Main / Money / Chipotle stores to close Feb. 8 for few hours

Chipotle stores to close Feb. 8 for few hours

By Jan 23, 2016

Every Chipotle in the country will close next month... temporarily.

Embattled fast-casual restaurant chain Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) will close all of its eateries nationwide for a few hours during the morning of February 8 for an all-staff meeting on food safety.

On Wednesday, Chipotle announced that the company would be launching a new marketing campaign geared towards kicking off the restaurant chain's "road to recovery", Fox News reported. The company said it received a grand jury subpoena related to a norovirus outbreak that sickened 234 people in Simi Valley, California, in August.

Has anyone alerted Cyn Santana about this crisis? Chipotle's fourth-quarter revenue in 2015 was down 30% compared to the same period a year earlier - particularly bad for a company that had been growing rapidly.

Executives eager to declare an end to the slide in stock prices met with officials from the Centers for Disease Control, who have been looking into the outbreaks.

In December, Steve Ells, Chipotle's founder and co-chief executive, publicly apologized, saying that Chipotle was introducing new safety measures including having some foods prepared in a central kitchen before they are sent to individual locations. In order to win back the trust of its customers, the millennial favorite is also planning to give out double the amount of free food, CNBC says.

Chipotle has suffered from several outbreaks of E. coli, Salmonella and norovirus that infected customers and led to an unrelenting stream of criticism and mockery on social media. At the time of the CDC's last update, those cases were not considered part of the other E. coli O26 outbreak but could eventually get lumped in to one, two-strain outbreak.

"Implementing all facets of our enhanced food safety program is our highest priority", Chris Arnold, Chipotle's communications director, told Mic in an emailed statement.

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