Chipotle CEO Reveals Customers Have Money, Sets Stage For Price Hikes

Chipotle Mexican Grill shares chopped around last week after the fast-casual chain delivered an underwhelming outlook for annual comparable sales forecast. But by week’s end, it was not the earnings print making the rounds on social media; it was a snippet from the CEO’s remarks on the earnings call that went viral on X.

*CHIPOTLE SEES 2026 COMP SALES ABOUT 0%, EST. +1.84%

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 3, 2026

First off, X users framed CEO Scott Boatwright’s remarks as if he’d been “caught on a recording.” That’s complete nonsense. He said it openly on an earnings call with Wall Street analysts. But sure, whatever fuels the engagement algo machine on X.

On the call, Evercore ISI analyst David Palmer asked Boatwright:

And I wonder, you’re going to be existing among these giant fast-food players that are rolling out value menus, and you’ve done some things along the way. You have an entry price point cup with the new protein menu. You said you have some price-pointed things. It looks like you have a new style of advertising, where you’ve pointed out, pretty clearly, there’s a difference in the way Chipotle makes its food versus what you’d see at a traditional fast-food place.

I just wonder, is there any, do you feel like, the offense might be working with these price-pointed things and the messaging? And I’m just wondering, if there’s anything you can do to really shorten this cycle — this, reinvestment cycle, rather than just wait for your price to underprice inflation for a while? And thank you.

… and here’s where the outrage on X was triggered.

Boatwright responded:

Yes. Thanks, David. I’ll tell you, with what the momentum we saw in early January, the first part of January, it gives us confidence that the strategy is exactly what our consumer is looking for. I talked earlier about doing this deep-dive on the core Chipotle consumer to really parse out, who that consumer is and what they want.

What we’ve learned is the guest skews younger, a little more higher income is typically a digital native, and that their grounded purpose aligns with our Northstar as a brand around clean food, clean ingredients, high protein, and we are the way they want to eat. And we’re going to lean into that in the most meaningful way.

Now, I’ll tell you, after looking at the data last week, we learned that 60% of our core users are over $100,000 a year in income — in average household income. That gives us confidence that we can lean into that group in a more meaningful way, whether it’s the solo occasion and or group occasions to really drive meaningful transaction performance in the year.

Chipotle CEO: 60% of users make over $100,000 a year in income. 🌯💰 pic.twitter.com/cuezE5rv1K

— Yahoo Finance (@YahooFinance) February 7, 2026

Translation: Chipotle will raise burrito bowl prices even higher. There was a time when these bowls were sub $10 – even less.

Not a great look for the CEO at a moment when the Trump administration is pushing ahead with affordability. But there’s a simple solution for the youngsters: eat at home.