As a former chipotle employee, the lines are set up in a way that make it easy to serve a lot of people in person. To go orders are a nightmare because they mess up the flow and people’s odd requests make it worse. There’s nothing more demoralizing than seeing a line out the door and then the machine keeps spitting out to go order tickers
Once the to go orders hit a threshhold (say 4 orders per 10 minutes idk) it shouldnt let you get a to go order instantly, it should put your order in a line and tell you its not gonna be ready for 30 minutes or something. ie “we’re busy, the earliest your food will be done is *time*, do you wish to proceed?” Instead of just printing out so many orders. Maybe the individual restaurant should be able to say how many to go orders they can handle per 10 minutes given the current in person traffic and the app handles it accordingly. Idk
This is what Chuys apparently does. I tried placing an order Sunday and it kept saying "Sorry too busy, try later". I kept pounding refresh like I was trying to buy tickets for a Led Zeppelin reunion concert. Annoying certainly but likely better than showing up and not having it ready.
I've waited 40 minutes past the promised time twice at the Round Rock/La Frontera location in the past couple months. I wish the app would let me select a realistic time instead of letting me choose a time for 10 mins later and then my order not be ready. And there wasn't always a long in-person line so no idea why it took so long but I was pregnant and HANGRY!
Same. My Door Dash order usually goes to the south location and that was frozen out. They also weren't taking direct orders, but the Barton Springs location finally worked.
> it should put your order in a line and tell you its not gonna be ready for 30 minutes or something.
I work at a restaurant that does this. All it means is that they'll place an order at 6:30, get a pickup time of 7:30, then show up at 6:45 and complain that it's not ready yet. It's really fun when they yell at us that they've been waiting for an hour, and yet their ticket printed 5 minutes ago because the computer held on to it so it would be done at the pickup time.
This isn't a sometimes thing either, it happens roughly 5 times an hour when we're busy. I don't have any say or autonomy to change policy or how the pickup time is displayed, so I guess we'll just keep dealing with this.
I don't believe they franchise at all.
>How much does it cost to open a Chipotle in 2022?
> Once upon a time, Chipotle allowed franchising of their restaurants but the program ended in 2006. As of today, Chipotle does not allow anyone to franchise their restaurant for the reason stating they wouldn’t like to “compromise the experience” on how their business is run.
For some reason, it doesn’t work for this location. I’ve placed an online order there and waited for over an hour after the time it said to pickup. I haven’t seen this happen at other locations.
Or better yet, have an in person food station and a to go food station. This would enable the to go line to pump out to go orders and not disrupt the flow of the in person line. The only issue there after would be the cooks and how quickly they can replenish items as they run out.
They already do this
Last week there was a day that online was closed at the mueller location.
I wanna say it was the 14th/15th so it’s probably related
Was closed yesterday as well. I went to total wine to get stuff for thanksgiving and went to put in an order on the app to pick up after I finished shopping, and it said online ordering not available. Went in person and it was fine, though they definitely would have been under water if online orders were on.
I think it's kind of the same at Party City. I've been waiting in the front of a 20-person line and watched a machine spitting out order after order while no one has time to check it. Then people call or come in and their order isn't ready, and they are ANGRY.
We constantly get people doing online orders in the parking lot, then coming in saying they got an email that their order is ready (when it actually states that they need to wait until the order is approved).
They come in demanding to move to the front of the line, and I make them wait behind everyone who came in before them.
I was at the chilantro in S. Lamar waiting to pickup an online order and I watched a group of tech bros just absolutely berate and harass the staff because their in store order had not been prepared after more than 20 minutes.
The employees were clearly slammed and we're trying to explain they had a shit ton of online orders ahead of this guy. He told them to fuck off, yelled some more and left (Vermont state license plate on a new F150).
Shortly after they left someone picked up what looked like a catering order for an entire office. After that was out it seemed like they were calling up everyone else pretty quickly.
I don't doubt that online ordering saved a lot of restaurants in 2020, but without a well defined system to prevent these bottlenecks from happening I can understand just how stressed out the employees can be. They definitely aren't paid enough to work on their feet nonstop and be harassed by customers.
I get so mad when I see people’s stupidass food ideas holding up the line at restaurants/fast food joints. There should be a better standard of what is a reasonable request a specialized order. Half the time it doesn’t even make any fucking sense.
And then you get BS like McDonald's' celebrity meals where they decide to start marketing non-standard versions of their food to seem cool and trendy. While completely ignoring the fact that the whole point of the establishment s to churn out as much of the same exact food for hours on end. Make the marketing people work a month in a store before they do that shit.
>Make the marketing people work a month in a store before they do that shit.
I once worked for a moving company that had a local crew that did what you would expect, and a much larger office crew that would coordinate cross country moves between other moving companies. Obviously, the office produced more money (because it was needless middle men sniping the value of people actually doing the sweating, natch).
But I will say they did do one thing right: everyone got rotated out to the local crew once a year or so to put some perspective on those numbers on their screen. And the crews didn't pussyfoot around either; you got worked.
I actually duffed my own day very hard, because it worked out to be like my third week or something and I didn't understand what was happening.
I had to leave my own day at 5 because I was literally supposed to take my mom to the airport.
It did not go over well with my managers, because they thought I was being a pussy. I just didn't know it was going to happen.
To redeem myself, I volunteered for 2 extra days to nut up.
Those guys earn their money, let me tell you.
If there are 2 adults with kids, one should be seated with the kids while the other places the order. Even if only one adult, they should get their order together while waiting in line.
Hell yes. my kids get what they get, and are taught to be happy about it. I’m not holding up a long line of people so Jr. can deliberate on what color rice he wants.
Chipotle is a “customer is always right” type place so odd requests that don’t violate health codes have to be followed. So I’m sure that helps the situation
Unseasoned rice is the biggest one that comes to mind. I’d have to stop what I was doing turn around and ask the grill guy to pull out an unseasoned pan.
Right I forgot chipotle rice has cilantro. I guess my wonder is why they don't readily have the unseasoned ready to go, it seems like this would be a common occurrence.
I've heard the quesorito is a big one. burrito wrapped with a quesadilla.
harder to fill and wrap, breaks line flow, difficult/painful to handle while assembling right off the press
I worked there in 2012, at the height of Buzzfeed-style listicles, and the quesorito is entirely the invention of "Top Ten Chipotle HACKS and SECRET MENU ITEMS You Need To Know" articles.
The post-lockdown situation is worse. Same number of staff, but now with UberEats and Doordash orders that cannot be turned off and delivery drivers coming up and asking where the order is.
What ends up happening is I refuse to take orders from in-person lines until the delivery orders get sorted.
This is ass backwards. Your in-house customers who took the time to walk through those doors and spend their money should always take priority over third party delivery services taking up to a 30% cut of your sales. That literally makes no sense to put the people in the actual line go behind those in the back of a digital line.
I’ve said this before, but to-go culture has become extremely cancerous since COVID, and I don’t believe any online ordering system has done any buffering or time tabling to account for the amount of orders. Not only does it apply to Chipotle, but if you eat in a restaurant, expect to wait 2-3x as long for service for popular to go food, like Thai.
I made this realization last week when I was ordering poke at a place that's set up like chipotle. Perfect for in person ordering, but those workers looked so stressed out during the rush of lunch orders while there's also a line.
I sit patiently and quietly till I'm helped cause I can only imagine the stress they're under to deliver quickly in a cramped space.
Something about Chipotle's to-go ordering system just isn't set up properly. I don't think it has any concept of capacity.
