December 20, 2012

I was taking pictures of the bathroom while Chipotle’s CFO and co-CEO were tasting rice!!

Yesterday I was in Burlington checking out our new space. I’d gotten a call from the Assessor’s Office that our abutters lists were ready for pick-up, and Lucia and I had a meeting scheduled, so we both hopped in the car, talked business on the way, and took the opportunity to see the new space.

Of course, one of our soon-to-be neighbors is Chipotle. So after checking out the Starbucks, b.good, etc. we walked into Chipotle and grabbed a bite. I noticed two folks interviewing a staff member. And after a bit it hit me that they didn’t look like they were from this area.

I’ve been checking out bathrooms everywhere I go these days, because I think we can do better than we did at HSQ and the HUB (more on that later). So I was snapping some pictures for my architect.

When I came out I noticed the two out-of-towners were behind the counter tasting everything. I’m talking tasting in the way we do when we visit a site. Diving into base ingredients, in their case: rice, fajitas, lettuce, and tasting. They used their guac cups to do the tasting, we use spoons. But it was the same activity. (Although I wondered why they don’t have tasting spoons handy at their restaurants.)

As Lucia and I were walking away I started wondering if those guys were executives. I noticed a Black Escalade with Livery plates idling outside. I pulled out my iPhone and looked up Chipotle executives and sure enough, those guys were Chipotle CFO John Hartung and Chipotle co-CEO Monty Moran. By the time I’d realized they’d already jumped in their Escalade, but it was still really exciting for the two of us. The two of us being Lucia and myself. Obviously John and Monty have no idea who we were or what a big deal we’ll be someday!

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