There are only two things stopping me from eating at Chipotle every day: The first is an irrational fear that I will somehow get sick (although the restaurant says everything is chill now); the second is the fact that I have to pay extra for guacamole despite the fact that it should be my god-given right to have it on any of Chipotle’s offerings for free. Actually, that’s not even the most annoying part: What I really wish is that they’d stop telling me how much it is every time I say that I’d like some.
Unfortunately, some news has recently come out that will soon put an end to my not eating at Chipotle on a daily basis. That’s because a Chipotle manager just spilled all of the chain’s secrets to Thrillist, and boy are they exciting. Did you know that there are 65,000 combinations to choose from? Did you know that there’s an unofficial secret menu? Did you know that Chipotle managers have to eat basically all day in order to test for freshness and quality? Time to dust off the old resume!
Here are the most important secrets we learned from the interview:
Chipotle has an almost unlimited (65,000 is a lot, okay?) amount of combinations that you can make with your food. Ask for corn salsa. Ask for no salsa. It’s all going to taste fine. The worst combination, according to the former manager, Devin Caldarone, is “salsas and sour cream mixed in a cup,” because “it’ll go right through you.” Don’t know why anyone’s doing that, but please stop. You want your gut to be healthy!
The best combination? According to Calderone, it’s “corn tortilla steak tacos with peppers and onions, hot salsa, sour cream, cheese, and lettuce.” That does sound really good!
But that’s not all: If you ask the fine people preparing your food to make you a secret off-the-menu item, they totally will. In fact, if you never knew you could get nachos, a crunchy burrito (just like Taco Bell!) or even a quesarito, which sounds amazing because it’s actually a quesadilla that’s cooked, re-opened, and then transformed into a burrito right in front of your very eyes.
Calderone says that if you’re really nice to whoever’s making your food, they could hook you up with a Chipotle pizza:
“I’d put two tortillas on top of each other on some foil, then add medium salsa mix with a little bit of sour cream as a sauce. On top of that I’d add cheese and then I’d chop up some steak, put it all on the grill, and put something over to convection cook it. You’d have this beautiful-looking pizza come out, all from Chipotle ingredients. I’d just sell them that for the price of a bowl — I’m sure I would’ve gotten fired for saying that if I still worked there.”
What is there outside of secret menus? Two tips for customers: Number one, don’t get “too greedy” with the toppings if you don’t want your burrito to become a huge and untenable mess that makes you go “Thanks, Obama” as it slips and slides out of your hand and right onto your shirt; Number two, don’t order a burrito! Make it yourself:
The best secret hack is to get a bowl with tortillas on the side to make your own two burritos. “Generally, bowls get more food fillings like rice and beans, just not the meats. And extra rice, beans, and salsas are free, so fill up,” our man says.
Wait, sorry, there are three tips (four if you count being nice): Don’t ask for ice in your burritos. That doesn’t sound like something you’d do (right?) but Calderone told Thrillist that it’s an alarmingly regular occurrence:
“I have no idea why people asked for this, but it was a thing. Maybe they liked their burrito cold, but they’d ask to put a few ice cubes in it. Sometimes it was a veggie burrito so maybe they thought that would keep the veggies fresh or cold, but it was just going to make it soggy. That was gross.”
Want to know more of Chipotle’s deepest, darkest secrets? Head on over to Thrillist to learn them all!
