Today the Chipotle in St. Cloud gave out free burritos...
"Why?" You might ask, well let me tell you.
Today another taco/burrito place opened in St Cloud, though I do not recall the name of it. Some said that it was nasty of Chipotle to do this... giving free burritos so that no one would go to this new place and stole all their business... but I think it was genius. From a business stand point, it was pure genius.
I have never seen a line move so fast. The free burrito thing started at 2pm, and I, fortunately, was only about the 50th person in line -- I was outside, but not too far out, and once they started the line, I had my burrito in about three minutes... four tops. It was incredible. They had 5 or 6 people at the line throwing things on the burrito... it was intense. They must have had every employee working.
On top of the free burrito, they also had a free soda... at first, I questioned this, because even if a free soda was not in the equation, just as many people would have gone. I don't think anyone decided to only go once the free soda came into play. But then I realized it was probably due merely to efficiency. If people were trying to buy a soda to go along with their free burrito, this would have slowed down the line incredibly... so good thinking on their part.
Also, the only advertisement for this was through facebook. Facebook amazes me... I realize that it has more impact at the St. Cloud chipotle verses lets say the Coon Rapids one, because St Cloud is a college town and there are thousands of people on facebook in such a small radius. But the amount of people that were there right at 2pm, alone... holy crap. I got there at about 1:40, and by 2 o clock the line was about 200 meters long. Lots of people... thus, lots of free burritos. It'd be curious to know how much money they lost today... and if it was worth it. Will people now go their more because they got a free burrito? I know I won't. I'll go there the same amount I would have before, except it was nice to eat for free today... and I probably wouldn't have even known that the new place was opening if this whole shinanigan wouldn't have happened. All of this intrigues me.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
Chipotle can handle it. A few years back (the first and last time I've ever really "eaten" there), at that VERY chipotle, a pubic hair was found in a burrito. Was anyone working surprised? Did they care when we ALL threw our barely eaten foil-wrapped food in the garbage and walked out the door, only to forever call it chiPUBEtlay and never eat there again? No they did not care, and they were not surprised, which has to tell you something. I would've eaten at the new place, probably.
Post a Comment