Eight years after opening its first Palm Coast restaurant next to Panera Bread on State Road 100, Chipotle Mexican Grill is opening a second location at 4920 Belle Terre Parkway next Tuesday (June 30), in place of what used to be a gas station and convenience store.
Unlike the location on 100, the new restaurant “features the brand’s signature Chipotlane, a drive-thru pick-up lane that allows guests to conveniently pick up digital orders without leaving their cars,” a company release states. “This is the first Chipotlane in Palm Coast.”
Clever branding aside, it is, in essence, a drive-through almost lane like any other, providing a service restaurants like Panera, Culver’s, McDonald’s and many others do (you can pick-up your pre-ordered food at all those restaurants’ drive-through windows) except that you will not be able to order at the Chipotle drive-thru itself.
The company is hiring 30 employees for the new location, although from the looks of it this evening, most of the hires are complete: they were busy training in the restaurant, well past 6 p.m.
The jobs offer benefits, free food (“yes, really FREE,” the company’s job site states), paid time off and tuition assistance. Wages are not listed. Gridwise, a website that tracks pay in various fields, lists crew members’ pay at Chipotle at $15 to $22, and general manager salaries at between $75,000 and $100,000, “one of the highest general manager compensation packages in the QSR industry.” QSR stands for quick-service restaurants.
City government has been emphasizing the need for commercial development and the broadening of the tax base away from dependence on residential property taxes. Fast-food restaurants are not sources of significant revenue individually, as commercial properties go, but in the aggregate, they provide a boost to the city’s tax base. A Charlotte, N.C.-based company bought the 33,000-square-foot parcel in 2023 for $2.5 million from the Standard Development Company.
The location has not generated more than $13,000 in property tax revenue in any year since 2010, last year generating $10,720, with just $2,400 of that to Palm Coast. If it follows the same trend as the SR100 location, the new Chipotle would generate about $32,000 in property taxes, $7,100 of it to Palm Coast.
The Newport Beach, Calif.-based company has over 4,000 restaurants under its name since its founding in 1993. It posted a profit of $302.8 million on revenue of $3.1 billion in the three months to March 31, a 7.1 percent increase over the previous year, driven by 49 new restaurant openings, 42 of them with Chipotlanes. “Chipotlanes continue to perform well and are helping enhance guest access and convenience, as well as increase new restaurant sales, margins and returns,” the company’s first quarter report states.
Chipotle stock peaked in 2024 at just over $64 a share. It carried out a 50-for-1 stock split on June 26, 2024, giving shareholders 49 additional shares for every share they owned they owned. The company stock was trading at around $32 a share today.
The new Palm Coast restaurant is one of between 350 and 370 the company expects to open this year. Overall sales at eating and drinking places have been steady and may increase slightly if gas prices continue to decline, according to the National Restaurant Association.
The Palm Coast-geared company release states that customers “can try the brand’s new curated menu that features items that range from 15 to 81 grams of protein per item. The menu offers entrees like the Double High Protein Bowl and High Protein-High Fiber Bowl, snacks like the new High Protein Cup, and a Single Chicken Taco starting at $3.50.”
The chain had faced some competition from Guzman y Gomez Mexican Kitchen, until that chain announced it was closing all of its restaurants in the United States last month.
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