Many locals around the South Hills may have seen or heard about a new, popular fast food restaurant being constructed in the area. That’s right- a Chipotle Mexican Grill has opened right here in the South Hills.
The brand new fast-casual Mexican restaurant is located in the shopping center across Washington Rd. from Walgreens, next to the building that is home to Einstein Bros. Bagels and Boston Market. This shopping center, once bustling with people renting movies at Blockbuster, and buying books at Borders, is now seeing much less people.
These once popular stores are now closed down due to the times changing- a tough economy, vigorous competition, and the evolution of technology. But there’s one thing that will always make it through these destructive obstacles: good food.
And that is the perfect word to describe Chipotle: good. Not just because the food is really good and tastes amazing, but because it comes from a good, natural, moral source.
Chipotle has created a mission for themselves: To change the way people eat and think about fast-food. They plan to accomplish this goal with their creed, “Food with Integrity.”
“Food with Integrity” is not just a marketing slogan. It is an extremely important doctrine that has been started by Chipotle’s co-founder and CEO, Steve Ells. He wishes to change the way fast food is made. No factory farming, no hormones and antibiotics, no pesticides: all organic.
Most of us have been disillusioned by big business farming. Pictures of a small farms with big red barns and a mom-and-pop farming family have been implanted in our minds by supermarkets and milk cartons. This is far from the truth of where our food comes from. Animals are bred in the masses, and kept in dark, dirty, disgusting concrete pens where they suffer for their short time on this Earth–until they’re slaughtered.
Cows, chickens, and pigs are given unnatural drugs to become significantly larger than they should be. To some, this is sickening. We think we’re eating clean food, but in reality what most of us are eating is shocking. Some don’t care where their food comes from, as long as it it cheap- take McDonald’s for example. But there are some who do care. People who want to eat food that is natural. Food that is good.
And that’s where Chipotle comes in. They support and buy from smaller, family farms with happy, natural animals. They grow produce organically, without chemicals. Their belief is that it is not only good for you, but it tastes better too.
So have faith–that image of the beautiful, green farm that you were taught in kindergarten still exists. And Chipotle plans on keeping it that way.
Click here for more information about Chipotle and “Food with Integrity”.
