He Led a Turnaround at Taco Bell. Can He Do It at Chipotle?
Fast food — its stream of new menu items, its marketing, its reliance on franchisees — is in Taco
Bell’s DNA, while Chipotle has used a simple menu to build a fleet of company-owned stores.
“He’s had a very respectable track record at Taco Bell, but I would say
that those experiences don’t translate to Chipotle,” said Nick Setyan, an analyst at Wedbush Securities.
New menu items, like the Doritos Locos Taco — which essentially turned a taco shell into a giant Dorito — helped create buzz.
“How do you revive a brand without innovation and without new news?” said David Palmer, a restaurant and food analyst at RBC Capital Markets.