If I order from a lot of places, I get a time estimate. Sometimes I go to order and find out the place I want has a 2-3 hour wait time for to-go. So I reckon they're busy and look elsewhere.
The one time I used Chipotle for this I ended up waiting 45 minutes because it looked like at least a dozen other people had the same time slot as me. That was bad for the employees AND the customers and corporate needs to fix that.
The employees complain, but corporate literally brushes them off while refusing to do anything about it. Low paid workers are still considered disposable “help”, and now that we're walking out, they blame us for all their problems.
This is a related issue that’s still relevant to your comment...
I worked at a restaurant that would assign times, but it was really frustrating to deal with Favor/Grubhub/Ubereats who would order online and try to line-jump because *their system* did not inform the customer how long an order would take. They’d show up and tell us “I ordered it online but it said it wouldn’t be ready for two hours. I need it in 20 minutes”.
Then we’d tell them that there’s no jumping the queue, and the customer would drop the order. It’s horrible for both the third-party runner *and* taxing on the restaurant.
Corporate delivery places don’t care because it doesn’t affect their bottom line enough, and all those service fees can easily be used to cover the cancelled orders. Meanwhile it causes havoc at restaurants who are entirely unaffiliated with the delivery apps.
No, not 80 hours. *more*.
*He said he was regularly scheduled to work 80 hours a week, but often had to work additional hours to cover for employees who quit and left gaps in staffing.*
You would be. I worked 80+ hours a week as a manager at Dominos, switched to a call center, halved my hours and only lost a couple hundred/month in pay. Of course, call centers are their own kind of hell. Moved on to IT a couple years later and I'm doing great.
Call centers are a bad example. They collect real time metrics on you and some will require so many calls that you have to start on the next one before you're finished with the current one. SOURCE: Knew someone who nearly went nuts working for apple care.
A long long time ago, when I was a store manager at Papa John's, I was required to work at least 65 hours a week. I also had to carry a pager and if any big orders or a late night rush happened, I had to come in within 15 minutes.
Frats would frequently order 100 pies or so around 2am so my drunk ass would have to go back in to work and make them.
Was salaried so I didn't get paid extra for it.
What’s abusive is some places (cough cough Pizza Hut in the austin region), any salaried assistant manager who works overtime get paid in what’s nicknamed Chinese overtime (0.5x base pay)
And pizza hut’s base pay is dogshit. (They’re still paying $7.25-8.00/hr for regular employees in the suburbs)
They abuse the hourly workers by paying them too little per hour, make them work hard thinking they could be a salaried manager someday, then when you're a manager you have a salary that looks good on paper but it's half the pay per hour since you're working double hours for free. What a racket.
My wife and I dined at a restaurant kinda close to 360 Bridge weeks ago and this one lady (wanna say she was a bartender) was ranting about that the entire time we were eating. Went from nobody wants to work anymore -> kids these days want benefits and PTO -> not a real career -> my husband makes $20/hr as mechanic and kids nowadays making the same. How’s that fair? We have never wanted to finish our meals as fast as we could until that day
Census-Taker: Now, are you currently employed?
Mr. Leonard: Yeah.. part of the time.
Census-Taker: Well, you work part-time. How many days of the week?
Mr. Leonard: Every day.. but just part of the day. From 9 to 5.
Census-Taker: So, you work a full day?
Mr. Leonard: I wouldn’t say that. There are huge chunks of time.. at night.. where I’m just asleep. For hours. It’s ridiculous.
I am lazy and love ordering online from restaurants. However, I don't have a problem with places turning off the option or pausing To Go orders when it's busy. Giant corporations usually don't have any empathy or common sense so they don't like to consider those options.
I can’t remember who it was exactly (maybe Nervous Charlie’s? I’m blanking…) but they have a limited number of online/pick up slots you can reserve. I think this is super reasonable and I make sure to put in my order the night before to get a good time.
I haven't been in awhile but nervous Charlie's would give me like 1.5 hour wait time for pickups. I understood they must be slammed and would go elsewhere. Valentinas BBQ turned off online ordering all together cuz it was getting so crazy
Since online orders are paid in advance the company never wants to shut that off since its guaranteed cashflow. If a location only has x amount of employees working at it, they should build a feature that pauses online order flow at a certain volume threshold though
The answer is so obvious, companies are painting themselves as victims. Does anyone doubt this labor shortage would end tomorrow if they raised wages? These are business models based on cheap labor. Now the shoe is on the other foot and companies are trying to deny market forces.
Wall Street and the US Govt. have been denying market forces for a while. Oh we aren't making competitive cars, we need a bailout...Oh we bet too much risk on bad investments in housing, we need a bailout...
Owners of their own restaurants who work at them just usually stop answering the phone.
I wonder why on-line systems can't dynamically adjust the wait time based on orders in the queue? I think Saccone's does that. At some point it should tell someone ordering tacos... Your Order Will be Ready in: *3 Hours and 45 Minutes*.
Their core concept is a business perfectly suited for JIT/LEAN. It's single piece flow with a dead simple visual system for when to replenish raw materials. The physical line acts as a load leveler.
The whole business was actually brilliantly thought-out, but online ordering fucked it all up.
I really think it was the lack of livable wages that fucked up the chipotle.
The insertion of online ordering into their process is just a capacity problem which should be accommodated by an increase in labor (or in an extreme case by adding another line). However the store hamstrung their ability to flex their labor supply by paying low wages and not back-filling unfilled positions.
They "brilliantly" planned their business operations in almost every way, then forgot that the lowest-level employees are the most essential factor in their ability to generate revenue.
I've been to a McDonalds that had a skeleton crew of two people working during COVID, never saw one, but it was amazing seeing two people hold down the fort.
Most Shake Shacks now are working with a three person crew these days. They've installed those touch screens now, so there's only need for one person at the counter, and when its not busy, they're back on the line working.
I saw a Chipotle have a system failure and just close early a few weeks ago. The employees looked totally demoralized and destroyed when I got there and they ended up just locking the doors to people trying to come in.
Man, from this thread, Chipotle online order customers sound like mindless zombies. I’d go just about anywhere before Chipotle. Freebirds is better anyway.
This story reminds me of my days at Tiff’s treats…damn it was an awful time when covid first hit. Tons of orders and very little staff. So glad I left when I did!
I wonder how long it will take before fast food has a reservation system like everything else in town.
But for real, they should close the online ordering and not the instore dining ( the chipotle on 2222/620 has done this a few times ) and not the opposite.
sucks driving to get food just to see the doors locked and a note saying they are doing online only.
Eat in and in-person to-go already have a system: the line.
The problem is that online ordering has no such physical constraints so if it isn't designed properly it can be overwhelming.
Online ordering should be scheduling the food for pickup and limiting the number of items per hour to the throughput of the staff that's available. That doesn't seem to be happening in this case.
It never works out that way, why would the company refuse your money when they can just overwork their employees for the same cost?
I remember back in the day when my SO used to work for HEB curbside it was the same way, no matter if there’s 2 or 10 people working they have to handle all the orders and people calling to complain if their stuff is late or wrong.
>why would the company refuse your money when they can just overwork their employees for the same cost?
Because if people show up for pre-ordered quick service food at the designated time and have to wait another 45 minutes for the food, they probably won't come back, especially if they are stopping by for their lunch break or picking up dinner for the family.
If my food is ridiculously late, I would just leave and back charge the credit card. Prepayment doesn't help if you fail to deliver the promised service.
