Chipotle Mexican Grill — Restaurant in Columbia

TLDR: this is the worst restaraunt I have been to in my entire life Before I go off on a rant, I'd love to just clarify i am not some "karen" who gets joy out of complaining and leaving bad reviews. This is the only bad review I have ever written on anything ever, and I have worked multiple fast food jobs and understand the struggle, i normally treat fast food employees with respect. Also I work for doordash and am in this restaraunt about 10 times a week, so this isnt based off of one bad experience, but the average experience you can expect day in and day out from this place. Every single time I go to pick up an order from this restaraunt I end up waiting 15-40 minutes past the pickup time for the ticket. Why? I'm guessing because almost everyone who works in this restaraunt is PAINFULLY dopey. The amount of times you can catch someone just staring at a wall would make you think you're in an insane asylum. They work terribly as a team and when one person isn't busy, rather than helping their coworkers at another station who are busy, they'd rather stand around like they forgot where they are. When someone IS actually trying to make an order, its the saddest thing I've ever seen. Half the time they get confused at some point because they messed something up so they will spend 3 FULL MINUTES STARING at the food trying to figure out what went wrong and why the food can't just make itself. And even when they are actually working and actively MAKING FOOD they go SO FREAKING SLOW that it makes me want to jump over the counter and make it myself and spare us all the wait. It honestly looks like they are afraid making the food too fast will make it explode like they are handling volatile materials. Now I know what you're thinking: "geez dude lay off, you think you can do better or something?" And the answer is YES. YES I CAN. BECAUSE I WORKED AT THE CHIPOTLE DOWNTOWN FOR ALMOST A YEAR. We had HALF the employees they have, (I once counted 13 employees crammed in this place at once and they were still behind on orders) and we only had ONE line for making both the dine in orders and online orders, not two. and we didn't have any fancy screens for telling us all the ingredients for each order with cute diagrams, we had to actually READ paper tickets (although I dont think these people can read so I'm glad they have the help). and on top of all of this, being smack in the middle of downtown Columbia just outside MU campus, we had twice as much business and we still got orders out in great times. I never have any issues at any other Chipotle in columbia or st. Louis, but this place is always a nightmare. And just to remind you, im working most of the times I visit here, I am literally GETTING PAID to go here and I still have to debate if its worth the torment, if I have the mental fortitude. Why someone would not only go here for free but to SPEND their money I have no idea. It baffles me. Here, let me sum up your next visit for you to spare you the trip. You walk into the restaraunt and notice half the employees are panicking and running around like they don't know whats happening, the other half are standing eerily still while their brains are trying to find the spare computing power to allow them to breathe and blink at the same time. You won't even get acknowledged for the first 5 minutes, whether they are busy or not, so get comfy. Next someone will ask you what order you are picking up for, but they will inevitably forget in about 45 seconds and ask you again, and repeat this process no less than 4 times, so don't stress over it. They will realize the order is not ready, (who knew!!) And try to buy themselves time by asking what the pickup time on the ticket is hoping they aren't obliged to have your food ready yet. Then once you tell them "the pickup time was ten minutes ago..." they give you a blank stare with their soulless glazed over eyes as they try to figure out a way out of this situation. 25 minutes more of this and you might finally have your most likely incorrect order! Please, just fire everyone...

5/31/23 Been going to this location a lot more as of late. Food has been consistently good, and I haven't had any real problems with the service. The line can be pretty slow in the evenings and nights, but I'm aware that it's due to the volume of online orders that come in. Dakota and his team have really turned this place around. It's a far cry from what it was the past couple of years.

3/18/22 Gave this location it's final chance. Not only is the food quality still extremely inconsistent, the service provided by the staff is not up to par. Concerning the day crew specifically, employees on the line don't appear to be properly trained or knowledgeable of the products available (not knowing which salsa is which). I'm not upset about this; new people have to start somewhere. What I was upset about was the cashier that was not new overcharging and arguing with me over protein pricing. In this Chipotle, like every other, a half-and-half protein portion on an entrée still gets priced as a single portion of a protein. However, the price of that portion is based on the most expensive of the two proteins used on the entrée. The cashier instead thought that half-and-half was synonymous with what is called "double protein." I did not ask for, nor did I receive double protein, and correctly specified that I wanted "half-and-half." Unfortunately, I had already paid, and didn't notice that the price was higher than it should have been until after the transaction had processed (price was not read out loud either, but that's moot). I brought it up to the cashier and she claimed that a "half-and-half" has always been charged as a double. No thought to maybe just double-check that information with a superior or anything, just flat out "I'm right, you're wrong." No, you are wrong, and you should have checked to determine the correct information. I'm not irritated because I was overcharged, I'm irritated that I was overcharged because of an employee digging in on an incorrect assumption, and not offering to determine the validity of their assumption.

That said, night crew, and especially the cashiers working evenings usually are phenomenal. Both knowledgeable and respectful, and the food tends to be better. If you have to visit this location, do so after 6 PM or so.

6/2/21 As promised, my 6 month return. Ordered in person. Staff seemed rather chaotic and unfocused. It seemed as though most of the staff working at the time were new employees. This led to some confusion at the line for another customer when the entrée was skipped over the proteins entirely and went right to salsa, however, I will not count this against them. Food was okay overall. On this trip, beans were a little crunchy, but not overly so. In an odd twist of events however, the white rice was actually overcooked this time. It was just a single mushy mass instead of individual grains. Aside from these two things, the rest of the ingredients I got were pretty decent. The guacamole was very oxidized on the top layer and extremely unappealing. I didn't get it, and it didn't look like anyone else wanted to either. Overall, at 6 months later, this location still seems to be in a perpetual state of disarray and still cannot deliver a consistent experience. It is still the lowest reviewed Chipotle in Columbia for a reason. I understand having a number of newer hires makes things a bit more chaotic, but there were just too many things not being the way they should be to bring my review up past 2 stars. Also, based on other recent reviews, it seems that using the Chipotlane is still the slowest way to order. I will continue to go to the Broadway location for the time being, and I will return here in 3-6 months...

Ordered ahead of time and went there to pick up our order. Well they could see we placed a order and it was supposed to be ready, but they couldn't find it. Apparently they made it and gave it to someone else. You order ahead to avoid this kind of stuff and to make the trip as efficient as possible. Kids defeats the purpose to order ahead and have to stand in line and wait for a order then find out your order isn't even there, so then more waiting for them to figure it out and then make my order all over again "allegedly". We paid $2 extra for cauliflower rice because my wife has allergy and can't have the regular rice. So when they went to make the order I was very clear about it and was reassured I would get taken care of especially since what happened. Having confidence they had done their job as promised I took the order and headed home to feed the fam. Well after getting home and grabbing the bag off my seat I discovered there was a pile of liquid on my seat that didn't make sense. For some reason there was some kind of dressing containers in the bag we didn't order and they were open and leaked. So now all the food is cross contaminated with whatever this liquid is. After checking it hadn't gotten inside my wife's dish but low and behold it was stuffed full of regular rice which would put her in the hospital, just like I was extremely clear about when making the order. So not once but twice they got it wrong and I made a trip for nothing and had to make the family dinner. We reached out to the store and we're honestly brushed off. Still waiting on our money to be returned to us. The store was just too busy to be bothered with us so had to go through the app and we are allegedly getting a refund but it's been past the time frame they told us we would have it. Really need to step up the training at this location. Food allergens are serious and need to honored because you could really hurt someone just because you don't care. I wouldn't recommend this establishment for a...