Here’s the bad news: All Chipotle stores are shutting down. However, it’s only for a few hours on one day next month. The popular food chain is facing a PR nightmare after an E.coli outbreak forced several locations to shut down and a norovirus outbreak in Boston infected up to 141 people. The temporary close is for a company-wide meeting on how to prevent further issues with food safety, Refinery29reports.
This comes after CEO Steve Ells penned an open letter taking full responsibility for what happened and outlining a game plan to prevent such a thing from occurring again. In order to win back the trust of its customers, the millennial favorite is also planning to give out double the amount of free food, CNBC says.
On Wednesday, Ells expressed his hope to move forward during a conference with investors in Florida. Executives met with officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention a week prior. "I'm hopeful that the CDC will call this over soon," he said, according to E! Online. "We know that Chipotle is as safe as it's ever been before. We are all very confident that this E. coli outbreak would not happen again."
Mark your calendars for February 8 and plan accordingly.
