Chipotle Mexican Grill — Restaurant in Willoughby

I have been going to the Willoughby location for literally the past ten years, when my parents moved to the area. The store used to be exemplary, making it my wife's and my Chipotle of choice. Unfortunately, over the past several months, the store's service has consistently deteriorated; no matter the time of day -- even literally right at opening -- there is a long line of customers waiting and a minimal amount of employees behind the counter. What employees there are, furthermore, are typically slow and untrained (making something of a strong correlation, I'm sure).

Tonight, unfortunately, was the last straw. I placed an online order for pickup at 7:15. I arrived in the store at 7:10 -- and finally had to leave at 7:50 with no food, barely an apology, and a disappointed (and hungry) family in the car. (Once the fifth customer who came in after me got his order, I couldn't stand to wait any longer.) The cashier wasn't rude, but she certainly wasn't professional, either, just telling the huge line of pick-up customers, "Lookit the line of customers -- there's only three of us. What do you expect?"

Even more frustrating, however, was the presence of some four or five additional employees who would only come out from the back room to chitchat with the cashier (and her friends, who came in and filled out a fax form so they wouldn't have to wait in line [not that it did them any good, either]).

Finally, there's all the external factors that compounded the situation. My wife is five months pregnant and had to wait in a hot car with my two-year-old son who wasn't wearing a diaper since we're trying to potty train him and we didn't think we'd be waiting at the store for 40 minutes (with no food, to boot). And we were in the area in order to feed my mother's dog, since she's out of town for the weekend (even the poor dog went hungry for quite some time).

I can safely say that my family will never go to this Chipotle again, and it even makes us reconsider visiting the location closer to us -- the Willoughby location's slow-but-steady decline has been going on for...

This is by far the worst Chipotle I have ever been too. I work about 7 minutes away from this location and the next nearby Chipotle is 12 minutes. I now travel 12 minutes away on my lunch break that I only get 30 minutes on. This location is always running behind, always out of food before lunch or dinner time and their customer service is nonexistent. I’ve had several issues at this location throughout the 5 years I’ve worked at my job but this time I am now done and travel 12 minutes away for lunch. I refuse to order online anymore after being extremely shorted on my meal compared to in store. I also work second shift so my lunch break is not a busy time and inside is never busy. Several times I have paid for double protein and barely got a serving and barely any rice. On this date and time, I got to Willoughby chipotle about 7 minutes into my lunch break. I was the only person in line. This employee photographed below just completed an order and the cashier also photographed in the background cashed that person out. I standing near the window and this employee photographed began cleaning the counters and the other employees in the background stood around laughing while the cook was blaring music and singing. I stood here for around 5 minutes before one of the background talking employees finally put gloves on and made her way over to me. The cleaning employee did the second half of my order. Once that was completed I waited another few minutes for the cashier to come out of the back. I stood in line as the only customer inside the store for approximately 10 minutes, where employees could see me standing in my work clothes. I was now gone for 17 minutes and still had another 7 minute drive back. I had about 3 minutes to eat several bites of my meal… I recommend any other location (Mentor or Willowick) over...

This Chipotle is, without a doubt, one of the most ineptly managed and incompetently staffed restaurants I’ve ever experienced. As someone who has spent years in the culinary industry—having worked as a chef, including at this very location in 2006-2007 (in my earlier years of cooking) when it was actually run by competent managers—I can confidently say that this place has hit rock bottom. I really wish it could be given 0 stars.

The management here has completely lost sight of what it means to run a restaurant or never knew how in the first place. When there are long lines and only one or two staff members struggling to keep up with orders, where are the managers? Instead of stepping up to help, they're likely hiding in the office, doing administrative work that could easily wait until the customers are served. It's a complete failure of leadership. The staff is left scrambling, often out of ingredients, and basic items like napkins are nowhere to be found.

On top of that, they regularly close the walk-in line, announcing "online orders only" while everyone stands around confused. The level of indifference to customer service is staggering. The regional district managers must either be blind to this disaster or simply don't care enough to fix it, because nothing ever changes.

Do yourself a favor and just keep driving to the Mentor location. The staff/management there is friendly, competent, and they’re rarely out of ingredients. Don't waste your time —it’s not worth the frustration which you will get more often than not.

Very fortunate the Mentor location is close by because when a Chipotle is ran well, it's one of my favorite places to eat. This Location? It’s an embarrassing and inexcusable display of mismanagement...