Chipotle Mexican Grill — Restaurant in Blacksburg

This restaurant is a colossal failure on all fronts. As a past member of the Chipotle kitchen staff - I worked at the West Broad Street location in Richmond as an undergraduate over the summer of 2018 - this location is an utter embarrassment to the food service industry. Here is where it fails:

Food quality/Food safety: I am highly familiar with the stress, duties, and responsibilities of safely handling and managing food at Chipotle restaurants. I have witnessed multiple occasions when they have handled food without wearing gloves. I have even witnessed an employee "sneak" steak from a pan, fill it into a plastic cup, and eat it in plain view of the customers.

The food is often cold and wholly lacks in flavor. For example, when I made the cilantro lime rice at the Richmond location, we actually had portioning and ratios in which we would incorporate salt, lime, and cilantro into the rice to achieve a standard flavor profile with our food. There is no portioning or consistency whatsoever at this location in ingredients and servings.

The meat is often cold and unseasoned. I have witnessed an employee in the back during a major dinner rush cutting avocadoes for the next day's guacamole. Anyone with food handling experience can tell you that avocadoes spoil fast. What this tell me since my location trained us to make the guacamole fresh every morning is that this location has resolved itself to cutting corners in every way, so that opening and closing the store requires the least amount of effort.

The food is underwhelming and depresses me since I believe that if I were allowed in the back, I could make my own dinner and everyone else's meals waiting, which is always the case, with greater safety standards being met, actual recipes being followed according to the company standard, and the food maybe just maybe will be hot by the time the customers eat it, a rarity at this store. How this store has passed health and food inspections seriously concerns me. At least the portions while inconsistent can be overly generous, which leads me to my next point.

The service is laughably disrespectful, mismanaged, and inconsiderate of the customer. I have a theory that the reason why people keep accepting the mediocrity of this location isn't just because it is the only Chipotle in a college town that is in a convenient location for parking, but they actually seem to 'bribe' people to accept a lesser dining experience by heaping up on occasion massive portions of food into your bowl.

Not only does this allow the already desperate and hungry college student consumers to accept the lesser food quality and service in the name of quantity - the students could care less since they are more focused on other things - to a more observant person, they would notice that the over-abundance of cold items on the bowl actually masks the already cold meat that probably was made the morning of and wouldn't measure up to temperature standards if tested as it has been served. In other words, they mask cold food with lots of toppings, so the whole bowl tastes simply like chilled leftovers, which is a major turn-off when you expect the meal to taste cooked!

I could add more, but I have run out of characters. The environment also sucks because they blast whatever garbage party music they wish with the occasional Pink Floyd track. I would be mortified if I were a parent bringing children in there.

The reason I have so many stories is because this store is a testament to the dangers of monopolies. There are simply no other Chipotles with convenient parking. I will end by saying that I have learned to make my own burrito bowls at home. Next time you consider this location, realize that you are enabling a lower standard for food safety, disregard for quality product consistency, and food service that disrespects you as the customer. Just go to the Roots, Meza, or Panda Express nearby, but if you respect yourself, do not go here. Tread at your own risk if you do. You could end up like my neighbor who got food poisoning from...

I’ve given this location a few chances now and I’m consistently disappointed. It wasn’t until now that I realize so many others have similar concerns. The service is lacking tremendously, there’s always out of stock items, and the portions are variable. Tonight’s meal sealed the deal on never going back to this location. The order was placed on their app for pick up. They were out of Mexican coke and decided to replace it with a bottle of Coke Zero. This was noticed at pick up so I gave it back to them and asked for a fountain drink instead. There were no lids or straws out and they stated they have none. The burrito bowl could be described as sour cream with a side of rice and meat and there were no fajita veggies as ordered which they said nothing about at pick up. My husband’s burrito also lacked veggies so I can assume they were out, but some notice would have been appreciated. The small queso had 5 chunks of chicken in it (which may have been great for someone, but I just wanted queso and the chicken took up a majority of cup). This is one of a handful of disheartening experiences and I truly hope this location can accept any and all opportunities for improvement in the future. Until then, I’ll have to hope N Main does better and I highly recommend others give that one a shot before spending money at...

Always very dirty inside. Food is scattered all over various surfaces. Very common for them to just leave ingredients out of orders or add ones you didn't ask for. Lots of cross contamination as the toppings just kinda mix, which is definitely concerning for people with allergies or aversions to certain foods. Employees seem to be high half the time. Portions are sometimes adequate, but extremely stingy on other occasions. I have come here a few times; however, out of convenience, but my recent experience was certainly my worst and the reason I'm leaving this review. I ordered a bowl with extra white rice on the app, only to find I was given no rice. Supposedly they were out of rice, which is an absolute joke. It's Chipotle you can't be out of an ingredient that is the base of nearly every entree you sell. I obviously wouldn't have ordered if I knew this because who wants a bowl with no rice? There was, however, nothing in the app showing that they were out of rice, which is just careless as I assume the many other mobile orders I saw also probably expected they would receive rice. I have also seen them display outages in the app in the past, so they clearly have the ability to do so. Whoever manages this place needs to get it together because I can't name a more poorly managed restaurant...