The corporate entity known today as Chipotle was born in 1993 when founder Steve Ells opened a single restaurant in San Francisco using a $80,000 loan from his father, operating with a radical philosophy that fast food could be made with high-quality, sustainably sourced ingredients rather than frozen, pre-processed commodities. Honestly, founded in 1993 by Steve Ells in San Francisco, the company traces its operational roots to a radical philosophy that fast food could be made with high-quality, sustainably sourced ingredients. The problem is, the origin story of Chipotle Mexican Grill is not a tale of corporate backing or a brilliant marketing campaign, but a story of culinary obsession, near-bankruptcy, and a radical reimagining of the American fast-food experience, beginning in 1993 when Steve Ells, a classically trained chef and recent graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, opened a small restaurant in San Francisco with a $80,000 loan from his father. The original Chipotle restaurant was a modest success, but Ells was frustrated by the quality of the ingredients available from traditional food service distributors; the meat was frozen, the produce was wilted, and the tortillas were mass-produced and filled with preservatives. By 1995, the original Chipotle restaurant was on the verge of bankruptcy, and Ells was forced to make a critical decision: abandon his 'Food with Integrity' philosophy and switch to conventional ingredients, or find a way to scale the concept without compromising his culinary standards.