Chipotle Just Announced It Will Never Offer A Dollar Menu: Here's Why

Fast-casual food has long been considered a frugal meal option, but those days may be in the past. In recent years, a number of market factors have made fast food more expensive than ever. Brands are trying to win budget-conscious customers back with various discounts and deals, but Chipotle has preemptively closed the door on a dollar menu.

While discussing the concept of a Chipotle dollar menu, CEO Scott Boatwright told Yahoo Finance in February 2026 that "I don't want to do it. ... Our food is worth, in my mind, every penny we ask someone to pay for it. I don't want to devalue our core offering."

If you've ever bristled at the thought of spending $3.99 on just one McChicken but were open to spending $4.99 on two of them, you know there's something to Boatwright's reasoning. The more appealing deal rests on the product's devaluation. And given the high caliber of Chipotle's ingredients, he feels the food is already correctly priced. That said, the business isn't immune from market pressures, either.

The sad truth of the matter is that dollar fast food menus are going extinct, with or without Chipotle. Every cost associated with running a restaurant has increased since Wendy's introduced its first $0.99 Super Value Menu in 1989, and $1 is no longer a sustainable price point for virtually any item. Lower-cost menus live on elsewhere, but Scott Boatwright's refusal to devalue the brand's products means that, at Chipotle, those are a non-starter as well.

Chipotle does need the business, though. It's one of the chain restaurants that had an especially rough 2025, with tighter operating margins amid significant drops in year-over-year sales. To win back budget-conscious customers, it gave away $1 million in free food via a 2026 Super Bowl promotion, and it's rolling out personalized deals and a newly gamified points system. But one addition seems particularly promising.

Boatwright confirmed to Yahoo Finance that Chipotle will soon test a kind of happy hour — known as "Happier Hour" — at select locations. Details are still unclear, but he did mention a target price point below $10 to extend dinner crowds into the late afternoon. A beer (yes, some Chipotle locations serve alcohol) and two tacos for $9? Count us in.