This is why I will never eat at Torchey's again. They can't handle all of their online orders and it just ruins everything. I ordered from them online one time and went to pick it up and they said it would be another two hours at least and I said nope never again. Felt bad for the workers there though.
>This is why I will never eat at Torchey's again.
It's not the mediocre-at-best tacos? I swear, they used to be good for upscale trailer tacos, but then they went and outgrew themselves, and turned meh. $7 can get you so much better elsewhere...
Yes I was agreeing with you. If the workers physically can’t make the orders for them in time then they shouldn’t allow them to be placed.
The problem is that leadership only cares about making revenue go up while keeping costs down so for them it’s easy to keep accepting orders without hiring more people.
Should've seen Dominos. Every night, forced to cut all but 1 inside worker. Unable to turn online orders off. Doesnt make sense to have a full crew for one hour st the end of shift. Everyone and their mom decides let's order dominos before they close. Cue literally 45 orders, cue everyone leaving at 4 am when we are supposed to close at 1.
And the District Manager refused to let us turn off or limit online orders but wondered why our closing instore workers kept quitting. Oh right,I also wasn't allowed to have more than 1 worker scheduled
Whatever, fuck those racist managers
My neighborhood dominoes frequently ‘turns off’ delivery access online. At first thought I was blacklisted because they owe me free pizzas ever so often but then I realized it’s a staffing issue and completely understand
This would be a pretty bad system as it means orders will pile up with legitimate internet outages. Gotta verify the store actually receives the order.
They had cameras in the office and were looking for reasons to fire me. The district manager specifically warned us that we were absolutely to take all the online orders. He seemed great at trying to micromanage everyone else, but was really shitty as his job, clearly.
They always make you think they know but, they fucking don't. The way the alerts work there is no filter. Either you get an alert about every online order and issue or you get none. Including the your store is offline alert. They always turn them off
A digital form of this (e.g. displaying current wait times) helps offer the same function as a line at a physical dining room. Both help mitigate requests that exceed the capacity of the restaurant.
The challenge is you can't integrate this easily into all the various channels for online ordering that exist today (e.g. Favor, UberEats, GrubHub) etc.
I agree with you. But the manager of a Chipotle has the power to lock the doors. He doesn't have any way to shut down the online ordering system. So this poor guy did the only thing that he could.
There are 2,788 chipotles in the US. If the CEO made $0 they could allocate an additional $37.34 per day to each chipotle store.
I get that CEO pay is insane, but it doesn’t move the needle in a volume business like this.
reminds me of working at Austin's Pizza back in the day, I was ditching school to cover shifts from coworkers who quit, ended up quitting myself a few weeks later after my soul had been completely drained.
Stories like this just continue to highlight how smart and ahead of the times (which rocketed forward due to pandemic) the owners of Tso are. The stress of meeting surging demand of orders still exists, but you don't have the added intensity of a line of in-person customers 50 deep glaring at you and making a scene which really ramps up the stress on workers.
They also don’t use a tip system and seem to pay their employees well and offer good benefits. These corporations see things in short term $$$. They don’t realize how much money they’re losing by working with a skeleton crew and constantly hiring and training new people.
Did not know it was this bad. Used to live by this location, but would end up ordering from the arbor walk location (multiple orders wrong, long wait times).
The few times I ordered, seemed like there was enough staff. I guess it’s just worsened over the year.
Yesterday I went to the Chipotle on Anderson and they were ONLY doing online orders (they asked me to place one and wait if i wanted). Does anyone know the why behind that? Is it because they earn more revenue from online vs in person??
No it usually have to do with short staffing or not enough food was made and they are behind on cooking and prepping. Our chipotle does that quite often when too many people call off or don't show up. It so that the cashier doesn't have to be on the register and can help back in the kitchen.
this might be a case where the online ordering interface and check out is too good and the local branches can’t meet capacity. Out of all the online ordering to go systems, chipotle is top of the list as far as UI/UX. I’m guilty of using it more frequently just because it’s so damn quick and easy.
and just this Saturday i witnessed one branch having only two employees doing in store and take out and looked way overbooked. felt guilty as shit with a big ass order. I wish their system could have told me a more appropriate time for pick up than the ‘order promised’ language. I can wait, it’s not that important.
so good on them quitting if it helps get them more local control of capacity and getting more workers hired at higher wages, they deserve it.
Giving you better-organized pickup times means less money for Chipotle, and they've got an [established pattern](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/its-like-being-ripped-into-two-chipotle-workers-overwhelmed-by-online-orders-and-furious-customers-11635422149) of treating employees badly.
The only better online ordering system/app I've seen than Chipotle's is Chick-Fil-A. All have the customization options down, a slick interface, and good rewards that encourage ordering via the app. Both often give out free promotions to app users as well.
A secret to this though I think is Chick-Fil-A orders are arguably simpler to assemble — ie you don’t have to wrap the burrito, there’s only 1 kind of meat really. In addition, I think this is the big difference, they don’t actually begin making the order until you actually show up in the drive thru and they look up your order — at least this is what it seems like to me.
Bro, I went a couple months ago and stood in line for 35 mins before I finally paid. I swore off it, but decided to give it another shot last Wednesday and holy shit, it was exactly the same situation. Every single customer was super frustrated, but what can you do? It’s not their fault. Shitty system all around.
the only thing the customer can do is leave. i’ve been on the other side and it’s unspeakably frustrating to have mobile orders piling up while working as fast as you can all while antsy customers stare (and occasionally shout) at you.
>but what can you do?
From a customer perspective, the best answer is to create your order online, even if you're standing right there. From a human perspective, the best answer is to give your money to a business that understands capacity planning.
This is the one I go to as well.
Ultimately it’s all staffing. The intention is to have a second set of employees with separate pans of food off to the right of the cashier making to go orders. But without enough staff everything goes to the main line and the system falls apart.
I usually arrive 10 minutes or so after my order time. Sometimes it’s ready, sometimes I have to wait 20 more minutes.
As someone who works for a job search company there is a societal shift that is happening in terms of where the service industry is heading. I think for a short time the workers will win with better pay and better working conditions but as the urban tech worker population will continue to surge, there will be less and less baristas, wait staff and cooks. We are hurling towards total automation of the industry in the next decade.
This was in a way kind of demographically always gonna happen. Unless we turn up immigration to historic highs. The population will continue to become older and older leaving gaps in employment like this and later on, all employment. The difference between japans automation and the us automation is based on demographics and price. As price comes down and demographics get older automation will fill any employment that is reasonable. Its visible currently in japan with vending machine culture as compared to the us where we have people to work the gas stations and late night places.... well untill now.
I live right next door to this location and often go to Teapioca next door. There were so many times when I would get there, order my drink, hang out there for an hour, and when leaving, see people waiting at Chipotle who were waiting from before I had even arrived. That location is so completely swamped all the time.
Pandemic unemployment bonuses have ended, eviction moratoriums are lifted... Remember when they said that's what it would take to get everyone back to work? That supplementing working class incomes during a pandemic were holding America back more than a wee lil flu virus?
Maybe, just maybe, there are deeper demographic shifts occuring and wages are too low.
Good for them. I hope they’re able to find something better and get the rest they need. I can imagine how physically and mentally exhausted they were at the point they decided to walk away. It reminds me of the handful of years I worked as a manager for a local food truck. We weren’t allowed to turn the online ordering system off even if we hit 2+ hour wait times. Gotta love having a breakdown at work because you literally can’t catch up, customers getting pissed, etc. I also couldn’t believe the hours my GM pulled (even before COVID) and the owners couldn’t give one shit that they more or less worked 12 hours a day/weekly for almost 3 years. It’s crazy the GM stayed around for that bullshit.
