Post by Kishore Sahoo

Great Brands Ignore Trends. Instead, great brands challenge trends. How did Chipotle revolutionize the Fast Food Industry by ignoring Trends? In 1991, Steve Ells couldn’t afford to eat regularly at the legendary Stars restaurant where he was working as a $12-an-hour line cook. Instead, he was more frequently found gorging himself on giant burritos at a taquería in San Francisco’s Mission District called Zona Rosa. It was there, over a carnitas burrito, that Ells had the insight that would change his life—and American fast food—forever. Ells looked up from his table at the long line of people wait- ing to order their food and the small group of workers behind the counter preparing the rice, beans, pork, and guacamole. “I remember jotting down on a napkin at that moment how many people were going through the line, how quickly,” he told the Rocky Mountain News in 2006, “and I thought, they probably have this much in sales, the food costs might be X—a good little business.” As a trained chef and graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Ells was intrigued by something else about Zona Rosa. Its food was produced fast and inexpensively, but the quality and the flavor weren’t compromised in the way that typical fast-food fare is. He returned to his hometown—Boulder, Colorado—and there in 1993 he opened the first in a chain of Chipotle Mexican Grills. There are now more than 1,400 Chipotle locations in forty-three states, and the chain reportedly made a 25 percent profit margin on $2 billion in sales in 2011. Chipotle began a trend in restaurants that the industry has dubbed “fast-casual,” which offers a more upscale dining environment and food quality, along with higher prices, but in the familiar, convenient limited-service format of fast food. “When I started Chipotle, I didn’t know the fast-food rules,” Ells explained years later. “People told us the food was too expensive and the menu was too limited. Neither turned out to be true.” “When I started Chipotle, I didn’t know the fast-food rules,” Ells explained years later. “People told us the food was too expensive and the menu was too limited. Neither turned out to be true.” By either ignoring or directly challenging all the dominant trends in its industry, Chipotle quickly became a great brand. Now Chipotle has become the trendsetter in the category, and trade publications feature headlines such as “Who Will Be the Chipotle of Pizza?” The Wall Street Journal dubbed Ells the “Fast Food Revolutionary,” and Esquire crowned him America’s most admired CEO. Credit: WHAT GREAT BRANDS