No, Chipotle is Not Going Bankrupt and Shuttering Restaurants
By Nicole Dirks
Fear not, bean burrito lovers, Chipotle isn’t going anywhere.
What happened: A misleading article headline prompted TikTok users to lament that Chipotle Mexican Grill is going bankrupt and closing all its restaurants, a devastating prospect to lovers of the fast casual restaurant.
A closer look: On March 20, 2025, Madrid-based Spanish-language news site UnionRayo.com published an article titled “Say goodbye to this popular US fast food chain - all restaurants will close due to bankruptcy.” The article contained a cover image of the Chipotle logo.
A March 22 TikTok post by @user65559999900000 featured a screenshot of the Union Rayo article with the caption, “@Chipotle don’t do this to me #chipotle #chipotleclosing.” The post received 7.1 million views and 572,400 likes in three days.
TikTok user @ryantelfershow said on March 23, “So apparently hundreds of Chipotles across the country have been closing due to lack of business.” The video, which contained an on-screen caption reading, “Chipotel [sic] Has Filed For Bankruptcy,” garnered 571,600 views and 11,500 likes in three days.
Actually: Chipotle Mexican Grill is not shutting down and, indeed, has been expanding, according to the company’s most recent earnings report.
Chipotle opened 304 company-owned restaurants in 2024, ending the year with 3,726 locations, according to the company’s report.
The false claim stems from the UnionRayo.com article, which reported on the shuttering of a Chipotle spinoff with one location, Farmesa Fresh Eatery, not the entire Chipotle chain.
Farmesa Fresh Eatery opened in a Santa Monica, California, food court in February 2023 and shuttered in April 2024, CNBC (Trust Score: 95/100) reported.
It is not clear why Union Rayo reported this news almost a year after the restaurant closed. The headline and image have now been updated to clarify that Chipotle is not closing.
In a March 24 email to NewsGuard, Chipotle vice president of communications Erin Wolford said: “The false information stemmed from an inaccurate online article confusing Chipotle with a venture it tested in 2023. The story has since been corrected.”
UnionRayo.com did not reply to a March 25 email from NewsGuard asking about why the site reported on Farmesa Fresh’s closure nearly a year later.