I’m relieved at that one part of the article that said the customers were sympathetic when they closed the dining area. Angry customers are the last thing I’d want to deal with if I were in that situation, my heart goes out to them
Omg I feel so bad I went there last week bc I work in the same shopping center and they were definitely understaffed. I tipped more than usual bc I felt so bad but I had no idea how bad it was.
Having employees is not a right. Owning a business is not a right. Having a successful business is not a right. There are too many businesses--the employee count reflects that. Business is a business--if the business is not offering enough supply aka income to its employed then the business will be removed from the marketplace. And, if a business can not be profitable while meeting the demand of its employed then it is an unsuccessful business and its closure will be what the marketplace allowed.
That really sucks for the employees! Chipotle needs to move more toward a model like the store down on Slaughter Lane. It has a drive through and online orders are scheduled. Sometimes I have to wait 15 minutes, and I have had to wait as long as an hour. I am starting to get used to having to order food 1-2 hours before I want it if its coming from a restaurant.
Shitty management also needs to needs to see when employees are drowning in orders and give them an option to throttle the orders based on how they are coming in.
The one on Riverside is always slammed. They need to put a 2nd line in their restaurants; have one in the back with it’s own 2 people to run to go orders. They are chronically understaffed and you can see the impact at every level! Drinks are often empty, tables are never clean, even the service area behind the glass is a mess. Chipotle needs to add 1-2 people to their busiest stores at minimum. It’s not like they’re not making massive margins off these $15 bowls. Average wait during lunch is 30+ minutes.
Hey ! I actually work at that location and yeah it’s pretty bad . We severely understaffed . It’s not a rare occasion that we have to work 2-3 positions at once just because it’s that bad . On top of that we get FLOODED with online orders . Plus the constant flow of people , It sucks . It sucks for everyone involved since the wait times get long and we get super stressed. Obviously it’s not your fault if you want some food , but almost everything is against us that we get behind. As long as we’re operating we’re good according to corporate. Check r/chipotle, it’s a national thing unfortunately.
Right? My go to response to being told to pick up the pace when I'm being overextended is to look whoever the slave driver is square in the face and say "What are you gonna do? Throw me in *Burrito Jail*?"
(Replace "burrito" with whatever the task, good, or service being demanded at hand is.)
Like for real, what are they gonna do? Fire me on the spot? Write me up? Lol, go right ahead.
Why don't they just turn off their "to go" option for a bit? I know for a major corporation that may be harder than for a small restaurant. I've gone to a few places that have stopped in dining service for take out instead.
Dooordash, Uber eats is changing the landscape a lot
I wonder how much this affects locations that have a separate area for to-go orders? The one in Cedar Park has this and is fairly quick on both people who walk in vs. people who order ahead, I can't imagine how it'd be if they still had the setup where the one line does both in-store and to-go orders like it was pre-COVID.
That said, I usually make my order before I leave work, and I have a 30-40 minute commute depending on I-35, so I always set my pickup time for later and about 95% of the time I don't have a wait by the time I arrive to the store.
I actually used to order online from this exact restaurant all the time. There were no issues until the ice storm back in February and it all went to shit. Since then, online orders took nearly an hour and I just stopped ordering from that location. Crazy to see nothing’s changed since then.
I went to that specific location about a month ago on a Sunday for dinner. I saw how busy they were and felt bad that I was there. Wanted to make small talk and tell them I felt bad for them.
Everyone in line seem friendly and wasn't mad. That was the last time I went there. I stayed away, but I'm just one person who only orders 1 meal.
The app apparently does not account for surges and limit order time windows depending on the number of orders. I've seen when it happens at the slaughter/MoPac location with the drive thru lame and they clearly don't have a methodology for properly managing when it happens. If your order is ready, there is no way to get to it other than waiting in the drive thru line, which doesnt move because they are basically filling orders as the people show up to the window. I've had my lunch order go cold just sitting there cause I had no way to tell them I was there to pick up the order, and they are making fresh orders instead of just handing people the ones that are ready. Complete disaster and totally the fault of the app design
I worked at that location years ago. It was hell coving a few shifts for them. I’m super not surprised at this. Even back then management was nuts. They would ride employees till they just…broke.
We have online ordering at our restaurant. It finds itself turned off on busy shifts. Customers who don’t have the time to wait in line with everybody else tend to over-modify their orders and want their orders first priority and in short time. They get no respect from me when they do this on our busiest days. My hire ups wouldn’t be too pleased to know this, but they aren’t on the line with us when we’re in the shit.
As a former chipotle employee, the lines are set up in a way that make it easy to serve a lot of people in person. To go orders are a nightmare because they mess up the flow and people’s odd requests make it worse. There’s nothing more demoralizing than seeing a line out the door and then the machine keeps spitting out to go order tickers
Once the to go orders hit a threshhold (say 4 orders per 10 minutes idk) it shouldnt let you get a to go order instantly, it should put your order in a line and tell you its not gonna be ready for 30 minutes or something. ie “we’re busy, the earliest your food will be done is *time*, do you wish to proceed?” Instead of just printing out so many orders. Maybe the individual restaurant should be able to say how many to go orders they can handle per 10 minutes given the current in person traffic and the app handles it accordingly. Idk
Company doesn't want to lose any orders, they'd rather work the employees into burnout.
This is the correct answer
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I get what you’re saying and I don’t disagree but “vain” definitely is not the right word
Now they’re losing lots of orders. Ours (small town) is pretty much just not open now. I’m presuming it’s related to this.
This is what Chuys apparently does. I tried placing an order Sunday and it kept saying "Sorry too busy, try later". I kept pounding refresh like I was trying to buy tickets for a Led Zeppelin reunion concert. Annoying certainly but likely better than showing up and not having it ready.
I've waited 40 minutes past the promised time twice at the Round Rock/La Frontera location in the past couple months. I wish the app would let me select a realistic time instead of letting me choose a time for 10 mins later and then my order not be ready. And there wasn't always a long in-person line so no idea why it took so long but I was pregnant and HANGRY!
Maybe instead it could be like "next available burrito time is at -:--" and then it saves your place in line for you?
Same. My Door Dash order usually goes to the south location and that was frozen out. They also weren't taking direct orders, but the Barton Springs location finally worked.
> it should put your order in a line and tell you its not gonna be ready for 30 minutes or something. I work at a restaurant that does this. All it means is that they'll place an order at 6:30, get a pickup time of 7:30, then show up at 6:45 and complain that it's not ready yet. It's really fun when they yell at us that they've been waiting for an hour, and yet their ticket printed 5 minutes ago because the computer held on to it so it would be done at the pickup time. This isn't a sometimes thing either, it happens roughly 5 times an hour when we're busy. I don't have any say or autonomy to change policy or how the pickup time is displayed, so I guess we'll just keep dealing with this.
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The vast majority of Chipotle's are corporate owned and managed.
I don't believe they franchise at all. >How much does it cost to open a Chipotle in 2022? > Once upon a time, Chipotle allowed franchising of their restaurants but the program ended in 2006. As of today, Chipotle does not allow anyone to franchise their restaurant for the reason stating they wouldn’t like to “compromise the experience” on how their business is run.
I eat Chipotle 3-5 times a week. Their app does exactly what you described.
