Chipotle Mexican Grill — Restaurant in Kirkland

This is the worst managed Chipotle I've been to. This is a management issue.

Ordering is super slow during the lunch and dinner windows.

At most Chipotle's, you have an efficient burrito-making assembly line: one person to warm the tortilla, add rice and beans, and add your protein (sometimes this is a 2nd person to keep the line flowing). Another person to add the rest of the fillings. Sometimes it's one person who moves down the burrito assembly line with you and assembles your entire burrito. Inefficient, but works. And a final person to check you out at the register, grab your chips and guacamole, your drink, etc. Because they handle money, this should be a dedicated position so they aren't constantly gloving and ungloving.

Then you have the back kitchen staff keeping the assembly line going. Cutting pico de gallo, heating up beans, steaming rice, grilling the meat, blah blah blah. The service line and the kitchen staff communicate when an ingredient is getting low so it can be replaced before it runs out. Duh. It works this way at every Chipotle I've been to. Except for Totem Lake.

At Totem Lake, you have complete disorder. They're low or out of a third of the items. You have some assembly line employees who try to batch your party's burritos together, so communicating what topping add to which burrito is confusing, you have some employees who are in charge of bean and meat, and other employees who are only in charge of meat, and others who are in charge of all 3 (pick a system and stick to it!), and the icing on the cake was the cash register employee for some reason had to go back to the kitchen to ask for more beans. Then they had to take care of ringing up online orders. Just ring me up already, and get organized--bean person should be asking for beans, and kitchen person should be checking on what's low. Really confusing, and the throughput of their assembly line was about 10 burritos in 15 minutes. Absolutely terrible when you have 6 people on the assembly line.

I've been to this location 4 times, and have never had a quick experience.

If I'm feeling extra patient and decide to go back here, it might be worth asking for their manager and pointing out the obvious. My guess is the manager isn't on site, and the entire shift is run by a shift lead who doesn't have the responsibility or authority to establish a better system and follow it.

Chipotle Corporate, if you're reading this comment, the Totem Lake location might be worth a visit to see what could be done better. This location has high traffic and could probably double or triple its revenue with the same number of staff by improving the system and...

I don’t leave reviews often, but I have once again been disappointed by this location.

I’ve only been to this Chipotle a handful of times, but it seems like it is always dirty. There are used napkins and burrito droppings all around the floor, on the chairs, and on tables. Customers SHOULD pick up after themselves, but, if they don’t, the restaurant should take some pride, step in, and pick up. To be clear, this was not during a lunch rush—this was about 3pm when there were 0 people in line and only a handful of customers in the restaurant. I could see that some of the employees were working on mobile orders for people who weren’t there yet, but it looks like a prioritization issue from my POV.

The ordering experience was also very awkward considering I was the only person in line. I did ask for a quesarito first, which is (or was?) a secret menu item that this location doesn’t make. That’s fair, and no points off there, but this led to a few strange things:

They told me I could order a quesadilla, but I would need to order online as they don’t let people order quesadillas “on the line.” I can understand this policy as a general rule because it would slow down the line IF there was anyone else in the line. It does seem like an awkward thing to have me pull out my phone to order a quesadilla when there was absolutely no one else in line.

I chose to order a burrito instead because really the priority for me was the burrito over the quesadilla anyway. We get through my order quickly until the end of the line when we see there was no cheese left at all. Somehow there was no mention of this at all in the conversation up to this point despite the quesarito and quesadilla exchange. I paused for a moment, staring at the empty cheese dish, surprised that no warning was given before I started ordering. “No cheese?” I asked, and they nonchalantly said that they were already out for the day. I asked for guac, paid for my meal, and exchanged the usual pleasantries.

Then, I set out in search of the least wet and dirty place to sit in the restaurant. The food tasted like it usually does—pretty good from my perspective.

All sides were friendly the whole time, so it made me wonder if the people in the restaurant realize how far below the standard this location is compared to other locations. Frankly, corporate probably needs to step in and try to right this ship. The regular refuse mess alone is damaging to the brand...

Placed a pickup order online prior to arriving to the restaurant. I arrived a little after my pickup time and my food was not ready yet so I sat to wait. I watched as my food was being made and 2 of my 3 items were made incorrectly. One with items added that were supposed to be on the side, and the other missing items that were supposed to be in the bowl. The lady putting the items together wasn’t even paying attention to what she was doing, just throwing items in the bowls without properly reading the receipt/order. I was going to let the improperly made foods slide but I did notice that she did not include my vinaigrette as one of my items was the salad. When asked about it as she handed me my bags, she lied and said it should be in there but I’ve just watched her completes this entire order. I also ordered a tractor organic lemonade which was apparently out of stock. That would have been no big deal but it would have been nice to be asked what I would have preferred for a replacement. The worker simply told me they were out of the lemonade so she gave me a sprite instead since that’s the closest item they have to lemonade. I asked if I could have the Nantucket apple juice instead since I don’t drink pop. She then storms off with an attitude and returns with my vinaigrette and a kids apple juice drink box. She shoved them in my hands and walked away before I could say anything. I approached the register to ask for an adult sized apple juice since I purchased an adult sized drink. All I wanted was a comparable replacement in exchange for the sprite and now kids juice box that I didn’t ask for. The lady at the register wouldn’t talk to me and called back over the lady who was helping me initially. She begrudgingly sat the requested apple juice on the counter and stormed off once again. I left the sprite and the juice box at the register. Chipotle is not the cheapest of fast food options and can add up very quickly, especially when purchasing for a family. At the very least one would hope that the order at least be correct and if not they be met with decent customer service. I received neither. I will never return to this location again and I suggest no one visit here in the...