Customers Say This Fast Food Chain Is Way Overpriced In 2026

Prices are up, quality is down. This can describe a lot of places in 2026, but one of the most disappointing offenders is the chain that was once a go-to for anyone who needed a cheap, filling, and healthy meal: Chipotle. When the Mexican-inspired chain opened up its first locations in New York City in the early 2000s while I was living there, we young 20-somethings trying to make it depended on the oversized, best bang-for-your-buck burrito bowls to fill us. Back then, a bowl was around $6 or $7, depending on your protein and add-ons. In 2026 dollars, that's about $10 to $12. To be fair, after adjusting for inflation, today's prices are around the same, if not cheaper. But the quality appears to have gone downhill, causing customers to complain that the chain is overpriced for what you get now.

Two years ago, people on Reddit were reporting $15 burrito bowls for barbacoa, which appears to have dropped down to $12. However, as a Bay Area based poster on Reddit reported two months ago, the stores in their area are "Almost always out of the meat you want, the foodline is a mess with food constantly spilling into each other, all the trash cans are filled to the brim, most tables are dirty and it just seems like they can't get quality workers to stay." Commenters replied from around the country. Some said their locations were in similar shape, while a few felt their locations were fine. One commenter summed it up with: "Chipotle is in a race to the bottom."

"Employees are worked hard for low wages; Chipotle screws them over even worse than it does its customers. The executives are the only winners," wrote a Reddit commenter. On another Reddit thread, the blame is summed up as: "Hedge funds ruined chipotle." In 2016, Pershing Square Capital Management acquired a 9.9% share of Chipotle, and used that influence to install four members of its choosing to the board of directors and pushed to recruit Taco Bell's CEO Brian Niccol to lead Chipotle. As CEO, Niccol took the chain's high food costs as a percentage of sales — which was once a mark of pride — to a low of 29% by controlling portion sizes more strictly and lowering ingredient quality. Or, as one poster on Reddit puts it, "Food is garbo nowadays." While Mexican food should not necessarily be cheap, low-quality fast food should be.

Pershing Square sold its Chipotle stake in 2025 after Starbucks poached Niccol. Under Niccol, Starbucks began closing locations and laying off workers in an attempt at a turnaround. New Chipotle CEO, Scott Boatwright, had a recording leaked in which he stated the chain would lean into wealthier diners, which Reddit interpreted as the company would continue to raise prices. The response in the comments? "I stopped eating at Chipotle not because the price went up, but because the quality went to s***."