I don’t want to have to be worried about socializing with a ton of people especially if there is a line forming. There is a perfect balance that people need to follow and understand.

[felixg.cortez]

Worked at CFA for 3 years and took thousands of orders. Honestly, it is nice to have people engage with you and joke around, but thats really only nice once in a while. For the most part I prefer short, polite answers that are trying to be as efficient as possible, because I have a line to finish behind you thats stressing me out.

[helston]

I work in food service, and I LOVE it when people are polite and pleasant. Many of my regulars are like that, and I LOVE THEM! However, we do have some as well as other customers that they will hold up lines or slow things down because they want to launch full blown conversations. Small talk is fine since we can still keep things moving. But if you’re holding up the line because you want to tell me about your week in the form of a novel, I’m not going to be quite so happy- ESPECIALLY in fast food! I also have a customer that says ‘thank you’ after every little thing, which is nice, but when you’re thanking us 10-20 times when you’re interacting with us, it’s slows things down and can even seem un-genuine to some because they say it so much! Just as needed is more than sufficient.

[speedmagee]

so i work in food service specifically at burger king and i'll tell you this, i 100 percent appreciate people being nice even if it's busy, some people prefer to just get through but considering most of my shifts i have people who rush through their orders and treat me like i'm not even there...having someone actually treat me like a person always brightens my day

[masterwolfdraws]

I remember I went to a chipotle for my birthday and I ordered a bowl as usual and the woman that dished my chicken out gave me a pitiful serving and the guy that took over went back to give me an extra scoop for a normal serving. I didn’t get to properly thank him, but I still think of that moment and wish him well. Really made my day 😭💖💖
Also, awesome video Matpat!! I’ll miss you lots :D 💕💕

[Luci_]

As an actual chipotle employee. My biggest tip is come at opening, everything is freshly made. Be relatively slow about it. Most of us are tired from prep work and ods are kind of stressed. So as a employee the biggest help our customers can be is treating us nicely. I always try to engage with customers and give them a little reward if I feel seen. The opposite is actually true too. If you flip me off for not having Carnites don't expect anything but the bare minimum. It's cool to see this video as an actual Chipotle Employee. Thanks Matpat!

[lostcinder]

I work in food service and I actually hate it when customers try to engage in a full conversation. It slows down the line and stresses me out because I feel bad trying to rush them along. The absolute best thing you can do is just be polite, say your please/thank you and be up front with your order. I try to keep my service as consistent as possible, but I definitely feel more inclined to treat those who make my job easier. The problem with trying to engage in conversation is also that it’s gonna be really one sided because the worker is paid to be nice to you, it’s usually not as pleasant for them as it is for you because it’s just one more thing they need to focus on doing right

[Sarah-cu]

As someone who works at a fast food ice cream place, I prefer it when people talk to me, smile, etc. Makes my shift a lot more pleasant 😊

[booperdooper]

As a Chipotle worker, i have to say avoid coming in right when we open and right before we close. Open because at least at the store i work at, we save the chicken, carnitas, and barbacoa from the night before, so they are all not fresh. Avoid closing because we tend to be grumpy when someone walks through that door just before we close while we are trying to clean. Also the best way to get more food is to be nice we tend to be a bit heavy-handed if we like you. Also, do not order tacos. You will get like a quarter of the food you get in a bowl. If you really want tacos, order a bowl and pay the extra 50 cents for some side tacos shells. You will get so much more food that way. Same goes for burritos. If you know how to roll a burrito, just order a bowl with a side tortilla. You will most likely have enough food for 2 burritos there.

[almondtech]

As a chipotle employee, I consciously give a little (about 10%) extra food to people that are nice (and quick). In this video you guys implied you kept talking to the employee when being nice, distracting them, when typically just giving a small complement or genuinely asking how their day has been would be both nice and efficient, getting you more food (at least at my store)
Also, we can generally tell when people are only being nice for the food, and it is kinda annoying bc they overdo it lol

[amberbolt]

Okay, I do work at a chipotle, since you are asking..

