If you were planning on starting your lunch break off the right way with a burrito bowl today, you won’t be able to make that happen at Chipotle. That’s because the food chain has closed over 400 restaurants until 3 p.m. today to host food safety meetings with their employees.
The company has been experiencing quite the controversy over the past few months following a series of contaminations combined with norovirus and E. coli outbreaks that led to a federal investigation. In October, 50 people who had allegedly eaten at Chipotle began showing signs of E. coli, while as many as 120 Boston College students contracted norovirus from a nearby Chipotle in December. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finally declared that the outbreak was over—but you’re still going to have to wait a little longer for your guac and cilantro-lime rice.
“We are hosting a national team meeting to thank our employees for their hard work through this difficult time, discuss some of the food safety changes we are implementing, and answer questions from employees,” Chris Arnold, a Chipotle spokesperson, told The New York Times in an email.
Chipotle has some serious work to do in regards to gaining back customers’ trust. Since the illnesses were traced back to the restaurant, their traffic and sales have gone down tremendously and the stock price also tanked. Not to mention that many other Mexican restaurant chains that compete with Chipotle managed to take full advantage of the company being in crisis mode. TIME reports that Freshii just began a campaign called #chipotfrii that will give customers 50% off any Mexican-inspired item on Monday, for example.
For now though, Arnold is just pleased that the company is able to move forward and practice a better food safety plan.
“If there’s a silver lining in this, it is that by not knowing for sure what the cause is, it’s prompted us to look at every ingredient we use with an eye to impoved our practices,” he told The New York Times in January. “We did a really comprehensive review of food safety practices from farms to restaurants. From that assessment we developed a food safety plan, which we hope will establish Chipotle as a leader in food safety.”