Fresh, Fast and Casual

Just 3 items on the menu

Chipotle is succeeding thanks to an elegantly simple business model, one its 42-year-old founder and chief executive, Steve Ells, can sum up in a single sentence: "Focus on just a few things, and do them better than anybody else." Thus, the menu contains only three items: burritos, tacos and salads. (The last was added only in 2005.)

Of course, Chipotle's taquería-style format, in which 16 basic ingredients are displayed in front of customers on a glass-covered assembly line, affords a panoply of variations on its Mexican theme...