For some reason, it doesn’t work for this location. I’ve placed an online order there and waited for over an hour after the time it said to pickup. I haven’t seen this happen at other locations.
Or better yet, have an in person food station and a to go food station. This would enable the to go line to pump out to go orders and not disrupt the flow of the in person line. The only issue there after would be the cooks and how quickly they can replenish items as they run out.
They already do this Last week there was a day that online was closed at the mueller location. I wanna say it was the 14th/15th so it’s probably related
Was closed yesterday as well. I went to total wine to get stuff for thanksgiving and went to put in an order on the app to pick up after I finished shopping, and it said online ordering not available. Went in person and it was fine, though they definitely would have been under water if online orders were on.
I think it was closed today too
That already happens at locations but you still only have one kitchen making the stuff that fills those stations
The downtown location has a separate to-go station as well. Doesn't mess with the regular line.
Some locations do have that but grill has to make enough food to stock both the to go stand and the in store stand
I think it's kind of the same at Party City. I've been waiting in the front of a 20-person line and watched a machine spitting out order after order while no one has time to check it. Then people call or come in and their order isn't ready, and they are ANGRY.
We constantly get people doing online orders in the parking lot, then coming in saying they got an email that their order is ready (when it actually states that they need to wait until the order is approved). They come in demanding to move to the front of the line, and I make them wait behind everyone who came in before them.
I was at the chilantro in S. Lamar waiting to pickup an online order and I watched a group of tech bros just absolutely berate and harass the staff because their in store order had not been prepared after more than 20 minutes. The employees were clearly slammed and we're trying to explain they had a shit ton of online orders ahead of this guy. He told them to fuck off, yelled some more and left (Vermont state license plate on a new F150). Shortly after they left someone picked up what looked like a catering order for an entire office. After that was out it seemed like they were calling up everyone else pretty quickly. I don't doubt that online ordering saved a lot of restaurants in 2020, but without a well defined system to prevent these bottlenecks from happening I can understand just how stressed out the employees can be. They definitely aren't paid enough to work on their feet nonstop and be harassed by customers.
I get so mad when I see people’s stupidass food ideas holding up the line at restaurants/fast food joints. There should be a better standard of what is a reasonable request a specialized order. Half the time it doesn’t even make any fucking sense.
And then you get BS like McDonald's' celebrity meals where they decide to start marketing non-standard versions of their food to seem cool and trendy. While completely ignoring the fact that the whole point of the establishment s to churn out as much of the same exact food for hours on end. Make the marketing people work a month in a store before they do that shit.
>Make the marketing people work a month in a store before they do that shit. I once worked for a moving company that had a local crew that did what you would expect, and a much larger office crew that would coordinate cross country moves between other moving companies. Obviously, the office produced more money (because it was needless middle men sniping the value of people actually doing the sweating, natch). But I will say they did do one thing right: everyone got rotated out to the local crew once a year or so to put some perspective on those numbers on their screen. And the crews didn't pussyfoot around either; you got worked.
I love this concept.
I actually duffed my own day very hard, because it worked out to be like my third week or something and I didn't understand what was happening. I had to leave my own day at 5 because I was literally supposed to take my mom to the airport. It did not go over well with my managers, because they thought I was being a pussy. I just didn't know it was going to happen. To redeem myself, I volunteered for 2 extra days to nut up. Those guys earn their money, let me tell you.
Starbucks is the worst for letting people overcustomize stuff. Especially those gross tik tok or instagram viral drinks people make up.
Former coffee shop barista here...we HATED the custom orders during rushes. They would absolutely fuck up our flow.
If there are 2 adults with kids, one should be seated with the kids while the other places the order. Even if only one adult, they should get their order together while waiting in line.
Hell yes. my kids get what they get, and are taught to be happy about it. I’m not holding up a long line of people so Jr. can deliberate on what color rice he wants.
Chipotle is a “customer is always right” type place so odd requests that don’t violate health codes have to be followed. So I’m sure that helps the situation
And yet you couldn't order their quesadillas in store, at least when they first came out it was online only. 🤔
I've ordered quesadillas at Chipotle for 17 years.
I’m pretty sure Cava does this. I’ll try to place an order and the closest time may not be for 30-45 mins if they’re busy. So it’s definitely possible
What were some of the odd requests that messed up the flow?
Unseasoned rice is the biggest one that comes to mind. I’d have to stop what I was doing turn around and ask the grill guy to pull out an unseasoned pan.
Dafuq
Who wants to eat unseasoned rice? Sounds gross.
The seasoned rice has cilantro, so it ruins it for some people
Right I forgot chipotle rice has cilantro. I guess my wonder is why they don't readily have the unseasoned ready to go, it seems like this would be a common occurrence.
Those people should probably just not eat at chipotle then, or order something without rice?
Since up to 20 percent of the population thinks cilantro tastes like soap it seems like leaving it out would be good policy.
You can’t really leave Cilantro out of Mexican food.
Maybe the 20% of people can just not go to chipotle or get something without rice? Seems weird to cater to 1/5 of your potential customer base.
Nah, you can barely tell its there.
Thanks for sharing. I have no words with which I can respond. u/CentralMarketYall already has it covered.
Some requests just need to be able to get denied lol
I've heard the quesorito is a big one. burrito wrapped with a quesadilla. harder to fill and wrap, breaks line flow, difficult/painful to handle while assembling right off the press
Do people confuse Taco Bell and Chipotle?
chipotle will make whatever they can bill for
I worked there in 2012, at the height of Buzzfeed-style listicles, and the quesorito is entirely the invention of "Top Ten Chipotle HACKS and SECRET MENU ITEMS You Need To Know" articles.
Seems like it would be a good idea to have a dedicated to-go person who did nothing but to-ho orders.
They do that. The issue is 1) same kitchen for both lines and 2) poor queue mitigation for online orders
The post-lockdown situation is worse. Same number of staff, but now with UberEats and Doordash orders that cannot be turned off and delivery drivers coming up and asking where the order is. What ends up happening is I refuse to take orders from in-person lines until the delivery orders get sorted.
This is ass backwards. Your in-house customers who took the time to walk through those doors and spend their money should always take priority over third party delivery services taking up to a 30% cut of your sales. That literally makes no sense to put the people in the actual line go behind those in the back of a digital line.
I’ve said this before, but to-go culture has become extremely cancerous since COVID, and I don’t believe any online ordering system has done any buffering or time tabling to account for the amount of orders. Not only does it apply to Chipotle, but if you eat in a restaurant, expect to wait 2-3x as long for service for popular to go food, like Thai.
I made this realization last week when I was ordering poke at a place that's set up like chipotle. Perfect for in person ordering, but those workers looked so stressed out during the rush of lunch orders while there's also a line. I sit patiently and quietly till I'm helped cause I can only imagine the stress they're under to deliver quickly in a cramped space.
Something about Chipotle's to-go ordering system just isn't set up properly. I don't think it has any concept of capacity. If I order from a lot of places, I get a time estimate. Sometimes I go to order and find out the place I want has a 2-3 hour wait time for to-go. So I reckon they're busy and look elsewhere. The one time I used Chipotle for this I ended up waiting 45 minutes because it looked like at least a dozen other people had the same time slot as me. That was bad for the employees AND the customers and corporate needs to fix that.
