The company filed a trademark application earlier this month for the name “Better Burger,” Chipotle spokesperson Chris Arnold calling it a “growth seed idea.”
Better Burger will join two other small chains the company has invested in, but even as Chipotle is thinking about expanding its holdings, it still has last years food safety crisis that just won’t go away. CNN Money is reporting that in the company’s annual report to investors published on February 5, Chipotle said it was proceeding with caution on the ventures, citing concerns the new concepts “might distract our management.”
“It’s a growth seed idea we are exploring,” Arnold said in an email to Bloomberg. “We have two non-Chipotle growth seeds open now — ShopHouse and Pizzeria Locale — and have noted before that the Chipotle model could be applied to a wide variety of foods.”
The two non-Chipotle ventures include 13 ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen locations, which are all in the Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and Chicago areas. Chipotle also has a “majority business interest” in Pizzeria Locale, which has two locations each in Denver and Cincinnati and three in the Kansas City, Missouri area.
“[W]e do not expect ShopHouse, Pizzeria Locale or other concepts to contribute to our growth in a meaningful way for at least the next several years,” the filing says. “We may also determine not to move forward with any further expansion of ShopHouse or Pizzeria Locale or to invest in other restaurant concepts.”
The company is quick to assure stockholders and the public that their immediate focus is still on its flagship restaurant chain. Newser is reporting the company’s stock has been down almost 30 percent over the past year as the burrito chain continues to struggle to gain back public support. Chipotle is expected to report its first-ever quarterly loss in late April as a publicly traded company.
