Chipotle to Raise Prices

In reporting their 3rd quarter financial trends last week, Chipotle mentioned that they are "working on national pricing plans for the fourth quarter of 2008 to offset rapidly rising food costs."

Details of their new prices will be announced in October.

Chipotle Founder, Chairman and CEO Steve Ells: "Our preliminary view of the third quarter reflects a further deceleration in comparable restaurant sales combined with continued increases in food costs. We attribute current trends to the same macro-economic pressures that have affected other restaurant companies. Despite these short term challenges, we remain focused on delivering an extraordinary dining experience to each and every customer, by serving great tasting food made with the best ingredients we can find."

In other words, the economy is in bad shape, food prices are really high and people are spending less.

We can expect the same from other fast food restaurants soon if the economy doesn't improve.

Chipotle is hit harder by rising prices because they have a limited number of suppliers for the organic and local ingredients they use.

Even McDonald's is affected, though. Some of their stores have cut their Dollar Menu "Double Cheeseburger" back to one slice of cheese and renamed it the "Double Hamburger with Cheese.