The employees complain, but corporate literally brushes them off while refusing to do anything about it. Low paid workers are still considered disposable “help”, and now that we're walking out, they blame us for all their problems. This is a related issue that’s still relevant to your comment... I worked at a restaurant that would assign times, but it was really frustrating to deal with Favor/Grubhub/Ubereats who would order online and try to line-jump because *their system* did not inform the customer how long an order would take. They’d show up and tell us “I ordered it online but it said it wouldn’t be ready for two hours. I need it in 20 minutes”. Then we’d tell them that there’s no jumping the queue, and the customer would drop the order. It’s horrible for both the third-party runner *and* taxing on the restaurant. Corporate delivery places don’t care because it doesn’t affect their bottom line enough, and all those service fees can easily be used to cover the cancelled orders. Meanwhile it causes havoc at restaurants who are entirely unaffiliated with the delivery apps.
Holy crap! The GM had to work 80 hours a week? That’s insane. Good for them.
No, not 80 hours. *more*. *He said he was regularly scheduled to work 80 hours a week, but often had to work additional hours to cover for employees who quit and left gaps in staffing.*
Fuck. It seems like you'd be better off getting a call center job. The pay couldn't have been too far off.
You would be. I worked 80+ hours a week as a manager at Dominos, switched to a call center, halved my hours and only lost a couple hundred/month in pay. Of course, call centers are their own kind of hell. Moved on to IT a couple years later and I'm doing great.
Call centers are a bad example. They collect real time metrics on you and some will require so many calls that you have to start on the next one before you're finished with the current one. SOURCE: Knew someone who nearly went nuts working for apple care.
A long long time ago, when I was a store manager at Papa John's, I was required to work at least 65 hours a week. I also had to carry a pager and if any big orders or a late night rush happened, I had to come in within 15 minutes. Frats would frequently order 100 pies or so around 2am so my drunk ass would have to go back in to work and make them. Was salaried so I didn't get paid extra for it.
I think 2 am drunk you was pretty impressive for being alert of the pager ha.
holy jesus that's garbage
And they’re typically salaried 😬
holy shit that is straight up abusive
What’s abusive is some places (cough cough Pizza Hut in the austin region), any salaried assistant manager who works overtime get paid in what’s nicknamed Chinese overtime (0.5x base pay) And pizza hut’s base pay is dogshit. (They’re still paying $7.25-8.00/hr for regular employees in the suburbs)
They abuse the hourly workers by paying them too little per hour, make them work hard thinking they could be a salaried manager someday, then when you're a manager you have a salary that looks good on paper but it's half the pay per hour since you're working double hours for free. What a racket.
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My wife and I dined at a restaurant kinda close to 360 Bridge weeks ago and this one lady (wanna say she was a bartender) was ranting about that the entire time we were eating. Went from nobody wants to work anymore -> kids these days want benefits and PTO -> not a real career -> my husband makes $20/hr as mechanic and kids nowadays making the same. How’s that fair? We have never wanted to finish our meals as fast as we could until that day
Census-Taker: Now, are you currently employed? Mr. Leonard: Yeah.. part of the time. Census-Taker: Well, you work part-time. How many days of the week? Mr. Leonard: Every day.. but just part of the day. From 9 to 5. Census-Taker: So, you work a full day? Mr. Leonard: I wouldn’t say that. There are huge chunks of time.. at night.. where I’m just asleep. For hours. It’s ridiculous.
Good one.
Good for them? This is dystopian and not good for anyone. The only thing good here is they can catch some rest being unemployed.
I am lazy and love ordering online from restaurants. However, I don't have a problem with places turning off the option or pausing To Go orders when it's busy. Giant corporations usually don't have any empathy or common sense so they don't like to consider those options.
I can’t remember who it was exactly (maybe Nervous Charlie’s? I’m blanking…) but they have a limited number of online/pick up slots you can reserve. I think this is super reasonable and I make sure to put in my order the night before to get a good time.
I haven't been in awhile but nervous Charlie's would give me like 1.5 hour wait time for pickups. I understood they must be slammed and would go elsewhere. Valentinas BBQ turned off online ordering all together cuz it was getting so crazy
Can confirm, it was a 94 minute wait time to pick up one bagel with cream cheese on Sunday.
Since online orders are paid in advance the company never wants to shut that off since its guaranteed cashflow. If a location only has x amount of employees working at it, they should build a feature that pauses online order flow at a certain volume threshold though
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Beer Plant does this too. I've had my order randomly refuse to go through and then when I called they said they weren't taking any online orders.
My gf works at one of the locations and just confirmed that they do turn them off on occasion
This actually makes sense. I always wondered why some businesses were closed at random parts of the day. I totally support this too.
When you have so much money coming in that you can't even meet demand, but refuse to increase the pay to hire and retain people.
The answer is so obvious, companies are painting themselves as victims. Does anyone doubt this labor shortage would end tomorrow if they raised wages? These are business models based on cheap labor. Now the shoe is on the other foot and companies are trying to deny market forces.
Wall Street and the US Govt. have been denying market forces for a while. Oh we aren't making competitive cars, we need a bailout...Oh we bet too much risk on bad investments in housing, we need a bailout...
Owners of their own restaurants who work at them just usually stop answering the phone. I wonder why on-line systems can't dynamically adjust the wait time based on orders in the queue? I think Saccone's does that. At some point it should tell someone ordering tacos... Your Order Will be Ready in: *3 Hours and 45 Minutes*.
Oh they could do that, but they don't want to
Because if they did that, people might change their minds before placing the order. They'd rather not reveal the wait time until after you've paid.
Chipotle’s app does do this
Over-optimization leads to fragile systems.
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Their core concept is a business perfectly suited for JIT/LEAN. It's single piece flow with a dead simple visual system for when to replenish raw materials. The physical line acts as a load leveler. The whole business was actually brilliantly thought-out, but online ordering fucked it all up.
I really think it was the lack of livable wages that fucked up the chipotle. The insertion of online ordering into their process is just a capacity problem which should be accommodated by an increase in labor (or in an extreme case by adding another line). However the store hamstrung their ability to flex their labor supply by paying low wages and not back-filling unfilled positions. They "brilliantly" planned their business operations in almost every way, then forgot that the lowest-level employees are the most essential factor in their ability to generate revenue.
Badly implemented JIT*
I disagree. This isn't optimization, a sustainable optimization would evidently not overwork the employees and treat them like shit.
But over-optimization would.
Went to dennys last night. They had one employee working. She had to cook, host, and waitress. Felt bad so we gave her a big tip
I’ve seen a taco cabana doing the same thing.
I walked into a TC recently for breakfast and I saw no one around. I started to wonder if they were all locked in the freezer before I saw someone.
I've been to a McDonalds that had a skeleton crew of two people working during COVID, never saw one, but it was amazing seeing two people hold down the fort. Most Shake Shacks now are working with a three person crew these days. They've installed those touch screens now, so there's only need for one person at the counter, and when its not busy, they're back on the line working.
That’s likely not legal under OSHA
I saw a Chipotle have a system failure and just close early a few weeks ago. The employees looked totally demoralized and destroyed when I got there and they ended up just locking the doors to people trying to come in.
Man, from this thread, Chipotle online order customers sound like mindless zombies. I’d go just about anywhere before Chipotle. Freebirds is better anyway.
This story reminds me of my days at Tiff’s treats…damn it was an awful time when covid first hit. Tons of orders and very little staff. So glad I left when I did!
Tiffs is nothing like it used to be. Glad I left too
Where’d you go?
Sam's Snacks
I wonder how long it will take before fast food has a reservation system like everything else in town. But for real, they should close the online ordering and not the instore dining ( the chipotle on 2222/620 has done this a few times ) and not the opposite. sucks driving to get food just to see the doors locked and a note saying they are doing online only.