Have you tried to... ask for more food? Aside from the meats, the queso and the guac you won't get charged for like an extra scoop of something.
I have even had people get to the end and realize they ordered less topping than they wanted and ask to go back for stuff, just to get a fuller bowl.
There are obviously exceptions to this, like if you are really going ham and getting like 5 scoops of beans then you are probably gonna get charged for a side of beans, and stuff that doesn't fit in the bowl, like the side cups get charged.
We are not supposed to tell you that you can't have more ingredients, just inform you that we'd have to charge you or not for it.

The staff 100% knows about all the hacks that people post online, believe it or not, our managers know how to use the internet too, and they tell us how they want us to handle people using those hacks.

as for how to order to make it easier on the staff?

Speak up, the person behind me is slamming pots and pans and sizzling ingredients on the grill, and the person beside me is yelling across the store to the other employees, my ears are still ringing and I need to hear what you said clearly.

Know what you want to order, so we aren't just staring at each other, because I can't leave while you're standing there. If I am not busy and you want time to decide a casual conversation might be appropriate, but not too long of one, see, usually the manager has a list of tasks for me to do and It might be stressful to stand there and chat when I know the manager is going to come check on if I made progress on those tasks.

Politeness is good, for me its because if you are rude about your food I will get frustrated and be more inclined to give you exactly correct portions of stuff, and as little extra as I can humanly get away with. Just what chipotle says that I am to give out.

I find it very annoying to backtrack because I really want to be efficient to making your food, for my time, your time and so my 16 year old cashier doesn't wander off and I have to yell to get them back up here. So if you want more warm ingredients just try to get those before we move to the cold side, or if you are wanting multiple items tell me at the start so we can set those up and get them done.

If an ingredient is super important to you, like the grilled veggies or the mild salsa, please ask to make sure we have it, I have had to throw away beautiful burrito bowls with a mound of food on it just because we didn't have any pico. The customer left angry and hungry, I was upset that so much food got wasted, and the grill person looked so disappointed too.

I'm sure everyone knows about the chipotle app, which as of right now, gives you free guac when you sign up, and any promotions, like the spooky burrito, are always in the app now.

The real tip to get more food at any restaurant, is to become a regular and be nice to the staff, come during not busy times so we can pay attention to you.

If you actually read this, thank you Matt for giving me a chance to vent a little bit.

[tiax]

as someone who works in the food service industry, literally just smile and be polite. i hate when people try to engage me in an actual conversation, because it really distracts me and throws me off. i can't be rude or brush them off so i end up making more mistakes because i can't concentrate

[originalusername]

i’ve been working at chipotle since i was 16, im now 19 years old and i can just say that being nice helps. not having a full on conversation, but being nice and joking around a little is so nice. but honestly, the massive thing that can cause things is that people are understanding. What I mean is that if we are out of something or if someone is forced to wait we take accountability and either give them stuff for free or give them a little extra just because they had to wait. all it takes for a little extra at my chipotle is just to be slightly understanding that’s all

[jayrasmus]

As a former sandwich artist, I always found that the perfect balance is some polite small talk in between listing off ingredients. It really depends on the worker, how long they've been at the job, etc. but being in that position it's hard to take a lot of heavy conversation and still keep up the flow of work, especially when it's busy, but being polite is never a bad thing. If anything, it'll give the server more reason to give you a discount, or something for free. I can't tell you how many times I gave out free cookies or sodas just because the people ordering were nice, decent people

[maxfoxbadox]

As a cashier at McDonald's I can say that if it's slow I appreciate you talking to me but if it's fast and there's a million customers in line it's nice to get the orders out of the way first

[guramkutiju]

As a food worker i dont mind small talk, but the worst thing ever is when someone is staring at the food being made you feel like you have to be extra careful so you dont mess up