Is there a Chipotle within a half-mile walk of my WMATA Red Line station?
In case you were ever curious about transit oriented burrito chains in the DC area:
I’m not sure why I looked into this (besides having a burrito for lunch), but it seemed like many Red Line stations have Chipotles nearby. Indeed, 15 of the 27 Red Line stations have a Chipotle within a 0.5 mile walk (with #16 coming soon – in Brookland). Distances were determined by Google Maps walking directions with some minor adjustments.
As of June 30, 2015, there are 1,878 Chipotle restaurants in the world; 97 of those locations opened in 2015. Anywhere on the Red Line, you’re never more than three stops away from a walkable burrito chain. 14 of those are walkable to a Red Line station. A few Chipotle locations are the closest outlet for multiple metro stations (the closest location to Van Ness is the Cleveland Park Chipotle); at least one location (the 7th and G location) is the closest Chipotle to three different Metro stations (Metro Center, Gallery Place, Judiciary Square).
The award for the closest Chipotle to a Metro station entrance goes to Union Station, located just a few feet from the top of the escalators. Union Station also wins for having two Chipotle locations – with a recently-opened location in the station’s lower level food court.
If you can consider Chipotle to be edible…
tastes like plastic to me.
Surely there are better options in D.C.
I’ll admit that I enjoy chipotle. There are some better burritos around, but it’s not as if DC is a great burrito town.
DCist had a list of their best burritos: http://dcist.com/2013/10/best_burritos_dc.php
But it doesn’t quite embrace the ubiquity of Chipotle. The pace of their expansion is rather amazing. This list is already about to be out of date, with a new location coming soon to 1010 Vermont Ave NW (closest to Farragut North): http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/breaking_ground/2015/09/chipotle-heads-downtown-lilith-to-citycenterdc-and.html
There are obviously plenty of Chipotles in the suburbs too, but they have been very smart about their urban placements and bought into the transit vision a while ago. Some of these were former Burro locations.
In the ongoing culture wars on “What is a city” having a Chipotle nearby a transit location is a good marker for being a “City”. I don’t know if this rule would apply outside of DC.
Would be interesting to compare to Potbelly. I’ve been following them as an investment play since their IPO. While they do a lot right, I think they locations are not as strong as Chipotle and certainly Revenue per store isn’t the same either.