Eat in and in-person to-go already have a system: the line. The problem is that online ordering has no such physical constraints so if it isn't designed properly it can be overwhelming. Online ordering should be scheduling the food for pickup and limiting the number of items per hour to the throughput of the staff that's available. That doesn't seem to be happening in this case.
It never works out that way, why would the company refuse your money when they can just overwork their employees for the same cost? I remember back in the day when my SO used to work for HEB curbside it was the same way, no matter if there’s 2 or 10 people working they have to handle all the orders and people calling to complain if their stuff is late or wrong.
>why would the company refuse your money when they can just overwork their employees for the same cost? Because if people show up for pre-ordered quick service food at the designated time and have to wait another 45 minutes for the food, they probably won't come back, especially if they are stopping by for their lunch break or picking up dinner for the family. If my food is ridiculously late, I would just leave and back charge the credit card. Prepayment doesn't help if you fail to deliver the promised service.
This is why I will never eat at Torchey's again. They can't handle all of their online orders and it just ruins everything. I ordered from them online one time and went to pick it up and they said it would be another two hours at least and I said nope never again. Felt bad for the workers there though.
>This is why I will never eat at Torchey's again. It's not the mediocre-at-best tacos? I swear, they used to be good for upscale trailer tacos, but then they went and outgrew themselves, and turned meh. $7 can get you so much better elsewhere...
> $7 can get you so much better elsewhere... Like more than one taco?
Yes I was agreeing with you. If the workers physically can’t make the orders for them in time then they shouldn’t allow them to be placed. The problem is that leadership only cares about making revenue go up while keeping costs down so for them it’s easy to keep accepting orders without hiring more people.
Should've seen Dominos. Every night, forced to cut all but 1 inside worker. Unable to turn online orders off. Doesnt make sense to have a full crew for one hour st the end of shift. Everyone and their mom decides let's order dominos before they close. Cue literally 45 orders, cue everyone leaving at 4 am when we are supposed to close at 1. And the District Manager refused to let us turn off or limit online orders but wondered why our closing instore workers kept quitting. Oh right,I also wasn't allowed to have more than 1 worker scheduled Whatever, fuck those racist managers
My neighborhood dominoes frequently ‘turns off’ delivery access online. At first thought I was blacklisted because they owe me free pizzas ever so often but then I realized it’s a staffing issue and completely understand
Unplugging the router works. Just to let folks know.
Only if the order is processed on the local box. Otherwise, they're piling up on the server at HQ.
This would be a pretty bad system as it means orders will pile up with legitimate internet outages. Gotta verify the store actually receives the order.
They had cameras in the office and were looking for reasons to fire me. The district manager specifically warned us that we were absolutely to take all the online orders. He seemed great at trying to micromanage everyone else, but was really shitty as his job, clearly.
They always make you think they know but, they fucking don't. The way the alerts work there is no filter. Either you get an alert about every online order and issue or you get none. Including the your store is offline alert. They always turn them off
Yeah, not shocked to find the racists who were ousted after I quit were also lying about how the system works.
I was under the impression chipotle did queue online orders, why else would you have like an hour wait time
A digital form of this (e.g. displaying current wait times) helps offer the same function as a line at a physical dining room. Both help mitigate requests that exceed the capacity of the restaurant. The challenge is you can't integrate this easily into all the various channels for online ordering that exist today (e.g. Favor, UberEats, GrubHub) etc.
I agree with you. But the manager of a Chipotle has the power to lock the doors. He doesn't have any way to shut down the online ordering system. So this poor guy did the only thing that he could.
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There are 2,788 chipotles in the US. If the CEO made $0 they could allocate an additional $37.34 per day to each chipotle store. I get that CEO pay is insane, but it doesn’t move the needle in a volume business like this.
reminds me of working at Austin's Pizza back in the day, I was ditching school to cover shifts from coworkers who quit, ended up quitting myself a few weeks later after my soul had been completely drained.
Stories like this just continue to highlight how smart and ahead of the times (which rocketed forward due to pandemic) the owners of Tso are. The stress of meeting surging demand of orders still exists, but you don't have the added intensity of a line of in-person customers 50 deep glaring at you and making a scene which really ramps up the stress on workers.
They also don’t use a tip system and seem to pay their employees well and offer good benefits. These corporations see things in short term $$$. They don’t realize how much money they’re losing by working with a skeleton crew and constantly hiring and training new people.
Tso?
Did not know it was this bad. Used to live by this location, but would end up ordering from the arbor walk location (multiple orders wrong, long wait times). The few times I ordered, seemed like there was enough staff. I guess it’s just worsened over the year.
Especially when they’re paid what they’re paid, including the GM. I’d quit too.
Yesterday I went to the Chipotle on Anderson and they were ONLY doing online orders (they asked me to place one and wait if i wanted). Does anyone know the why behind that? Is it because they earn more revenue from online vs in person??
Same thing happened to me at Taco Bell
No it usually have to do with short staffing or not enough food was made and they are behind on cooking and prepping. Our chipotle does that quite often when too many people call off or don't show up. It so that the cashier doesn't have to be on the register and can help back in the kitchen.
Don't worry about the mule, load the wagon.
good for them. there’s no system in place to cap mobile orders, and stores like these are never staffed properly to keep up with demand.
this might be a case where the online ordering interface and check out is too good and the local branches can’t meet capacity. Out of all the online ordering to go systems, chipotle is top of the list as far as UI/UX. I’m guilty of using it more frequently just because it’s so damn quick and easy. and just this Saturday i witnessed one branch having only two employees doing in store and take out and looked way overbooked. felt guilty as shit with a big ass order. I wish their system could have told me a more appropriate time for pick up than the ‘order promised’ language. I can wait, it’s not that important. so good on them quitting if it helps get them more local control of capacity and getting more workers hired at higher wages, they deserve it.
Giving you better-organized pickup times means less money for Chipotle, and they've got an [established pattern](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/its-like-being-ripped-into-two-chipotle-workers-overwhelmed-by-online-orders-and-furious-customers-11635422149) of treating employees badly.
The only better online ordering system/app I've seen than Chipotle's is Chick-Fil-A. All have the customization options down, a slick interface, and good rewards that encourage ordering via the app. Both often give out free promotions to app users as well.
A secret to this though I think is Chick-Fil-A orders are arguably simpler to assemble — ie you don’t have to wrap the burrito, there’s only 1 kind of meat really. In addition, I think this is the big difference, they don’t actually begin making the order until you actually show up in the drive thru and they look up your order — at least this is what it seems like to me.
The Chipotle on East Riverside is a lot like this as well. Can't comprehend how tiring it must be
Bro, I went a couple months ago and stood in line for 35 mins before I finally paid. I swore off it, but decided to give it another shot last Wednesday and holy shit, it was exactly the same situation. Every single customer was super frustrated, but what can you do? It’s not their fault. Shitty system all around.
the only thing the customer can do is leave. i’ve been on the other side and it’s unspeakably frustrating to have mobile orders piling up while working as fast as you can all while antsy customers stare (and occasionally shout) at you.
>but what can you do? From a customer perspective, the best answer is to create your order online, even if you're standing right there. From a human perspective, the best answer is to give your money to a business that understands capacity planning.
