The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 17 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Steve Ells: Robots will not displace restaurant cooking anytime soon
“And so the, your question, will robots displace that? I mean, maybe someday, but certainly not Not anywhere in the near future.”
Ells: Chipotle sold more carnitas after raising prices to use premium pork
“So, you know, I remember when I put Naiman ranch pork on the menu, I had to increase the price of the carnitas burrito, and I think it increased by about a dollar or something. And so in the world of fast food, that was just not understood. I mean, gotta remem…”
Ells: 52 people contracted E. coli during the 2015 Chipotle outbreak
“Over, over a one month period from basically mid October to mid November 52 people got sick with E. Coli.”
Steve Ells: Chipotle succeeded by ignoring industry demands for broader menus
“In the early days of Chipotle, when I presented the offerings, people said, well, Steve, you just, you're not offering enough to people. They want more variety. And I said, no, no, no, people can make all different kinds of combinations of the base ingredients…”
Ells: 25 to 30% of Greenhouse Emissions Come From Food
“And I come to understand that, you know, 25 or 30% or so of the greenhouse gases that we emit come from what we eat, and the vast majority of that comes from animal sources.”
Steve Ells: Fast-food industry turnover is typically around 165%
“One of the problems is that we see extraordinarily high turnover in the industry. I think it's something like a 165% is, is typical.”
Ells: Kernel will rely on human teams for at least the next decade
“There will always be a place, you know, for our teams to operate the kernel model for the foreseeable future, and I'm talking about the next decade at least, right?”
Ells: McDonald's invested around $360 million in Chipotle over seven years
“Over a seven-year period, I think they put in three hundred and sixty million dollars or so, but the majority of that was in the last couple of years.”
Steve Ells: Chipotle served over one million customers daily upon his retirement
“By the time I retired, 27 years later, I think we had well over a million customers a day.”
Chipotle Allowed Steve Ells to Launch Plant-Based Chain Despite Non-Compete
“No, I was speaking with Chipotle. Of course I have a non-compete in, in place, but I asked them, I said, well, what do you think if I started a plant-based restaurant, have nothing to do with Chipotle or the fast casual format that Certainly something complete…”
Ells: Chipotle combined Stars' culinary approach with Mission taqueria service format
“Well, the idea for Chipotle is a sort of a combination of food borrowed from stars and sort of a technique and a service format borrowed from the taquerias.”
Ells: I developed Chipotle's original menu the day before we opened
“The menu was developed the day before I opened.”
Ells: The first Chipotle location was profitable within months
“Oh, I was profitable in the first few months.”
Ells: Chipotle funded its second location mostly from cash flow
“So I think maybe he put in a little bit more money, but it was mostly cash flow that opened the second restaurant, and that opened about a year and a half later, and it opened up much busier than the first one.”
Ells: Chipotle's peak market valuation reached $21 billion
“Yeah, 21, twenty-one billion, I think, was the highest.”