Chipotle will shut down all its stores today and rivals are rubbing salsa in the wound
The great Chipotle shutdown of 2016 is officially under way.
Chipotle will be shutting down all of its stores across the U.S. on Monday throughout the entire lunch rush to hold a company-wide meeting about its recent E.coli crisis and food safety plans.
Whether that actually leads to meaningful improvements in safety procedures or consumer confidence is anyone's guess. In the short-term, the closure strategy mainly serves as a clear attention-seeking gambit, used by other food chains like Starbucks to great effect in difficult times.
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And it has certainly generated plenty of attention -- from customers and competitors alike.
Several burrito chains -- and even Seamless! -- opted to rub salsa in Chipotle's wounds by putting out promotions and taunting tweets timed to the closure.
Chipotle is already pushing back with a temporary promotion to give away free burritos later this week on a first-come-first-text basis.
All's fair in love and guac.
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One good marketing ploy deserves another.
Chipotle customers, meanwhile, gradually woke up to the fact that they would have to change their lunch plans.
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An E.coli outbreak at Chipotle late last year sickened dozens of customers in stores across multiple states, cutting into sales and its once untouchable stock price.
Chipotle received the all clear from the Centers for Disease Control last month. Now it just wants to show it's taking the issue seriously so that more customers are ready to eat when it re-opens.
Seth Fiegerman was a Senior Business Reporter at Mashable, where he covered startups, marketing and the latest consumer tech trends. He joined Mashable in August 2012 and is based in New York.Before joining Mashable, Seth covered all things Apple as a reporter at Silicon Alley Insider, the tech section of Business Insider. He has also worked as a staff writer at TheStreet.com and as an editor at Playboy Magazine. His work has appeared in Newsweek, NPR, Kiplinger, Portfolio and The Huffington Post.Seth received his Bachelor of Arts from New York University, where he majored in journalism and philosophy.In his spare time, Seth enjoys bike riding around Brooklyn and writing really bad folk songs.
