[dbg31415]

Hey, for Chipotle, I've had the exact opposite experience.

Order online with their app, and the order is always bursting at the seams.

Order in person, and it's meh. Plus the line!

Order through like Favor / Uber, and it's like, "Why did I do this?"

Curious how worker training factors in, or if it's just, "Oh we had more time so we made a better order..." Or, "Oh, we had the data in our own system that prints slips we know how to read (vs. Uber slips)..." Or, "Oh, we just feel bad ripping people off if we have to look them in the eye."

For Chipotle, wouldn't surprise me if they told workers to make sure to always do a good job on the Chipotle in-app orders. They really push the app to help keep line size down.

[WorldMaker]

> "Oh we had more time so we made a better order..."

I think this would have a lot to do with it, there's definitely a different time pressure between "the customer is watching me prepare this in front of them and is impatiently waiting on me" versus "the customer won't arrive for at least 15 minutes and I'm waiting on them".

Also, another factor is I've noticed it is sometimes the managers rather than the usual line workers that make the online orders, if the Chipotle doesn't have dedicated workers for the online order line. That would impact quality as well, as you may just presume that the Managers have more overall experience over average line workers. (I've also had cases where Managers actively watching the line have given me more food than unsupervised lines.)

[kjkjadksj]

My theory is if the manager is not near the line at the time when you order, you get bigger scoops.

[dbg31415]

I worked at a sandwich shop in high school... I don't know, like we wanted tips and we knew that if we made good sandwiches people would tip. I suspect Chipotle is the same.

The manager was on the hook to make sure we didn't use too much of the ingredients, since they had a little quantity checklist... "If I make X sandwiches, I should only need Y slices of bread" type metric to go off of.

But we had so much waste anyway, hard to think anyone really cared. I think probably 20% of the food we prepared got thrown out. Maybe that's less these days, but like we would slice tomatoes and onions knowing we might as well chuck every 5th slice directly into the bin. More some days. It was really frustrating to prepare a bunch of onions, only to literally throw out 95% of them later if we had a slow day.

I don't know that my manager ever really cared about us adding more ingredients. But... it does seem like something they would worry about. =P

[SoftTalker]

Food waste can make or break the profitabilty of a restaurant. If the manager didn't care, he wasn't really managing (and many don't).

[kccqzy]

> we knew that if we made good sandwiches people would tip

I felt like this is different now. People just tip a fixed amount regardless of whether the food is good or whether the service is good.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

I've actually had a manager look at my food at Chipotle and tell the server to increase the amount of food.

The closest Chipotle to me went online-only during Covid lockdown and it must have worked out well since they no longer allow in-person orders. Most people either get it delivered or use the drive-through to pickup. They don't even have a cash register anymore.