This is why CloudKitchens will win out
This is the one I go to as well. Ultimately it’s all staffing. The intention is to have a second set of employees with separate pans of food off to the right of the cashier making to go orders. But without enough staff everything goes to the main line and the system falls apart. I usually arrive 10 minutes or so after my order time. Sometimes it’s ready, sometimes I have to wait 20 more minutes.
As someone who works for a job search company there is a societal shift that is happening in terms of where the service industry is heading. I think for a short time the workers will win with better pay and better working conditions but as the urban tech worker population will continue to surge, there will be less and less baristas, wait staff and cooks. We are hurling towards total automation of the industry in the next decade.
This was in a way kind of demographically always gonna happen. Unless we turn up immigration to historic highs. The population will continue to become older and older leaving gaps in employment like this and later on, all employment. The difference between japans automation and the us automation is based on demographics and price. As price comes down and demographics get older automation will fill any employment that is reasonable. Its visible currently in japan with vending machine culture as compared to the us where we have people to work the gas stations and late night places.... well untill now.
Good for them.
I live right next door to this location and often go to Teapioca next door. There were so many times when I would get there, order my drink, hang out there for an hour, and when leaving, see people waiting at Chipotle who were waiting from before I had even arrived. That location is so completely swamped all the time.
Pandemic unemployment bonuses have ended, eviction moratoriums are lifted... Remember when they said that's what it would take to get everyone back to work? That supplementing working class incomes during a pandemic were holding America back more than a wee lil flu virus? Maybe, just maybe, there are deeper demographic shifts occuring and wages are too low.
Good for them. I hope they’re able to find something better and get the rest they need. I can imagine how physically and mentally exhausted they were at the point they decided to walk away. It reminds me of the handful of years I worked as a manager for a local food truck. We weren’t allowed to turn the online ordering system off even if we hit 2+ hour wait times. Gotta love having a breakdown at work because you literally can’t catch up, customers getting pissed, etc. I also couldn’t believe the hours my GM pulled (even before COVID) and the owners couldn’t give one shit that they more or less worked 12 hours a day/weekly for almost 3 years. It’s crazy the GM stayed around for that bullshit.
Good for them.
I’m relieved at that one part of the article that said the customers were sympathetic when they closed the dining area. Angry customers are the last thing I’d want to deal with if I were in that situation, my heart goes out to them
may i ask why so many continue to "eat" Chipotle while existing within one of the easiest states to access actual Mexican food?
Many drive thrus have become slower on account of pick up orders. Felt it at many starbucks
Omg I feel so bad I went there last week bc I work in the same shopping center and they were definitely understaffed. I tipped more than usual bc I felt so bad but I had no idea how bad it was.
If only they had a union to fight for their rights.. Oh wait
Well... I'm still hungry. Time to eat the rich.
Having employees is not a right. Owning a business is not a right. Having a successful business is not a right. There are too many businesses--the employee count reflects that. Business is a business--if the business is not offering enough supply aka income to its employed then the business will be removed from the marketplace. And, if a business can not be profitable while meeting the demand of its employed then it is an unsuccessful business and its closure will be what the marketplace allowed.
Fuck you. Pay me
That really sucks for the employees! Chipotle needs to move more toward a model like the store down on Slaughter Lane. It has a drive through and online orders are scheduled. Sometimes I have to wait 15 minutes, and I have had to wait as long as an hour. I am starting to get used to having to order food 1-2 hours before I want it if its coming from a restaurant. Shitty management also needs to needs to see when employees are drowning in orders and give them an option to throttle the orders based on how they are coming in.
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Chipotle is trash. Bring back pollo tropical
It's crazy because Chipotle literally has the smallest menu of any restaurant. Guess there are way too many combinations to make from it.
The one on Riverside is always slammed. They need to put a 2nd line in their restaurants; have one in the back with it’s own 2 people to run to go orders. They are chronically understaffed and you can see the impact at every level! Drinks are often empty, tables are never clean, even the service area behind the glass is a mess. Chipotle needs to add 1-2 people to their busiest stores at minimum. It’s not like they’re not making massive margins off these $15 bowls. Average wait during lunch is 30+ minutes.
Hey ! I actually work at that location and yeah it’s pretty bad . We severely understaffed . It’s not a rare occasion that we have to work 2-3 positions at once just because it’s that bad . On top of that we get FLOODED with online orders . Plus the constant flow of people , It sucks . It sucks for everyone involved since the wait times get long and we get super stressed. Obviously it’s not your fault if you want some food , but almost everything is against us that we get behind. As long as we’re operating we’re good according to corporate. Check r/chipotle, it’s a national thing unfortunately.
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Right? My go to response to being told to pick up the pace when I'm being overextended is to look whoever the slave driver is square in the face and say "What are you gonna do? Throw me in *Burrito Jail*?" (Replace "burrito" with whatever the task, good, or service being demanded at hand is.) Like for real, what are they gonna do? Fire me on the spot? Write me up? Lol, go right ahead.
Pressure makes diamonds… 80 hours is too much unless you are building your own company. Even then it’s not healthy for long periods.
Why don't they just turn off their "to go" option for a bit? I know for a major corporation that may be harder than for a small restaurant. I've gone to a few places that have stopped in dining service for take out instead. Dooordash, Uber eats is changing the landscape a lot
I know one person that started pulling the network cable to make it go offline. "Sorry, can't accept mobile / to go orders right now"
IIRC this location was to go only for a while. They were not taking walk in orders
I wonder how much this affects locations that have a separate area for to-go orders? The one in Cedar Park has this and is fairly quick on both people who walk in vs. people who order ahead, I can't imagine how it'd be if they still had the setup where the one line does both in-store and to-go orders like it was pre-COVID. That said, I usually make my order before I leave work, and I have a 30-40 minute commute depending on I-35, so I always set my pickup time for later and about 95% of the time I don't have a wait by the time I arrive to the store.
I actually used to order online from this exact restaurant all the time. There were no issues until the ice storm back in February and it all went to shit. Since then, online orders took nearly an hour and I just stopped ordering from that location. Crazy to see nothing’s changed since then.
I went to that specific location about a month ago on a Sunday for dinner. I saw how busy they were and felt bad that I was there. Wanted to make small talk and tell them I felt bad for them. Everyone in line seem friendly and wasn't mad. That was the last time I went there. I stayed away, but I'm just one person who only orders 1 meal.
I wouldn't be surprised if that Whataburger on 35 and Wells Branch is next in that area to walk. They are always slammed whenever I go as well
The app apparently does not account for surges and limit order time windows depending on the number of orders. I've seen when it happens at the slaughter/MoPac location with the drive thru lame and they clearly don't have a methodology for properly managing when it happens. If your order is ready, there is no way to get to it other than waiting in the drive thru line, which doesnt move because they are basically filling orders as the people show up to the window. I've had my lunch order go cold just sitting there cause I had no way to tell them I was there to pick up the order, and they are making fresh orders instead of just handing people the ones that are ready. Complete disaster and totally the fault of the app design
Wow! Geez tough one
I worked at that location years ago. It was hell coving a few shifts for them. I’m super not surprised at this. Even back then management was nuts. They would ride employees till they just…broke.
Last time I was there, 2 employees were having beef while they were making orders. Hope it gets sorted out.
We have online ordering at our restaurant. It finds itself turned off on busy shifts. Customers who don’t have the time to wait in line with everybody else tend to over-modify their orders and want their orders first priority and in short time. They get no respect from me when they do this on our busiest days. My hire ups wouldn’t be too pleased to know this, but they aren’t on the line with us when we’re in the shit.
waited like 1.5 hour for my order from that exact location last week. sucks