Can Chipotle succeed in Mexico where Taco Bell failed
Terrence McCoy The Washington Post Aug. 2, 2026, 6:45 p.m. ET
SAN PEDRO GARZA GARCÍA, Mexico — Javier Gámiz will never forget the first time he tried Chipotle — a decade ago, while visiting family in Texas. He craved the convenience of fast food but hated how it made him feel. Until he had a Chipotle bowl.
“It’s fast food,” Gámiz said. “But it’s real food.”
Since then, every time Gámiz visited the United States, he made a beeline for Chipotle’s “Mexican Grill,” becoming what he called a “real Chipotle-man.”
This month, the burrito broke his way. Chipotle, the American chain that popularized the fast-casual concept and has more than 4,000 locations in the United States, has launched its most daring move: selling its “Mexican” food in Mexico.
The first of what executives hope could be as many as 200 Chipotles opened this month at the base of a large shopping mall in the Monterrey metropolitan area, bringing to life what might seem an absurd proposition — one that Taco Bell attempted, and failed at, twice.
“Like bringing ice to the Arctic,” went a famous quip about Taco Bell’s doomed forays into Mexico.
But Gámiz, who grew up eating his mother’s traditional cooking, was delighted nearly beyond words. Here, at last, was Chipotle — not just in Mexico but in his Monterrey.
“I was so happy,” said Gámiz, who has eaten at the restaurant more than a dozen times in two weeks. Every time, he has found the same scene: Not a single table available. Lines snaking along the windowed-walls. Everywhere, Mexicans eating Mexican food, kind of.
It’s difficult to extrapolate from Chipotle’s early success. Perhaps Mexico, with its celebrated cuisine, a country where Michelin stars adorn eateries from food stands to chic restaurants, is listo — ready to embrace this populist U.S. take on its gastronomy.
Or perhaps Chipotle chose its first location very wisely.
By virtually every measure, greater Monterrey — one of Latin America’s wealthiest cities — is unlike the rest of Mexico. Home to many of Mexico’s largest companies and its tech sector, per capita income is twice the national average.
More importantly, it has a far tighter relationship with the United States, especially to Texas, which is just a three-hour drive away. English is frequently spoken here. American chains and brands are omnipresent.
Put another way, Chipotle, in this Monterrey shopping mall, has chose a home alongside a venerable collection of its American brethren: Chuck E. Cheese, KFC and Hooters.
While visiting for this story, a Washington Post reporter ate lunch at Chipotle, went for dinner at Chili’s, slept at a Wyndham Hotel and bought toothpaste at a 7-Eleven.
“Money, youth, college kids and proximity to the United States,” Pablo de Brito, director of Chipotle Mexico, said of Monterrey. “So there’s a much greater chance they’ve traveled to the United States, a much greater chance they know Chipotle, and a much greater chance that they’ve eaten at Chipotle.”
Regardless of what the future portends, Chipotle appears to be off to a stronger start than Taco Bell.
Taco Bell’s first try was in 1992, when it opened a food cart in Mexico City to sell soft-shell tacos and nachos. But in a country where tacos are literally fast food — served within minutes at street stands — Taco Bell folded faster than a Burrito Supreme.
Its next attempt, in 2007, met the same result.
“They’re not tacos,” Marco Fragoso, an office worker, told the Associated Press, seeming to speak for the entire country. “They’re folded tostadas. They’re very ugly.”
But Chipotle might have more success, said Jeffrey Pilcher, a taco historian at the University of Toronto. He said Chipotle and Taco Bell may belong to the same food genus, but they’ve branched out in completely different directions.
Taco Bell, Pilcher said, is unabashed “junk food,” while Chipotle has branded itself as a health-conscientious alternative, with fresh ingredients prepared in full view of the consumer. Chipotle’s menu, which derives from the Mission burrito in San Francisco, may have been inspired by Mexican cuisine, he said, but isn’t trying to imitate it.
“It’s a San Francisco thing,” Pilcher said. “It’s not Mexican Mexican.”
That was a distinction many diners drew at the Monterrey Chipotle on Thursday afternoon. Few said they were eating Mexican food. They were eating American food, made from Mexican ingredients.
“The taco is inherently Mexican,” said Rodrigo Oyarzun, 24. “For it to be a taco, it has to be made here in Mexico. That’s a fact.”
But neither Oyarzun, nor anyone else in view, had come to Chipotle for tacos. They’d come for bowls and burritos.
“Burritos are from over there,” Oyarzun said. “The concept of the burrito is completely American.”
Gabriela Ramos, 21, eating a Chipotle salad, agreed: “People aren’t going to order tacos here because people don’t come here for tacos.”
A bigger question is if Chipotle can reach beyond Mexico’s upper and upperly mobile classes. Daniel Jiménez Morales, a construction worker who was laying cement outside, said he’d never heard of Chipotle and had no interest.
“It’s gringo food for gringos,” he said.
It was also unclear if Chipotle would ever try. De Brito said the early focus is entirely on Mexico’s wealthiest pockets.
“People with higher purchasing power have traveled to the United States,” he said. “People with higher purchasing power know Chipotle and they give greater importance to the quality of ingredients and healthier food.”
A short walk away, at a post in the mall’s food court, was El Bocadito, which serves a buffet of traditional Mexican options. It was nothing fancy. The target wasn’t Mexicans of higher purchasing power.
But Felicitas Martínez Hernández, the restaurant’s cook for more than two decades, said everything is made with love — and that’s what brings people back.
“My mother always said, ‘If you cook from your heart, the people will like it,’” she said. “If you’re going to cook, you need to cook as if the people were part of your family.”
That, to her, is Mexican food.
She said she didn’t feel threatened by Chipotle. El Bocadito has been inside Plaza Fiesta San Agustín for decades and she expects it to be around for decades more. She wished Chipotle well.
“Everyone has their own touch,” she said. “As my mother said, ‘The sun comes out for us all.’”
