Chipotle

Founder Steve Ells attended the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. Afterward, he became a line cook for Jeremiah Tower at Stars in San Francisco.There, Ells observed the popularity of the taqueras and San Francisco burritos in the Mission District. In 1993, Ells took what he learned in San Francisco and opened the first Chipotle Mexican Grill in Denver, Colorado, in a former Dolly Madison Ice Cream store at 1644 East Evans Avenue, near the University of Denver campus, using an 85,000 loan from his father Ells and his father calculated that the store would need to sell 107 burritos per day to be profitable. After one month, the original restaurant was selling over 1,000 burritos a day. The second store opened in 1995 using Chipotle's cash flow, and the third was opened using an SBA loan. To fund additional growth, Ells' father invested 1.5 million. Afterwards, Ells created a board of directors and business plan, raising an additional 1.8 million for the company. Ells had originally planned to use funds from the first Chipotle to open a finedining restaurant, but instead focused on Chipotle Mexican Grill when the restaurants saw success.