Equipped with order-ahead drive-thru, Cuyahoga Falls Chipotlane digital kitchen will offer no dining room or indoor access
Chipotle Mexican Grill will open its first Chipotlane Digital Kitchen in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio in December. This restaurant offers a combination of order-ahead drive-thru and a walk-up window for order pickup. Chipotle designed the Cuyahoga Falls Chipotlane digital kitchen without a dining room.
Customers will order from this store via the Chipotle app, Chipotle’s website and third-party carryout and delivery partners. Patio seating will greet guests who want to eat on-premises. This Chipotlane (store with order-ahead drive-thru) offers drive-thru convenience and marks the first such store for order-ahead only.
Not surprisingly, the Newport Beach, Calif.-based Mexican-style fast casual has had success with its Chipotlanes. These formats experienced 15% higher sales compared to non-Chipotlanes that were opened during the same time period.
“Chipotlanes are a key growth strategy for the brand,” said Tabassum Zalotrawala, chief development officer for Chipotle. “Our portfolio of approximately 300 Chipotlanes perform with the highest margins across the board, so we continue to evolve our restaurant design with formats such as the Chipotlane Digital Kitchen to best suit our growing digital business.”
Plus, Chipotle’s near-3,000 locations In North America will double, according to the chain’s current strategic plan. Chipotlanes have become a pillar of the fast-casual’s real estate development initiatives.
Beyond new digital drive-thru locations, like the one in Cuyahoga Falls, there also exist retrofitted Chipotlanes. So far, the fast-casual chain has remodeled 12 existing restaurants into Chipotlanes.
In New York, Chipotle opened a digital-only store with no indoor seating, but with kiosk ordering inside. There, customers can also order online and on Chipotle’s app. The diningroom-less unit opened in Highland Falls, N.Y. in November.
Chipotle, 994 Graham Road, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio 44221